Tricked

I'm into reminiscing. Which is what Lobster do for hours and hours when we get together. And she reminded me of this little incident from when we were on our mission and serving together:

On the mission, I hated tracting. Hated it like nothing else. I think this is due to the fact that recently I have come to realize that I am VERY passive aggressive. Secretly recording my boss's conversations, avoiding conflicts, letting things continue to bother me so that I don't have to confront a person. DEFINITE SIGNS OF PASSIVE AGGRESSION. And I think that door knocking was the MOST aggressive things that we as missionaries did. It had built in conflict right in it. And I hated it.

I mean, I had NO problem talking to people at other times. On a bus, in a cab, in the grocery store, walking down the street, in the park, waiting in line to pay my light bill. I had no problem doing this. But I absolutely hated knocking on someone's door, pulling them away from cooking or spending time with their family, and then giving them a message in my crappy Spanish. And then have them try to pretend that they didn't understand me. Or have them slam the door in my face. I HAAAAAATED tracting.

Judd knew this. Well, she found this out after a few days together when she said, "are we going tracting?" and I said "I hate tracting. I don't want to do it" and the message was pretty clear then. Plus, me being senior companion I got to make decisions like that.

But what to do when you have no one to teach? Judd came from a long history of tracting, and I did not. And it pissed her off when we had nothing to do. And she had one answer for it. But I didn't like what she suggested.

So one day, one of our appointments blew us off. We started to walk somewhere. I don't remember where we were heading, (home maybe?) when all of a sudden, Judd stops in front of a door and knocks on it. I was super confused. So I asked her, "Who's house is this?" and she said, "Somebody's". I said, "Do we have an appointment?" And I don't think I was met with anything more than a "hmmmm"

I looked around. What street were we on? How did she meet these people without my knowing? I've been in this area longer than she had, so how did she know them and I didn't? Then I look up. I look down the street. I looked back the other way. I looked behind me to find out what manzano we were on. I look at Judd's face. And she won't return my gaze. AND I KNEW. We were currently tracting. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I can tell you that I know EXACTLY how a dog feels to realize that it's been trapped in the car and it being taken to the vet for a series of shots. Betrayal, horror, fear, shock, hurt. You name it, I ran the whole gamut of emotions in that one moment.

And we did it. And it wasn't so bad. We didn't find any golden contacts or anything, but no one tried to kill me. And only a few people slammed the door in my face. And when we left that house she very bluntly stated, "We have to go tracting. We have to. You have no choice." She was right of course. And we did it a few more times while we were together. And I'm sure I whined and tried to weasel out of it each time. But she didn't take any of my BS. Because that's what a lobster does. They don't take crap, even from their senior companion best friend. They just don't.

I love you, Lobster.