A training missionary and his son were walking on the dirt road again one day when, without any permission whatsoever, or even a polite advance notice, the storm clouds gathered and the rains descended. And so fiercely did they descend that after a few minutes the younger missionary looked too and fro for a handy ark, observing that circumstances were looking as if it would be necessary. If nothing else, his feet were certainly drowning by this time.
Nevertheless, he joined in with his companion's sudden outburst of singing There is Sunshine in My Soul Today, and all was well, especially as there was not anyone around whose ears might suffer on account of two incredibly tone-deaf young men. After many songs they felt impressed to be silent for a time, and soon enough they came across a young woman, who never would know what dread cacophony had threatened to pierce her ears just a few minutes prior, sharper than a two-edged sword, to the dividing asunder of both joint and marrow. The woman, it will be noted, was quite beautiful. Indeed, to hear the trainer tell it, she was fair as the sun, outshining all the daughters of Eve, even Sarah and Esther, as if she were, in human form, the very tree of life beheld in Lehi's dream. But the trainer had been out for nearly two years, and without doubt he had been wearing his missionary goggles for some time.
Now, the dilemma of the woman was this: She was, as though she were a proverbial chicken, on one side of the road and in need of being on the other. But the road, though it had once been of dirt, was now so soaked as to have gone beyond even the term of "mud" and to have reached some special, all-new category of its very own. She was disinterested in getting her clothing soiled, seeing as it was brand-new and hard to clean, and so she was, as it were, in a whole jar of pickles.
Upon understanding her difficulty the younger missionary picked her up in his arms and carried her across. He then continued on his way with the other missionary, who most disliked this action and became increasingly cross as they continued. Fuming, and fuming more and time went on because of the happy obliviousness of his son (who had since resumed singing and was now on Give, Said the Little Stream), he finally exploded, saying, "Why did you do that? Our handbook couldn't be clearer about not getting into compromising situations- and what could be a more compromising situation than swooping up a beautiful woman in your arms like that!" With a note of incredible horror in his voice he added: "What would the members have thought?"
With evident puzzlement the younger missionary replied, "I left that woman at the side of the road where I set her down. Have you been carrying her with you this whole time?"
His trainer repented himself, and they continued on.
Follow-up: Symphony and Flood
Truth.
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