Watermelon Story

I have a wonderful story to tell you about last week.  It's about
watermelon and may be your favorite story yet.

     So we live in the heart of Japan, where fruit is ridiculously
expensive for no reason whatsoever.  A handful of strawberries will
cost like ¥500.  So when we buy a watermelon it's a big deal.  It's at
least ¥2000, or about $20.  So Elder Furniss bought a watermelon once
and it was the best thing ever.  None of us had had watermelon in over
7 months or so, some longer.  So we got this watermelon and went to
town on it.  It was wonderful.  Never has a fruit been more loved that
watermelon by us 4 fruit deprived missionaries.  That's the backstory.
     So we had a Zone Meeting last week and we had to make an early
train.  So me and Elder O'Connor rushed out the door, down the stairs,
and to the station.  We made it there in time, but...I forgot my keys
in my other pants (I changed into a suit right before leaving) so we
had no way to get back into the apartment without the other Elders.
Anyway, they show up just in time for the train but they don't have my
keys.  So we decide they'll just get a ride back in the Shigematsu's
car and unlock the door for us.  At least that was the plan.
     We go to Zone Meeting and at the end we remind them to unlock the
door for us.  There should be no reason for them to forget, right?,
they only have a 30 minute ride.  Well, we get back home...and the
door's locked.  What're we gonna do?  I don't have any keys and we
live on the 7th floor.  Our windows have bars over them prison style
so we can't get in that way, but wait!  Maybe...yes!  My pants are on
my dresser, the keys are in my pocket!  We can get in, if I can just
reach my pants.  Weeeeell....I have short arms.  It's a no-go.  I
can't reach my pants.  BUT, I see a clothes hangar on the curtain bar
thingy.  So I grab that.  Hm, it's got a little hooky thing for
holding pants onto it.....maybe I can hook a belt loop with it.  I
reach through the bars with my newly found breaking and entering
master tool.  It's just out of reach.  STREEEEEEETCH, BINGO!  I got
it!  I reach in the pocket and get the keys, we're in!
     We come in and sit down in the apartment and were like, "what if
we couldn't get in?  We don't have money for a restaurant and the
other elders aren't here.  We'd just be starving."  So we both look at
each other with a mischievous glint in our eyes.  We're on the same
page.  We looove messing with the other Elders.  So we sit down and
call the other Elders to find out where they are.
     Ring ring ring.  Ring ring ring.  "Hello this is Elder Furniss."
     "Elder Furniss, where are you guys right now?"
     "Uh..we're at DokiDoki (fancy restaurant) with the Shigematsus."
     "You mean you went to a fancy restaurant?  Is that right?"
     "Uhhh..ch...errrrm...yes."
     "Well can you guess where we are?  We needed you guys to unlock
the door, remember?"
     "Oh...cha...ummm...eh.....sorry?"
     "I'm glad you're sorry, but how are we going to get our lunch?
You decided to go to a nice restaurant and leave us with no lunch?
Don't you love us!?"
     "I'm so sorry.  We'll be back soon."
     "No no no.  Take you're time.  We can wait.  You just enjoy that
meal.  Think about us and how we're hungry while you're there."
     "I promise I'll make it up to you."
     "Good, you could buy a watermelon or something.  We love made up things."
     Hang up.
At this point me and Elder O'Connor lose it and just bust up laughing.
The other elders completely bought it.  So we go on with our day and
have lunch and call people etc.  We're sitting in the back room at
this point.  Then we hear the other elders come back.  We don't say
anything, they just walk back and see us there.
     "HOW!?  How did you get in here?"
     "Guess."
So they guess all sorts of amazing things, from scaling the building
to picking locks.  Eventually we tell them and they're just blown
away.  They can also smell the lunch we made so they knew we had
totally messed with them.  Elder Furniss had already made it up
though.  We went into our study room and there's TWO WATERMELONS!
That's $40 worth of fruit!  They were sitting in our chairs as little,
actually pretty big, peace offerings.  We were so excited!  That night
we had watermelon aplenty.  Everyone got some beautiful fruit of life.
We were so excited actually that I had a rather brilliant idea.
Downstairs in the mall they have this cool clock.  Every hour between
10am and 6pm these little Japanese cute monsters come out and do a
dance.  I decided that we should copy it with watermelons.  It's hard
to explain with words, which is why I have a video.  I hope you all
enjoy.