-Argentina is predominately Catholic and it is not uncommon to see shrines with hundreds and maybe even thousands of candles surrounding a statue or picture of the virgin Mary. It is their custom to pray to the virgin Mary in this fashion to intercede to the Father in their behalf.
-Mormons believe that there should not be any engraven images before the Lord God and that we are only to pray to our Father in Heaven in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. To do otherwise would be to worship false idols.
-Joseph Smith was a latter day prophet called of God in the early 1800's to restore Christ's true church to the inhabitants of the earth after it had been lost with the death of the Apostles who held the authoritative priesthood. He is a prophet like Abraham or Moses, he is a man and not a God or a Savior.
-Mormon missionaries going to a foreign country attend a culture class once per week for 8 weeks as part of their (MTC) missionary training center experience to learn about the culture of the country that they will serve in. For instance, I learned that it is not strange to see Argentine men kiss each other on the cheek in greeting, and likewise that an abrazo (hug) between men is perfectly acceptable when greeting and bidding farewell.
-The MTC is pretty grueling and sleep deprived missionaries nodding off is quite common. You want to see major head bobbing, attend an MTC Sunday devotional!
The prank: I was part of a small 6 missionary district where we had a few Argies (Argentines that didn't speak any English) and a few North Americans. We got a newbie "greenie" from the States, Elder Sudweeks and he was assigned to an argie to make up one of the companionships in our district, and this was his first time to one of our district meetings. The other North American, Elder Stan Neilson was from San Diego, a bit of a prankster and our fearless district leader. He set up a picture of Joseph Smith with a dozen or two candles at the base surrounding it. Elder Neilson called us in and proceeded to ask Elder Sudweeks to offer an opening prayer to Joseph Smith to invite the spirit to our meeting. Elder Sudweeks did not understand, he became very uncomfortable with this request and he looked at the rest of us for enlightenment. It probably didn't help that I was blowing snot bubbles out my nose trying to retain my hysteria but I was able to conceal it enough to carry on the charade. As much as Elder Neilson and I (the only two North Americans that spoke his native tongue) tried to convince him that we learned this in the MTC as part of our culture class to behave more like the Argentines and "hadn't he been paying attention or did fall asleep during that part???" We did have him questioning himself, but in the end he said, "one of you guys can do it but I'm not going to do it". By then, we were all laughing uncontrollably.
I don't expect non-LDS folks to find much humor in this, there is a certain LDS culture and older members tend to understand things like seasoned missionaries being known to play pranks on newbies. I just thought it was worth sharing in light of April 1st.
This is a picture of my MTC District taken Halloween day 1982. The wild ties were our costume for our Halloween day district photo. They conveniently set the mood well too for an April Fool's day silly blog picture, especially Elder Anderson in the front with his pocket protector and pants hiked up around his chest. To know them is to love them.
Mitch Palmer, Kelly Larson, Tom Ford, Greg Anderson, me, Steve Fowler
