Lifeguard

     After I got my call, and since missions don't pay for themselves, my need and desire to go to work every day increased. Well, maybe not so much my desire, but it did get me to work every day and even pick up a lot of shifts that I probably normally wouldn't have under any other circumstance. I worked as a lifeguard for one of the pools in the city. I know, I know; working as a lifeguard is sooo hard. All you do is sit in the sun with your shirt off and tan and watch people swim. I have heard it all, but you have to think it is still a job and it is still not the most exciting thing. Well, it gets pretty exciting when you have to get in and save some little kid from going into a spot that you told them 3 minutes earlier not to go in, and when you do save them the parent comes running over at you yelling at you that their kid was fine and didn't need help. That gets old fast. Plus, where I worked the exciting stuff only happens once in a blue moon.
     I bet you all are wondering why the heck I included this in my experiences. Well there were a couple reasons. First, like I already said, because of the money so that I could afford to go. The second reason is that I rode my bike to work almost every day. As many people know and have seen, us missionaries ride our bikes quite a bit so I had to get some practice to make sure I was in shape enough to be able to do it on my mission. As good of a reason as that might have sounded that in shapeness that I might have had when I left is all gone now so all that work was in vain. The real reason I included this is actually because this is where I technically started my mission. Every day at work I would be overwhelmed with hundreds of questions about what I can and can't do as a missionary and what I believed and all sorts of other questions. As annoying as they got some days, I look back now and realize how fun it was and how much I was able to help those people I worked with understand a little better about what it was that I was going to be doing. Let me tell you, some of those questions were pretty dang out there, but I am glad that I was able to experience all of that back home before I came here to the good ol' Bible Belt.