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| E. McMullin on far left, next to me |
I loved meeting the new referral center missionaries! At the beginning I was not as grateful for
every missionary who came to join us, but that was later remedied. One missionary I remember in particular was
Elder McMullin. He joined the referral
center just shortly after I did. I of
course knew just about everything there was to know being in the referral
center a whole two weeks earlier. If
Elder McMullin was anything like the rest of us, he was not too thrilled about
joining, and probably wasn’t really sure what he was getting into. While I now see I should have been full of
gratitude for every missionary who came to help, to use a metaphor, at the time
I was a little more focused on the paint of the ship. What I mean is that I was concerned about how
one might see us rather than what was actually happening. Similar to the other missionaries at the
time, we met Elder McMullin at the front desk.
Elder McMullin liked doing things his way, and liked having
freedom and independence. I remember my
first sentence being something like “hello,” and “we don’t roll our sleeves up
here.” Now, as I think of it, I am very surprised he did unroll his sleeves. Although it did not last long. If I was him I think I would have sat on me. Thinking back at it now, I see it
was not my best leadership; in fact, it was not leading at all. Rather, it was a way to show what a prick I
was and annoy what turned out to be a great blessing for our mission. Every missionary we had was a valuable
contribution and helped to make the referral center what it was. I know God played a special hand and we saw
great miracles with every missionary who came to join us.
