Mormon myths mostly harmless but unnecessary

When

I was on my mission, my companion received a letter one night from his

mom with news that should have rocked the Mormon world.If it hadn't been a total myth.

She

said that a young man in her stake had received his mission call

recently and when he opened the envelope, he found a single sheet of

paper containing a phone number. He dialed the number and anxiously

waited as friends and family looked on.

Finally the voice of an operator came on the line and said, \"Please hold for President Hinckley.\"

Next, the astonished young man heard the prophet's voice.

\"Elder,\"

he said. \"We're opening mainland China for missionary work, and you're

going to be one of the first missionaries to begin proselyting. Are you

up for the task?\"

Now,

needless to say, I was more than a little skeptical of this story when

he first read it to me. Wouldn't we have heard from the member of our

local ward if China had really been opened to missionaries? Wouldn't

the church have made some sort of an announcement?

But

my companion took it all on faith. After all, his mom had heard it from

someone in her stake! Can sources get more reliable than that?

News

spread fast through the mission. District meetings and P-day lunches

were dominated by talk of the new mainland China mission. Elders

wondered aloud whether the Mandarin-speaking missionaries in our

mission would be reassigned.