So yesterday afternoon, an elder who lives only 3 blocks away drives up to my house as I was about to enter my car. As he gets out of his car, I noticed he had a stack of photocopied paper in his hand and he seemed quite nervous. I was genuinely happy to see him nonetheless since he is pretty easygoing and very likeable. After saying hello, he immediately started to make small talk, mentioning that he had just retired, had put the house up for sale and is expecting to close by next week. As he continued his small talk, he got very fidgety with the papers he had in his hand and my curiousity slowly overcame me.
I began to wonder whether this was some kind of invitation to another special assembly or some other ad-hoc event, but he kept up the small talk before finally handing me a piece of paper that said: (wait for it) ...... "Garage Sale"... That's right! This elder, whom I haven't seen or communicated with in well over 3 years (and lives only 3 blocks away) drives up to my house to hand me a f**king Garage Sale flyer !!! And get this... the sale was from 10AM to 6PM and he hands me this flyer at 5:30PM (with only 30 minutes remaining). I almost burst out laughing because of how utterly pathetic and bizarre this whole thing was. But, as I mentioned, I was still quite happy to see him nonetheless.
After he left, I asked myself: WTF just happened???
But while I was trying to make some sense of it all, it got me to realize that I was apparently NOT in bad standing at my old congo. So I decided to use this experience to engage another elder in the congo who had been ignoring my emails for quite some time. After trying to call this 2nd elder, I sent him this text (in Spanish):
ME: Hello Elder 2, I just ran into Elder 1 a few minutes ago. He's selling his house and moving in with his kids. I was so happy just to say hello to him and that made me think about you. When can I call you just say hello?
Elder 2: You can say hello when you are ready to respect the organization's arrangement.
ME: Organization's arrangement??? What on earth are you talking about? I'm talking about simply saying hello to you because I haven't seen you in so long and I felt a genuine need to reach out. Is this the example of love that Jesus taught? Frankly, I feel quite offended and shocked.
Elder 2: (no response)
So I have to ask: WTF just happened? 1st elder hands me a Garage Sale flyer and the 2nd elder elder tells me to respect the organization's arrangement !!! Are they serving up looney juice at the elder's meetings ???