Warren Love

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so I felt it was appropriate to share a story of love. However, I could think of no interesting love stories from my mission, so am giving you something a little different. It takes place in one of the funnest places of my mission, Warren, MI. For those of you who have never heard of Warren... when Eminem says he's from Detroit, he means he's from Warren.

We had met a man named Bill a couple times. He had two rottweilers (Rosie and Rocky) that were pretty wild, so his house was in commotion. He invited us in to teach him though, and was very friendly. On our second visit we met his girlfriend, who's name I do not know (Yes, I somehow recorded the dogs' names but not the girlfriend's). Though I couldn't pinpoint it, something struck me as very odd about her. When we left I found out my companion had about the same opinion. A few days passed since this first encounter with "The Girlfriend" when Bill made it into our backup plans in the evening. We had a scheduled lesson which our investigators needed to postpone for a few minutes, so we went to see Bill in the meantime. The following is taken from my journal (If you've read my blogs before, specifically Fallen Angel, you know things might get intense. So jump to any conclusions as you read to guess what happened.):

"...We went, expecting to find Bill there and be welcomed in. I knocked and a minute later Bill's girlfriend answered the door. "Is Bill around?" I inquired. "He's resting." I said, "Alright, we'll let him keep at that. Could you just tell him we stopped by?" She stared at me, right into my eyes, for probably 15 seconds and finally said, very softly, "He doesn't live here anymore." I thought to myself in confusion... Firstly, all his cars were still there. Secondly, she doesn't even live there. She lives next door. Thirdly, Rosie and Rocky were still there... I said, "That's weird. He just sort've ... disappeared?" "Umm hmm." "Huh. when did all of this happen?" She continued looking into my eyes and didn't answer me. She looked more terrified than anything I can imagine. After a long pause from sound I asked, "Is there anything we can do to help you?" She blinked but didn't answer. After another long pause I asked her if she was alright and after another long pause I again asked, "Are you sure there's nothing we can help you with?" We finally left and told her to take care.  She didn't close the screen door till after he had cleared the driveway and neared the car. We waited in the car to keep an eye on the place for a few minutes, then we went to meet our investigators for a lesson..."

"... We drove by Bill's house at the end of the night. I was looking closely at the windows to see if anything had changed. It all looked the same except that she was now sitting on the porch bench by herself. It was 9:00 at night, and in the low 30's at best and she was just sitting quietly there. I'm not sure what happened, but I am sure that she was horrified. The more I think about it, the more I feel like she's done something terribly wrong and was so terrified because we caught her almost in the act. Again, she looked more terrified than anything I have ever seen. It was seemingly straight out of a horror movie..."

----- Okay, if you haven't come up with a solution as to what happened, don't read on yet. My opinion was that she killed Bill. Eye-contact is a pretty cool thing when you're talking to your friends, or to a lovely you're interested in, right? Yeah well, this lady was staring into my soul through my eyes for a really long time without saying a word. It was terrifying! A week later we got the courage to go back to Bill's. -----

"We caught the answer to the mystery of Bill's girlfriend today. Bill is alive! We stopped by and talked to him and learned that she has mental ailments and was off her meds. Right now, she's actually in a hospital getting treatment."

In a way, this whole thing is a love story, and a happy ending one at that. Bill lived, and his insane girlfriend was put in an institution. Happy V-Day! I love you!