A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention by Matt Richtel

Author:Matt Richtel [Richtel, Matt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062284082
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

“MAY I GIVE YOU some information?” Reggie asked the woman.

She said yes. He gave her a pamphlet about the Church of Latter-day Saints, and a phone number to call if she wanted to follow up.

Reggie felt euphoric. His first pitch seemed to have gone well. And he hadn’t even landed in Canada to officially start his mission. He was still on the airplane, a Delta flight, from Salt Lake to Winnepeg.

At the Salt Lake airport, there had been back pats and “good lucks” from other travelers who recognized the band of suit-clad missionaries. On the plane, Reggie sat in an aisle seat, and struck up the conversation with a woman who asked about where he was going, and why.

“It was the first time I actually attempted to teach someone who I didn’t know, who was not a member and not familiar with the Church,” Reggie said. “She listened well, she asked a lot of questions.”

The last thing she said was: “I’ll take this information to my pastor and we’ll talk about it.”

Reggie recalls her reference to her pastor with a laugh. “That’s never a good sign.”

He was feeling buoyant, on his way, and the pitch to the woman allowed him to think it might involve fewer doors shut in his face than he’d been prepared to expect.

In Winnepeg, he met his “companion,” the guy he’d be paired up with, walking the streets, suit-clad, scripture in hand. He was Elder Smith. He was on the tail end of his own mission and would be showing Reggie the ropes. They hopped in Smith’s small Ford and took the drive to Regina, a big city that would be their home base.

Just a day in, Reggie was walking down the street with Elder Smith, going house to house, when a car drove by. Someone yelled at the pair, and then a bottle came flying in their direction. It missed. It shattered. It was a bottle of SoBe, an energy drink.

Though he’d come to expect some of this, he was kind of shocked. To Elder Smith, it was just another day.

He thought: Any time you’re trying to do good, Satan is going to try to stop you. It might be with a SoBe bottle. Anything to frustrate or derail your path.

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