Thursday, April 07, 2005

Driving Miss Daisy

Um... I think that JoAnne story was mine, but it might have been Eric. I'm not sure. I do know that Dad would never let us drive over 40 mph no matter what before we actually got the license, and Sam was the one that taught me that it's actually safer to drive the speed limit.

But the real exciting story is when I was on my mission, and had to learn to drive a stick. I'd learned the basics, but never had much practice. One of the office elders rode around Leipzig with me to see how I did, and said, "He'll do fine as long as he doesn't get himself killed in the first week." Then they let me drive my new companion - the new zone leader - back to Halle, about an hour away. Unfortunately, we missed a turn and ended up going almost all the way to Jena, two hours the wrong direction. So I got lots of practice that one night. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, I had a stop sign at the top of a hill, so Elder Patrick talked me through how to use the e-brake to keep from rolling backward. I mastered that on the first try. We survived the first week (and the two months) and so I got to drive for another three months when I got to Zwickau later on.

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