We arrived in Boston later that afternoon where we were met by the Assistants to the Mission President (APs). We got our bags and trudged to the subway. It was hot and humid. I had never before felt humidity. I was melting. The subway tunnel was cool and I could have served my whole Mission right there! We boarded the subway train and rode to Cambridge and then walked the couple of blocks to the Mission Home. We were greeted by our Mission President and his wife, President and Sister Boyd K. Packer. After a short welcome talk and then an interview with the President, some were assigned rooms for the night in the Mission Home, and others of us were taken to a hotel close by. The next morning we had breakfast at the Mission Home and then we were given our assignments. Mine was Hartford, Connecticut. Bag and baggage we once again boarded the MTA (subway) and rode to the Boston Greyhound Terminal. I purchased a ticket to Hartford and then I was on my way to my first area…as green a missionary as there ever was.
I arrived in Hartford late in the afternoon and was met by the Zone Leaders. My companion, Elder Moon, the District Leader, was with other Elders at an appointment. They would take me to meet my companion later. In the mean time, we had an appointment to teach the first discussion to some investigators. It was my first experience with “row houses” and “walk ups”. The family was probably a nice family, although I have no recollection of them at all. I do very well remember the evening. The house was hot and the air still. This was before everyone had air conditioning. I wanted to rip my suit coat off and run out of the room screaming for cool air! Elder Stiles gave the first conclusion of the discussion. I had been told I would give the second conclusion. PANIC! I couldn’t remember one word that I had learned in the Salt Lake Mission Home. Elder Stiles explained to the family that I was a new missionary and this was my first discussion. After what seemed like forever, but was, in reality, only a moment or two, I recovered enough to stumble thru the conclusion. Thankfully, they didn’t make me give another, although I was asked to bear my testimony.
After the discussion we stopped at Friendly Ice Cream and got some ice cream cones. Then we went to the ZL’s apartment and waited for my companion. Soon he arrived. He was Elder Richard Moon from Vernal, UT. I don’t think he was really happy to see me because he was under 30 days and the last thing he needed was a greenie. But he had me, and to his credit, he began to train me to be a missionary.
We had several discussions those first few days. Brother Giovanni stands out because he had been investigating for a few weeks, and he was my first appointment with my companion. He was a faithful listener to Music and the Spoken Word on the radio. He was really exited about the Church, and even went on Saturdays to help build the building in East Hartford. His wife would not meet with us and in the end his wife and brother prevailed and he broke off the discussions. Our last hurrah with him came on a Sunday evening. We were at Church for Sacrament Meeting and got a call on the phone. It was Brother Giovanni’s brother. They were members of Boulevard Baptist Church and they wanted us to attend their meeting. They wanted us to come right over, or they would come and get us and “escort” us over. We mentioned the phone call to the Branch President and he really didn’t want us to go; but Elder Moon and I felt that we should, if not just for the challenge. So we arrived in time for the meeting to start. The preacher’s sermon was on the anti-Christ. The entire sermon was preached at us. When the offering plate came around, we dropped in our Articles of Faith business cards. Finally the meeting was over and we were immediately surrounded by quite a few members of their church. They successfully separated us and were all talking at once, condemning us and the Church. One lady asked me if I had a copy of The Book of Mormon. I showed it to her and she grabbed it out of my hand. She leafed thru the book quickly and informed me she hadn’t seen the name Jesus Christ once in the book. I assured her it was there and offered to share some passages with her. She wasn’t listening. When I explained about the name of the church, she said we had to change the name to try to look like we were Christians. In the end, the crowd began to leave and we were left alone. It was an experience we would never forget. We didn’t convince anyone, and Brother Giovanni ended up telling us not to come back.
My first baptism came the following weekend. We were teaching a 12 year old girl named Louise Tollifson. Her family had visited the Mormon Pavilion at the New York Worlds Fair and they wanted to know more. The family ended up not joining, but he young daughter did. They lived in a row house and, like the first house I visited, no air and it was hot and humid. We had to wear suit coats and hats. As I was sitting there melting, Louise’s father took compassion on me and turned the box fan directly on me. In a minute I was comfortable. The discussion we gave was the last and we filled out the baptismal recommend and the following Saturday Elder Moon baptized her. On Sunday I confirmed her as a member of the Church. She was active for the remainder of the time I was in Hartford.
Missionaries were known for wearing hats and suits. The first purchase I made after arriving in Hartford was a hat. Elder Moon took me downtown to a department store and I found a hat. It wasn’t particularly stylish, but it was within my budget. I looked more like Elliot Ness of The Untouchables than one of the Lord’s servants. I wore my hat all winter and then when Spring came, we went to buy our Spring hats. They were made of straw and much cooler than the wool hats we wore in the winter. And I even got one that was very stylish. A few days later we got a letter from President Packer advising us that he had ended the requirement for New England Missionaries to wear hats. He figured that he hated wearing them, and didn’t want us having to wear them either. YAHOO!
Twenty eight days after I arrive in Hartford, I took Elder Moon to the bus stop and sent him on his way to Cambridge and Vernal. Then I drove back to the apartment and waited alone for the bus to arrive with my new companion. He was Elder Richard Egan from Washington State. Years later his son would serve in the same district as Brett in the Georgia Macon Mission. I met Elder Egan later that afternoon and we got to know each other pretty well. It was shortly after Elder Egan’s arrival that we got the no hats ruling. Elder Egan probably taught me more about being a missionary than any other companion. I had not learned all the discussions by the time he got there, so he made that our primary goal. Learn the discussions. You cannot be an effective missionary unless you know the discussions. With the concentration on learning the discussions, it took only a short while and I had learned them. Then we practiced discussions every morning … we closed our eyes and then gave our conclusions as fast as we could talk. Theoretically we were not thinking, but speaking out of some inward knowledge of the discussion. That may have been true because I never had trouble with discussions again.
At 5:J5 on the night of November 9, 1965 I was in the basement of a small department store in West Harford with Elder Egan looking for some jeans that were on sale to wear on P-Day. I had just completed the purchase when the lights blinked out and we were in the dark. After a few minutes waiting for the lights to come back on, the owner of the store asked everyone to leave so they could close the doors. I took my jeans and we went upstairs and departed. It was starting to snow when we got to the car. We quickly learned that the entire east coast was blacked out. We drove over to our house to make sure our land lady was okay, and then we went to a member’s home. They had a transistor radio and we listened to the reports of the blackout. Speculations of conspiracies were on the airwaves. Everything from the Russians to spacemen were reported to be the cause. I don’t remember how long the lights were out, but it was for many hours. It would be a topic that would come up time and time again, especially after I was transferred to Pittsfield, MA, a few months later.
Zone Conferences were generally held quarterly. My first was at the Hartford Chapel. President Packer’s background was as an educator and the emphasis of his training was how to teach the gospel, not present a discussion. He taught us how to effectively use the flannel board and how to put the pictures on without looking at them. Pretty neat stuff. . Later I attended a Zone Conference in Bangor, Maine. A few days later I was transferred to Massachusetts. A week after I arrive there we had a Zone Conference in Hartford. President Packer opened the conference; then asked me to stand up. He said that Elder Pritchard had attended Zone Conference a couple of weeks ago in Bangor, “but I had to send him here because he didn’t believe a word I said”.
Over the three months we were together we spent a lot of time looking up referrals from the Worlds Fair and just going out to meet people. We didn’t like to tract, so we found alternative ways to meet people. Some of the tracting we did actually involve just finding people at stores, in their yards, or where ever we could and then engaged them in conversation about the gospel. I remember one family we baptized was a young couple we met from a Worlds Fair referral. We taught them the discussions and they were quick to respond. After 6 weeks they were baptized. Elder Egan got the bright idea of fixing dinner and having them over. This family was easy to talk to and it was easy to forget they had been baptized earlier that day. During dinner, Elder Egan launched into discussion on “as man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become.” They stopped eating and just stared at my companion and me. Dinner was over. They recovered from it, and stayed active in the Church. But the lesson we learned was that we were feeding these new converts strained peaches, and they were not yet ready to T-Bone steaks.
We looked up a Fair referral from a minister. We went to his house an met his wife. She knew her husband would love to meet us, so we went over to the Church. He was very pleasant and after a brief conversation, he invited us to come speak at their weekly prayer breakfast. We accepted. The appointed morning we went to the Church and had breakfast. We were treated courteously and we told about Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, and the restoration. We got several invites by people to visit them in their homes, but nothing ever came of it for us. Hopefully the seeds we planted were later harvested.
One Saturday morning the ZLs were at our house and we were finished with whatever it was we were doing and were ready to go work the plan .Just then the doorbell rang. We answered the door and two lovely young ladies were standing there – with Watch Tower magazines in their hands. They had seen the four of us thru the window and thought we must be students from the local theological seminary. We invited them in and explained who we were and that we were just going out. We invited them to come back the following Saturday to have a discussion of the difference of ours and their ideas. We picked a religious subject and we each would have a few minutes to present our views. They were to have the opportunity to choose the first topic. I don’t remember the topic, but the following Saturday they showed up precisely at 9 AM and we spent the next hour sharing our views with each other. Now it was our turn to pick the subject and we would again meet next Saturday to discuss it. We picked First Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 29; the scripture on baptism for the dead. The following Saturday morning at 9 they were at the door, but they couldn’t come in as they had another pressing appointment. We fain expressed sorrow, but told them that if they ever wanted to know what Paul meant that we would be happy to teach them. I have used that same set up on other Jehovah’s Witnesses over the years, with similar results.
One lady we visited was a local radio personality and she wanted to interview us on the radio. We were a little skeptical but asked permission from President Packer. He said to do it. We had to provide her some background information so she would know what to ask. We gave her a copy of The Mormon Story, a table book about the history of the Church, and a copy of the Book of Mormon. We went to the studio about a half hour or so before air time. She showed us the questions she was going to ask. As the saying goes, “prepare for the worse, hope for the best”. The worse never came. She was a nice lady and allowed us to give full answers to her questions. We were on the air for 30 minutes. She gave us a copy of the tape, but it is long gone.
Another family joined the Church after having visited the Worlds Fair. The newly weds felt they needed a Church. He was a Christian, but of no affiliation. She was agnostic. They felt they wanted to have some sort of religion in their lives because if they were to have children, they wanted to make sure they had a religious background. At least that was his point of view. I am not so sure it was hers, but she did attend the discussions we held in their home. The Spirit was there and before long, she was coming around. We asked her to offer the prayer after the first discussion, but she refused. We sensed a lack of knowledge on her part, so we taught them how to pray. She still refused, so we asked her husband and he prayed. Then we got her to commit to pray on her own about what she had learned. A few days later we taught them the 2nd discussion, The Book of Mormon. They received it gladly it and committed to read the first 50 pages before we returned. We noticed as we visited with them time after time, that she warmed up to the gospel and he cooled down. Then one evening following the discussion she said she wanted to offer the prayer. Her prayer was simple and included the words, “Heavenly Father, if you are there …” She received an answer right then and there. Tears flowed and she had found joy. She was a timid lady and still would not commit to baptism. They attended Church regularly, but felt they were not accepted. Then the miracle happened. The Young Marrieds had a social the following Saturday evening and invited them to come. They accepted. They felt welcome and fit right in. This was the last obstacle in her joining the Church. The next day she couldn’t wait to find us at Church. We could see it in her face. “Elder Egan, Elder Pritchard, I want to be baptized.” The following Saturday morning we baptized her with her husband watching. Her husband, at first wanting to have a common religion in their home, seemed now to be the agnostic. I left the area a short time later and never knew if he ever joined the Church.
Kathy was a joy to teach and just visit with. She was from Scotland, in her 20s and a little overweight. She was a nurse at a local hospital and was anxious to become a US citizen. She had visited the Mormon Pavilion with LDS friends and wanted to learn about the Church. The discussion on The Book of Mormon was the second discussion. When we gave Kathy the second discussion we gave her a copy of The Book of Mormon, for which she paid 50 cents, to cover the cost of the book. We challenged her to read the first 50 pages before our next discussion the following week. She accepted. When we next met with her she proudly told us that she had read the 50 pages. But she thought something must be wrong with the book. Every other page was upside down. She would read a page, turn the book over and read the next page. Then she had to do it again. We were amazed that she had persevered thru the ordeal and finished the assignment. After a good laugh, we gave her another copy of the book and wanted to take her copy. She accepted the new book, but refused to give up her copy. It was her first Book of Mormon and she would treasure it her whole life. A couple of weeks later she was baptized and beamed with joy.
Elder Egan was a straight razor man. Somewhere along the line in his mission he had been converted to using a strait razor to shave. So naturally I had to have one. We went to a cutlery shop in Hartford and I purchased a strait razor, leather strop, a shaving mug and brush and shaving soap. The whole deal cost me about $10 or $15. Elder Egan said I would need a good aftershave, and I used Aqua Velva, so I had one. The first time I shaved I knew what he meant. Elder Egan showed me how to use the strop, and I shaved with a strait razor. Closest shave I ever had. Then I splashed on the aftershave, and ZOWIE, it burned like nothing ever burned before. I soon had the worse rash I ever had. You don’t just start shaving with a strait razor and get away without pain. I learned I had to shave before I took a shower; that way the hot water of the shower cut off the blood flow on my face. It took a good week or so before I no longer bled or burned when I shaved. One morning I guess I was a little too cocky and dropped the razor on the ring finger of my right hand. It took 5 stitches to close it up. I probably would have just put a band – aid on it, but Elder Egan was an Army medic and thought I needed stitches.
I arrived in Hartford late in the afternoon and was met by the Zone Leaders. My companion, Elder Moon, the District Leader, was with other Elders at an appointment. They would take me to meet my companion later. In the mean time, we had an appointment to teach the first discussion to some investigators. It was my first experience with “row houses” and “walk ups”. The family was probably a nice family, although I have no recollection of them at all. I do very well remember the evening. The house was hot and the air still. This was before everyone had air conditioning. I wanted to rip my suit coat off and run out of the room screaming for cool air! Elder Stiles gave the first conclusion of the discussion. I had been told I would give the second conclusion. PANIC! I couldn’t remember one word that I had learned in the Salt Lake Mission Home. Elder Stiles explained to the family that I was a new missionary and this was my first discussion. After what seemed like forever, but was, in reality, only a moment or two, I recovered enough to stumble thru the conclusion. Thankfully, they didn’t make me give another, although I was asked to bear my testimony.
After the discussion we stopped at Friendly Ice Cream and got some ice cream cones. Then we went to the ZL’s apartment and waited for my companion. Soon he arrived. He was Elder Richard Moon from Vernal, UT. I don’t think he was really happy to see me because he was under 30 days and the last thing he needed was a greenie. But he had me, and to his credit, he began to train me to be a missionary.
We had several discussions those first few days. Brother Giovanni stands out because he had been investigating for a few weeks, and he was my first appointment with my companion. He was a faithful listener to Music and the Spoken Word on the radio. He was really exited about the Church, and even went on Saturdays to help build the building in East Hartford. His wife would not meet with us and in the end his wife and brother prevailed and he broke off the discussions. Our last hurrah with him came on a Sunday evening. We were at Church for Sacrament Meeting and got a call on the phone. It was Brother Giovanni’s brother. They were members of Boulevard Baptist Church and they wanted us to attend their meeting. They wanted us to come right over, or they would come and get us and “escort” us over. We mentioned the phone call to the Branch President and he really didn’t want us to go; but Elder Moon and I felt that we should, if not just for the challenge. So we arrived in time for the meeting to start. The preacher’s sermon was on the anti-Christ. The entire sermon was preached at us. When the offering plate came around, we dropped in our Articles of Faith business cards. Finally the meeting was over and we were immediately surrounded by quite a few members of their church. They successfully separated us and were all talking at once, condemning us and the Church. One lady asked me if I had a copy of The Book of Mormon. I showed it to her and she grabbed it out of my hand. She leafed thru the book quickly and informed me she hadn’t seen the name Jesus Christ once in the book. I assured her it was there and offered to share some passages with her. She wasn’t listening. When I explained about the name of the church, she said we had to change the name to try to look like we were Christians. In the end, the crowd began to leave and we were left alone. It was an experience we would never forget. We didn’t convince anyone, and Brother Giovanni ended up telling us not to come back.
My first baptism came the following weekend. We were teaching a 12 year old girl named Louise Tollifson. Her family had visited the Mormon Pavilion at the New York Worlds Fair and they wanted to know more. The family ended up not joining, but he young daughter did. They lived in a row house and, like the first house I visited, no air and it was hot and humid. We had to wear suit coats and hats. As I was sitting there melting, Louise’s father took compassion on me and turned the box fan directly on me. In a minute I was comfortable. The discussion we gave was the last and we filled out the baptismal recommend and the following Saturday Elder Moon baptized her. On Sunday I confirmed her as a member of the Church. She was active for the remainder of the time I was in Hartford.
Missionaries were known for wearing hats and suits. The first purchase I made after arriving in Hartford was a hat. Elder Moon took me downtown to a department store and I found a hat. It wasn’t particularly stylish, but it was within my budget. I looked more like Elliot Ness of The Untouchables than one of the Lord’s servants. I wore my hat all winter and then when Spring came, we went to buy our Spring hats. They were made of straw and much cooler than the wool hats we wore in the winter. And I even got one that was very stylish. A few days later we got a letter from President Packer advising us that he had ended the requirement for New England Missionaries to wear hats. He figured that he hated wearing them, and didn’t want us having to wear them either. YAHOO!
Twenty eight days after I arrive in Hartford, I took Elder Moon to the bus stop and sent him on his way to Cambridge and Vernal. Then I drove back to the apartment and waited alone for the bus to arrive with my new companion. He was Elder Richard Egan from Washington State. Years later his son would serve in the same district as Brett in the Georgia Macon Mission. I met Elder Egan later that afternoon and we got to know each other pretty well. It was shortly after Elder Egan’s arrival that we got the no hats ruling. Elder Egan probably taught me more about being a missionary than any other companion. I had not learned all the discussions by the time he got there, so he made that our primary goal. Learn the discussions. You cannot be an effective missionary unless you know the discussions. With the concentration on learning the discussions, it took only a short while and I had learned them. Then we practiced discussions every morning … we closed our eyes and then gave our conclusions as fast as we could talk. Theoretically we were not thinking, but speaking out of some inward knowledge of the discussion. That may have been true because I never had trouble with discussions again.
At 5:J5 on the night of November 9, 1965 I was in the basement of a small department store in West Harford with Elder Egan looking for some jeans that were on sale to wear on P-Day. I had just completed the purchase when the lights blinked out and we were in the dark. After a few minutes waiting for the lights to come back on, the owner of the store asked everyone to leave so they could close the doors. I took my jeans and we went upstairs and departed. It was starting to snow when we got to the car. We quickly learned that the entire east coast was blacked out. We drove over to our house to make sure our land lady was okay, and then we went to a member’s home. They had a transistor radio and we listened to the reports of the blackout. Speculations of conspiracies were on the airwaves. Everything from the Russians to spacemen were reported to be the cause. I don’t remember how long the lights were out, but it was for many hours. It would be a topic that would come up time and time again, especially after I was transferred to Pittsfield, MA, a few months later.
Zone Conferences were generally held quarterly. My first was at the Hartford Chapel. President Packer’s background was as an educator and the emphasis of his training was how to teach the gospel, not present a discussion. He taught us how to effectively use the flannel board and how to put the pictures on without looking at them. Pretty neat stuff. . Later I attended a Zone Conference in Bangor, Maine. A few days later I was transferred to Massachusetts. A week after I arrive there we had a Zone Conference in Hartford. President Packer opened the conference; then asked me to stand up. He said that Elder Pritchard had attended Zone Conference a couple of weeks ago in Bangor, “but I had to send him here because he didn’t believe a word I said”.
Over the three months we were together we spent a lot of time looking up referrals from the Worlds Fair and just going out to meet people. We didn’t like to tract, so we found alternative ways to meet people. Some of the tracting we did actually involve just finding people at stores, in their yards, or where ever we could and then engaged them in conversation about the gospel. I remember one family we baptized was a young couple we met from a Worlds Fair referral. We taught them the discussions and they were quick to respond. After 6 weeks they were baptized. Elder Egan got the bright idea of fixing dinner and having them over. This family was easy to talk to and it was easy to forget they had been baptized earlier that day. During dinner, Elder Egan launched into discussion on “as man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become.” They stopped eating and just stared at my companion and me. Dinner was over. They recovered from it, and stayed active in the Church. But the lesson we learned was that we were feeding these new converts strained peaches, and they were not yet ready to T-Bone steaks.
We looked up a Fair referral from a minister. We went to his house an met his wife. She knew her husband would love to meet us, so we went over to the Church. He was very pleasant and after a brief conversation, he invited us to come speak at their weekly prayer breakfast. We accepted. The appointed morning we went to the Church and had breakfast. We were treated courteously and we told about Joseph Smith, The Book of Mormon, and the restoration. We got several invites by people to visit them in their homes, but nothing ever came of it for us. Hopefully the seeds we planted were later harvested.
One Saturday morning the ZLs were at our house and we were finished with whatever it was we were doing and were ready to go work the plan .Just then the doorbell rang. We answered the door and two lovely young ladies were standing there – with Watch Tower magazines in their hands. They had seen the four of us thru the window and thought we must be students from the local theological seminary. We invited them in and explained who we were and that we were just going out. We invited them to come back the following Saturday to have a discussion of the difference of ours and their ideas. We picked a religious subject and we each would have a few minutes to present our views. They were to have the opportunity to choose the first topic. I don’t remember the topic, but the following Saturday they showed up precisely at 9 AM and we spent the next hour sharing our views with each other. Now it was our turn to pick the subject and we would again meet next Saturday to discuss it. We picked First Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 29; the scripture on baptism for the dead. The following Saturday morning at 9 they were at the door, but they couldn’t come in as they had another pressing appointment. We fain expressed sorrow, but told them that if they ever wanted to know what Paul meant that we would be happy to teach them. I have used that same set up on other Jehovah’s Witnesses over the years, with similar results.
One lady we visited was a local radio personality and she wanted to interview us on the radio. We were a little skeptical but asked permission from President Packer. He said to do it. We had to provide her some background information so she would know what to ask. We gave her a copy of The Mormon Story, a table book about the history of the Church, and a copy of the Book of Mormon. We went to the studio about a half hour or so before air time. She showed us the questions she was going to ask. As the saying goes, “prepare for the worse, hope for the best”. The worse never came. She was a nice lady and allowed us to give full answers to her questions. We were on the air for 30 minutes. She gave us a copy of the tape, but it is long gone.
Another family joined the Church after having visited the Worlds Fair. The newly weds felt they needed a Church. He was a Christian, but of no affiliation. She was agnostic. They felt they wanted to have some sort of religion in their lives because if they were to have children, they wanted to make sure they had a religious background. At least that was his point of view. I am not so sure it was hers, but she did attend the discussions we held in their home. The Spirit was there and before long, she was coming around. We asked her to offer the prayer after the first discussion, but she refused. We sensed a lack of knowledge on her part, so we taught them how to pray. She still refused, so we asked her husband and he prayed. Then we got her to commit to pray on her own about what she had learned. A few days later we taught them the 2nd discussion, The Book of Mormon. They received it gladly it and committed to read the first 50 pages before we returned. We noticed as we visited with them time after time, that she warmed up to the gospel and he cooled down. Then one evening following the discussion she said she wanted to offer the prayer. Her prayer was simple and included the words, “Heavenly Father, if you are there …” She received an answer right then and there. Tears flowed and she had found joy. She was a timid lady and still would not commit to baptism. They attended Church regularly, but felt they were not accepted. Then the miracle happened. The Young Marrieds had a social the following Saturday evening and invited them to come. They accepted. They felt welcome and fit right in. This was the last obstacle in her joining the Church. The next day she couldn’t wait to find us at Church. We could see it in her face. “Elder Egan, Elder Pritchard, I want to be baptized.” The following Saturday morning we baptized her with her husband watching. Her husband, at first wanting to have a common religion in their home, seemed now to be the agnostic. I left the area a short time later and never knew if he ever joined the Church.
Kathy was a joy to teach and just visit with. She was from Scotland, in her 20s and a little overweight. She was a nurse at a local hospital and was anxious to become a US citizen. She had visited the Mormon Pavilion with LDS friends and wanted to learn about the Church. The discussion on The Book of Mormon was the second discussion. When we gave Kathy the second discussion we gave her a copy of The Book of Mormon, for which she paid 50 cents, to cover the cost of the book. We challenged her to read the first 50 pages before our next discussion the following week. She accepted. When we next met with her she proudly told us that she had read the 50 pages. But she thought something must be wrong with the book. Every other page was upside down. She would read a page, turn the book over and read the next page. Then she had to do it again. We were amazed that she had persevered thru the ordeal and finished the assignment. After a good laugh, we gave her another copy of the book and wanted to take her copy. She accepted the new book, but refused to give up her copy. It was her first Book of Mormon and she would treasure it her whole life. A couple of weeks later she was baptized and beamed with joy.
Elder Egan was a straight razor man. Somewhere along the line in his mission he had been converted to using a strait razor to shave. So naturally I had to have one. We went to a cutlery shop in Hartford and I purchased a strait razor, leather strop, a shaving mug and brush and shaving soap. The whole deal cost me about $10 or $15. Elder Egan said I would need a good aftershave, and I used Aqua Velva, so I had one. The first time I shaved I knew what he meant. Elder Egan showed me how to use the strop, and I shaved with a strait razor. Closest shave I ever had. Then I splashed on the aftershave, and ZOWIE, it burned like nothing ever burned before. I soon had the worse rash I ever had. You don’t just start shaving with a strait razor and get away without pain. I learned I had to shave before I took a shower; that way the hot water of the shower cut off the blood flow on my face. It took a good week or so before I no longer bled or burned when I shaved. One morning I guess I was a little too cocky and dropped the razor on the ring finger of my right hand. It took 5 stitches to close it up. I probably would have just put a band – aid on it, but Elder Egan was an Army medic and thought I needed stitches.
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