Mission Reminiscing: Backing Cars

Today I got in the mail a precious gem of a video sent to me by my dear previous mission companion, Sister Holding.  It's a video we compiled and made with a couple of other sisters: Sister Cole, sister Holding's comp at the time, and my great companion at the time, Sister Davis.  We made this on one of the most frigid days of winter 2013 in Shawinigan, Quebec, where we were all serving at the time.

What is the video about, you might ask? Why, only one of my most loved past-times as a missionary...

...backing cars.

That's right. Backing. Cars. And what exactly is that? Well, you see, missionaries, for liability and safety issues, whenever driving a car in reverse, must always have a "backer" (i.e., their companion) outside of the car, directing them. I suppose with the over 80,000 missionaries in the world serving and representing the church and using church owned and insured vehicles, it's just better safe than sorry.

Backing, is an art really.  But sadly, some many missionaries don't take it that seriously. Especially in the dead of winter. When you're basically in the Arctic. (or you know, Canada) And it's like, hmmm, I don't know, 42 below 0 (Celcius!) and a windchill that would make you chill just thinking about it. And let's not get started on the humidity. The weather aside--it's easy for missionaries to get lackadaisical in their backing efforts, and let's face it--that's just plain dumb. Because, in the winter, with the snow blowing, you especially need an extra hand to help steer you clear of any trash bins, telephone poles, sharp things, husbands, wives, kids (betta hide 'em!), dogs, beavers, hockey pucks, etc.

In addition to the weather, Elders and Sisters sometimes were slacker backers because of pride. That's right. Pride. Because, I mean, let's be honest, people sometimes stare at you when you're helping another grown person reverse out of a parking stall in a next-to-empty lot at the local grocery store in broad daylight. Sometimes they may even point fingers and openly laugh at you. Or look at you funny and say things like, "You can get in the car, I ain't gonna hurt you!" And then there's always that awkward moment when you're like, "Well, actually, I'm doing this on purpose. What I mean is, I'm required to. Well, I'm a missionary, you see...".

At any rate, my philosophy as a missionary when it came to backing was always, "I have to be out here anyway. It's freezing and looks ridiculous even if I'm just flapping my hand around. So I might as well have some fun with it and move around so I can stay warm."

And that my friends is how I got my reputation as the coolest sister missionary out there. (That and beatboxing, but we'll talk more about that in my next post...) Well, we eventually realized that some missionaries just needed a good backing demonstration, a tutorial, if you will, of how it should look. So that's when we came up with this beauty, and with no further blathering from me, you may now see for yourself:

Enjoy! 

(All credit goes to Sisters Holding and Cole who did a really phenomenal job editing this!)