Gullible is on the Ceiling!

I am the worst! Seriously I totally suck I can't even believe what a moron I am. I believe everything, always, never doubting. Maybe I can just say I have incredible faith, right? I'm really embarassed to even write this but I need to so I can remember it in the future.

So I'm going to share two gullible stories, and let me just point out that if I want to believe something, I make the connections in my head all the way down to the bitter end.

Let's begin.

Thursday at work I got an email from my buddy Jared Selman. It was a cnn.com article from Tuesday that somebody else had sent him. The topic of the article? Snoop Dogg converted to mormonism! I clicked the link, read the article, and was in hook, line, and sinker. I totally believed it. It said he met up with Gladys Knight and loved the Book of Mormon. I made all these connections in my head like, "This totally works! Gladys is LDS, Snoop is trying to be a better family man, etc! Never mind that his latest hit is "Sensual Seduction" and that's the edited title." I forwarded the link to my hotmail account and I was literally seconds away from forwarding it to my entire contact list with some type of pumped up message (that is significant because I have never forwarded an email to anyone). Luckily (or unluckily depending on your point of view) I texted Rachel first and told her the awesome news. She didn't even have to go to the cnn website; she immediately texted me back, "You idiot! Tuesday was April Fool's Day!" I literally let out a cry of anguish as I got the text back. I knew that it was true, indeed I was an idiot. I had got SO PUMPED about this too that it just dragged me down for hours. Rachel kept texting me to make fun of me. All I could respond was, "I suck! I know I suck bad!" And three days later. . . I still suck!

The experience reminded me of one of the worst "gullible" moments I've ever had. . .

First, some background: A reminder that I make connections and pretty much convince myself when I want to believe something. This experience happened in the MTC. Key points to know is that Tommy (one of my best friends) was in the MTC with me, roomed around the corner from me, all of the guys in my "district" knew him well and knew that we were friends, and Tommy loves to lie. Another key point is that I know two Stephanies in this world: my sister Stephanie and Stephanie Stevens; also, I only know of one Jodie from my high school, Jodie McIntyre. Last, I received a letter a few days before from Mark Stubler without the post office stamping the postage (that is relevant as well). On to the embarassment:

So in the MTC we checked the mail like 5 times a day. I received a letter one morning from "Jodie". I noticed that the stamp wasn't postmarked but as I noted above I had received a legit letter from Mark only a few days earlier that wasn't postmarked--so no big deal there, right? Anyways, the letter was from Jodie something (I don't remember the last name) and the address was somewhere in West Jordan. She wrote that she was so sad she couldn't make it to my farewell because she was at some cheer camp (me thinking, "hmm, she must be hot if she was a cheerleader; but she must have been a JV cheerleader because I knew all the varsity from the previous year. But it was October and football season so she must have had something!), she had always had a huge crush on me, and that Stephanie had given her my address and she wanted to come see me in the airport when I left for Paraguay.

Words cannot describe how pumped I was to get this mystery love letter from this mystery girl. Jodie? I only know a Jodie McIntyre but I know this isn't her. Stephanie? It must be Stephanie Stevens! I don't know any other Stephanies that went to Copper Hills! I needed to ask Tommy if he knew who this mystery girl was so I could know if she was hot or not!

I spent all day on cloud nine, telling all the other elders about this random additional hot chick that was coming to the airport to see me. Of course they were all jealous of me, right?

I found Tommy in the afternoon and asked if he knew who Jodie was. His reply, "Yeah, she was pretty cute, don't you remember her? " Me, "No, who did she hang out with? " Tommy, "You know Sara Jacobs and Natalie? Their crowd of girls." (Interestingly enough, Tommy is now married to Sara!). The plot was perfect. I knew Sara and Natalie but I didn't really know any of their other friends, so it was easy for me to believe this mystery Jodie girl ran around with them. "Well," I thought, " this is going to work out great for me." You could've told me I had just contracted gonorrhea and the smile wouldn't have been wiped off my face.

But still, I needed to find out more about this Jodie girl. How exciting! I announced that I would write my buddy Jeff Davis (who was still at home at the time) and he would give me the goods on this Jodie girl so I could be prepared for our airport encounter (which, if this were real, would have been a nice handshake so I don't know why I was pumped). I sat down and started writing frantically; this letter had to be mailed out first thing in the morning! I didn't even notice that my entire district and all of Tommy's district had gathered in my small room. Suddenly I feel Elder Keaton put his hands on my shoulders and shamefully announce, "Elder Ball, I wrote that letter."

I will never forget neither the eruption of laughter that bellowed down those halls nor the vomit taste in my mouth as my stomach tried to reject my heart that had just sunk down into it. Immediately I knew I was the fool. I had made 20 different connections that day making this whole story work in my mind. How could I be so stupid! (I'm sitting here 7 1/2 years later embarassed right now!) I relieve the entire shame every time I think of the experience. Damn Snoop Dogg brought it all back again.

So here's how it happened. Elder Keaton wanted to play a joke on somebody and they picked me. They made up the name Jodi, thinkingly used my sister Stephanie's name as a reference (they didn't know that she didn't go to Copper Hills), and made sure they got hold of Tommy before I got to him--and he was definitely in for the ride. Elder Keaton's only hangup was the fact that the letter would arrive without being postmarked. If I noticed that, his jig was up. Incredibly, like I said above, I received a legit letter from Stubler just a few days before that for some reason wasn't postmarked. I haven't seen Elder Kenny Keaton in years (he went to Uruguay not Paraguay), but I'm sure he would confirm that the joke worked out beyond perfection.

I suck. . . bad!