As the responsible missionary for all airline travel within the islands, I was able to get the local airline to make real reservations in the Sister’s names, print them (all the missionaries knew what these little reservation strips looked like), and then cancel the reservations. The reservation staff struggled to understand what we were attempting to do, but they helped us out (we were their single biggest account).

With reservations in hand, we sent over our most straight-faced zone leader to break the news and start them packing. In the end, we were only partly successful as the 2 American Sisters were rightly suspicious given the date, but we had them going for a while. The Sisters attempted to pay us back with sugarless cookies later that week.

In a similar vein, we had good suspicion that certain Elders were trying to get a heads up on transfers by stopping at the airline office and having them look up names on flight reservations (we usually had to make reservations at least 2 weeks in advance to ensure seats).

Since we could change names on reservations up to the day of ticket purchase (usually just a day or 2 in advance of the flight when transfers were already announced), I started using the suspected culprits names on all initial reservations and then changing them out for the ‘real’ names at the last minute. A few Elders didn’t seem very happy with me prior to the next transfer, but they couldn’t say anything without admitting having tried to game the system. It seemed to get the message across without needing to be confrontational.

Those were fun days.

- Virgil

And by the way, this confection was not my husband\’s brainchild. It came from some other member of the teacher\’s quorum.

I only found out about it after church, but even then was bracing myself for lightning to come from heaven. ..bruce..

You can see the story on my blog

(the one her neighbors did do is kind of bad and childish, she called them for something this AM. Then the neighbors told her no school due to school being on fire. To me that is like the boy who called wolf and is a wrong thing to do.)

Anyway, sorry for the goof.

A coworker today shared that one of her neighbors played a mean trick on their children: they woke their kids up to get ready for school, told them it was time to go, etc. Then when the kids were ready, they opened the blinds and it was still dark- IT WAS 3AM!!!! And the parents told the kids, “April Fool’s”.

I think that might be fun to do for seminary (places where it is early morning). Anyway, I don’t have kids, am single and am definitely not a morning person. So even if I had kids and wished to play that joke on them, I would probably oversleep and not complete the prank!

What might be fun would be to pretend your ward has been asked to host 3 sets of missionaries for a short time and find those willing to take them in?

Hi- I also saw the raw egg (ie really apricots!) in a Women’s World magazine recently. In that one, they also use a type of curled gummy candy to resemble bacon! SO you get eggs and bacon!

The article had some other good things: you can make a pretend hotdog w/a twinkie: split it lengthwise. Then add 4 “midgee” tootsie rolls. Then add a 5 inch piece of string licorice (to look like ketchup). Then add chopped green gumdrops to resemble relish. We made this w/activity days tonight, fun to do! Our bishop dubbed them “Twinkie Dogs!”

The article also had realistic bread to go w/the “fried egg”– they suggest using pound cake (cook it on skillet for short time).

THe best trick I ever heard of was played on my mission comp! She went to a dinner at someone’s home and said she thought the family was crazy when they started eating the flower pot for dessert! (A big pot w/icecream, ground oreo crumbs to look like dirt, and plastic or satin flowers. If you use real ones, wrap stem in foil) Put masking tape at bottom of a real planter so no drips through the container!)

Anyway, I’m sure most have seen that idea done, but it is fun to see and can look quite realistic!

Sorry for rambling, it was a long and crazy day.