God and Satan Both Have Flying Saucers

1975.12.4

I see that it has already been a whole month since my last entry, a whole month since I have had a chance to share with myself.

The flower trip was great and lasted 24 days, which took us to Phoenix, Albuquerque, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, Galveston, Austin, El Paso, Phoenix again, Las Vegas and Reno. Our team was centered up by Matthew and had Annie Kaufman, Annie Redman, Linda Gallagher, Nelda French and Tom Sanders. We called it MFT -- mobile fundraising team. I learned the UC had a national MFT with teams all over the country and that they were not short trips like ours. The national MFT was always out fundraising.

In Dallas I went into men's hair salon and the guy who owned it was not into roses, but something made me stick around. I saw above the doorway to his office a painting of the Rapture. There was the Dallas skyline with a section of highway in the foreground and a cemetery. In the clouds was Jesus. Planes were crashing and cars wrecking and all of the souls of the dead were flying up to the clouds. It was a wild painting. I was fascinated. Also in his office was a 3-D picture of Jesus on the cross. Really gruesome.

After a couple minutes the guy came out and asked me if I believed it would happen, meaning the Rapture. I wanted to say it already did, but instead I just said yes. I told him that I was selling roses for New Education Development, a Christian youth group. Straight away he bought a $10 dozen.

One of the strangest experiences were selling in the 2001 building in Dallas. I went up to the top floor, where the 2001 Executive Club was, with a notion of selling some roses and then working my way down. But the way was blocked, so I said I was delivering the flowers from Angelina's Florist on Locust Street. That was a trick one of the sisters had taught me. Straight away they started looking through the phone book to the call the place. Every time they asked me questions about it, I said I didn't know, it was my first day.

Finally I left the executive club without selling any and was working my way down the building when the security guard caught me. But he didn't ask me to leave, only to come with him. Down in his office we went through the same question-and-answer routine and the phone book trip and he finally called the police.

It turned out there had been a bomb scare in the building the day before and my phony story and bundles of flowers made me look pretty suspicious. Finally they checked out that I didn't have a bomb and escorted me out of the building and into one of the squad cars. The cop asked me if I had ever been in a mental hospital or in jail and that I looked like I was spaced out on drugs, all to try to get me to do something or make some reaction. But I was calm, even when he said this would be my first time in jail and he was writing me up for being a suspicious person. Finally he let me out and I sold a dozen on the street waiting for Matthew, for which I was already an hour late.

Tom had some guy pull a gun on him the night before at a drive-in hamburger joint. So we decided to split Dallas and head for Houston, which was HK. The most significant thing that happened was on Sunday.

I was uninspired. I was walking in Sam Houston Park across from the Warwick Hotel and I met a woman who witnessed to me. It was so incredible. HF was really speaking through her. She was so devoted. She said when she saw me, she was reminded of a soldier with an armor breast plate. She said that God told her to tell me not to give up, even when the going was tough. She had the holy spirit and she got goose bumps when it came to her, making the hair on her arm stand up, which happened three times while she was talking to me about flying saucers she had seen, that God has his saucers and Satan has his and sometimes she looks in the sky and can see spiritual battles going on, and she talked about the Sphinx in Egypt near the Great Pyramids and how the hieroglyphics on it predict when the messiah come, and Jesus would return by the end of 1976 and that we were in the Last Days. Finally she took my hand and said a prayer to Jesus that he might be with me and guide me and when I opened my eyes she was crying and had her other hand held out as if she were actually holding someone's hand, and she said she had just received a vision of my mission or destiny but that she could not tell me and then told me not to share the experience with anyone. And although the temptation is sometimes strong, I have been true to her trust. I gave her a rose just as I left. She also spoke in tongues and said she had been serving the Lord since she was nine. She was so beautiful. I will never forget her.

Other than this, selling a $10 dozen to Davy Crockett, who said he was a descendent of the real Davy Crockett, was the only other thing I care to remember. I paid a lot of indemnity.

Matthew said that HF often chooses a strong person to pay the indemnity for the team, and since I didn't really sell all that much, and the rest of the team sold really well, I was inspired to be in that position. We were in Las Vegas over Thanksgiving, and when I called home everyone was great, but sad that we weren't together. Matthew read to us about the Pilgrims and how they had seed corn but refused to eat it even though they were starving because they needed it to plant in the spring. It gave me chills.

I drove the van back home while Matthew and everyone slept. We were on the highway in the desert and the sun was just coming up. It was very cold and there was a little snow on the ground, but the sky was clear. I played "Dark Side of the Moon" in my head from beginning to end as we sped toward San Francisco.

When we got back home we went to Boonville for a training session and I was in the advanced session in Alexander's group, which was great and so inspiring. Last night we went over to Hearst Street and saw two really heavy films from Korea on Communism and how the North Koreans are arming to invade the south.