When I lived in Ploiesti, Romania as a missionary, while serving with Sora Parent, we had a funny experience. We had gone to a little shop where we found some canned peaches. We were greeted with the typical, "Spuneti!" It means, speak. We had spotted the peaches and decided to purchase them. We told the woman at the cash register what we wanted. Her reply, "That's our last can of peaches." We again asked to purchase the peaches. Our second request was met with the aforementioned response. We may even have asked for them a third time only to be met with the same response as before.
These were the thoughts running through my head:
If you sell us your last can of peaches, you can order more. We will come back and buy them, too. You will make money. That's good.
I don't think she would have appreciated that little lesson on capitalism.
Did we get the peaches? You bet!
Oh, by the way, every missionary I ever served with, the missionaries before me and the missionaries who served right after me have stories just like this.
