My Name is Mud - Mission Stories, #2

My Name Is Mud is a humorous, heartfelt prequel to Elder Hammond and the Inspector, chronicling one missionary's earliest lessons in faith, humility, and endurance—most of which arrived disguised as chaos.

Fresh out of the Mission Training Center, Elder Wylson and twelve other missionaries are sent to Argentina… or at least that was the plan. When an airline misplaces its airplane, the group spends days stranded at LAX, praying for deliverance while discovering that faith can be tested just as thoroughly by boredom and bureaucracy as by hardship. Eventually airborne, Elder Wylson is deposited not into heroic certainty but into Pocito, a tiny town whose name literally means "little hole," where bicycles replace buses, onion fields stretch to the horizon, and nothing about missionary life unfolds according to plan.

Assigned companions who seem divinely selected to try his patience, Elder Wylson navigates companionship misunderstandings, grueling daily bike rides, illness, and the unexpected burden of leadership long before he feels ready for it. Along the way, he encounters unforgettable souls: a German matriarch whose stern exterior hides profound tenderness, a mischievous smoker with a poet's soul, and Juan Barros, whose family's journey toward baptism unfolds with the simplicity and power of the early Church.

Told with warmth, My Name Is Mud blends laugh-out-loud moments with quiet spiritual depth. Beneath the humor lies a deeply personal meditation on how God shapes His servants—not through perfection, but through patience; not through ease, but through love patiently given and unexpectedly received.

This is a story about growing up in the vineyard, discovering that grace often arrives on dusty roads, and learning that even in the smallest places, Heaven draws very near.