In the wee hours of the night I found my mind playing with a concatenation of weird and outlandish things that deserve explanations.

For instance, how weird and outlandish is it that I would sit down in general conference beside a man who had a picture of my son on the electronic device in his pocket for the reason that his eldest grandson and my youngest son were in the same MTC district in far-off Chile?

How weird and outlandish is it that the number one reason that senior couples do not serve missions is because of their pets?

How weird and outlandish is it that I, who lived next door to the deepest gorge in the U.S. for 50 years without making the trip to see it, would now be on my way to spend the next two years in Vanuatu, a place I’d barely heard of?

How weird and outlandish is it that 80,333 otherwise sane and stable people would leave their homes, families, and businesses, and go off into far corners of the world for one or two years to serve people they’ve never met, and pay many thousands of dollars of their own money to do it?

How weird and outlandish is it that of my 10 children and soon-to-be 46 grandchildren there isn’t a black sheep among them?

How weird and outlandish is it that perfectly healthy me should have had a gall bladder attack and removal four months before I was to leave for an area where good medical help would probably not be available?

How weird and outlandish is it that nearly every other individual in my MTC district had similar tales about operations, removals of previously unknown melanomas, and other life-enhancing and life-extending procedures that happened to become necessary just before their own departures on missions?

How weird and outlandish is it that I would sit down beside a young elder in the first session of general conference, ask him a single question, receive a stuttered, 2-word, 30-second answer, and end up giving him a priesthood blessing after the second session?

How weird and outlandish is it that two of the senior elders in our group of 120 senior missionaries would get to looking at and wondering about each other’s names, and suddenly realize that they had been missionary companions 50 years previously during their missions to Denmark, and that they were now returning to the same place with their spouses?

These are all very peculiar situations that kept my mind quite busy during the night.  They are all things that really need answers.  Some of them I’m capable of answering, but others I can’t, especially the one about the family dog being the reason a couple can’t respond to the pleas of a prophet.  Peter said that we’re a peculiar people, and I certify that his observation is true.