Mystery Man

You know when you meet someone, you say your name, shake their hand, and all the person says in response is hello, AND THE PERSON DOESN'T TELL YOU THEIR OWN NAME??? Why does this happen?

At church today, a man we'd never seen before approached us and said "How have you been??!" as though we were old friends. "Good news," he continued, "I'm your hometeacher! Can we come over today!?" Of course we said yes, and he was acting like we knew him, so even when we introduced ourselves, he just smiled and said nothing and now we're past the point where we can ask him his name without feeling like we have poop in the part of our brain that allows socially appropriate behavior.

So, all day we have been trying to figure out how to find out who this man is... and finally we succeeded. Your challenge: see if you can guess which of the following options we chose.

1. Said, "Some people call me Gurrbonzo. Now, what sort of nicknames did people used to give you??" and then acted natural as we listened intently for name hints.

2. Told stories in the third person until it rubbed off and he started doing it, too.

3. Said, "Let's go by first names. What's yours again?" and then scoured the ward list for people named Bob* (not his real name).

4. Asked for his phone number, then compared it with each number on the ward list until we found a match.

5. Put on nametags before he got here, then smiled when he showed up. "We think this makes everyone more comfortable," we said gently, then handed him a pen and watched him write his own nametag.

6. Asked our neighbors to watch out the window and then tell us who came over.

7. "Did you bring your scriptures? Are they engraved? May I see them?"

8. "No way! Are you seriously 45!? You look 30! I can't believe it! Let me see your license!"