Meet my great-grandfather William Brent Wright. He served a mormon mission to Tonga from 1909 to 1912. Before leaving for Tonga, he had never left his home state of Utah, so naturally his journal is full of funny stories.

Here is one of my favorite entries from his journal: “While on the ship Aorangi, there were several amusing incidents that happened, a few of them were: On coming close to the equator, we were told by one of the stewards that when we crossed the line (equator) that the steamer would give a big jump in order to cross over that line. And we boys being green took it all in and when we arrived at the above mentioned line (the equator), we asked the steward about that ‘big jump’ which the steamer was to take. And then? Well, you know the rest, the joke was on us!

We crossed the equator at noon on the 8th of May 1909. ~shared by @wetekia