Sometime in March, Jeremy asked his dad if he thought it would be a good idea to surprise his mom on Mother's Day by flying in. Of course, it sounded like a great idea. As the weeks flew by, Elder Chamberlain thought of different ways to make the prank happen, but every plan broke down because of the problem of getting Jeremy from the airport. With just a week before Jeremy's arrival, Elder Chamberlain thought of a plan.
The Asia Area Presidency executive secretary and his wife make many airport runs to pick up various people. So Elder Chamberlain asked the Whitmans if they could pretend to need help picking up a visiting couple from Salt Lake City. However, this was also a time that the BYU Women's volleyball team would be visiting Hong Kong and Sister Chamberlain definitely wanted to watch them play volleyball. So Sister Whitman walked to our cubicle and asked us if we could pick up a couple who are on a church committee on Friday the 6th. Initially, Sister Chamberlain said, "Well, we think we'll be tied up that night, so don't count on us." Thinking quickly, Sister Whitman said, "Elder Wong wants it to be you who picks them up." Elder Wong is a counselor in the Area Presidency. We don't say No to Elder Wong. So Sister Chamberlain agreed to do it.
However, this escalation of the "lie" worried Elder Chamberlain, who quickly realized that they see Elder Wong quite often during a typical week, and he might spoil the surprise if Sister Chamberlain tried to talk to him about this "assignment." Fortunately, Elder Wong was due to be out almost the entire week, with only one day to worry about his presence in the office.
As the day approached, Elder Chamberlain created a "travel itinerary" for a fictitious couple whose picture was taken from Google Images. Their name was "Goodson" and a complete (and bogus) itinerary was created with the only true element of the itinerary being the actual flight number and arrival information for Jeremy's flight.
By the date of the prank, the entire office was in on the hoax. All the other couples were anxious to see how it turned out. Sister Whitman arrived early that morning to "head off" Elder Wong if he showed up early in the day, Some sister missionaries were so unable to keep up the "lie" they avoided Sister Chamberlain.
As the Chamberlains left for the airport, Elder Chamberlain picked up his camera under a pretext of taking pictures of this typical "duty" for missionary couples for a video he is creating (a real project). Sister Chamberlain was given a sign to hold at the arrival hall with the name of the arriving party: Goodson.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, Jeremy came through the wrong entryway into the arrival hall and so came from behind Sister Chamberlain rather than through the gate she was watching. The rest is history:
