A Mo’Bettah Haircut

We teach an English immersion class at Liahona High School in Tonga using the Book of Mormon to read each morning. 
We have twelve kids that are 15 to 18 years old and have been working hard to gain their trust. They are just starting to make comments and participate. 
I have also been working on a project in the evening to rebuild a house that burned down and some of the boys have been conscripted into serving by their Bishop.   
Finally, the boys are starting to open up and talk and tease with me.  In class on Monday, a few of the boys said that I needed a haircut to look like a missionary. 
Tongans wear their hair neatly cropped all the time.  After Eleisa said something, a couple of other boys chimed in and said that clearly, I needed to get my haircut. There was consensus amongst the boys. 
I didn’t think much of it.  I know that I am fashion challenged, but I have committed to assimilate and become Tongan when in Tonga, “When in Rome do as the Romans do.” 
I have done my best to look and act like a local, including eating a feast for any reason whatsoever.  I eat taro and other assorted roots, eat barbeque chicken (which isn’t barbecued at all), and eat pork, beef, and even roast dog three times a day.  I feel like I am doing my best to honor the Tongan culture. 
On Tuesday, a couple of my boys from my BOM reading class showed up at our house and said I needed a haircut. 
When I say boys, I mean BIG boys.  Not your 135 pound dripping wet blue-eyed freckle-faced boy from San Juan County that gets their growth spurt after they go on their mission. 
Eleisa is 17, not done growing and is probably 6’3” and 300 pounds. He could be mistaken for Shrek if he was green.  When he says, “Elder Torres”, which is the only name he calls me, “you need a haircut”, I mostly feel like I should hearken unto his words. 
He fills the doorway as he is standing at my front door with a grin and some clippers.  Their broken English is not crystal clear. After all, that is why he is in my English immersion class.
But Shrek and his buddy brought their clippers with them and he kept telling me, “Don’t have fear.  I do this many times.  Missionaries need short hair.  You look good.  Sister Torres like you Mo’Bettah.”   
My dilemma is that for the last 40 years, my too kind and loving wife is the only person that has cut my hair. 
There are many reasons for this, one I am cheap, I don’t like people touching my hair, and everybody else tries to update my look. 
I haven’t changed my style of hair since 1978, when I was listening to the Doobie Brothers on my 8-track tapes and cruising Main Street. 
I am determined to die with the same hair style. I mean, after 40 years of living comfortably inside my box with the lid closed tightly shut, why change now?  But I really want to reach the boys and bond, so I take the plunge and decide to let Shrek and the boys cut my hair. 
I can do hard things.  So I consent, sign all the appropriate waivers, have my too kind and loving wife video this for posterity and sit down on the chair like a lamb to the slaughter, like a sheep to the shearer, like a….oh you get my point. 
I know I am going to have problems with my new hairdo because for the last 40 years, I have combed my hair the exact same way. 
Now my too kind and loving wife says, “Oh no.  You don’t blow dry this you just ruffle it up and mess it up on top so that it is kinda spiky.” 
I want to point out that combing one’s hair is to bring it in to compliance, to give it a certain uniformity in direction, to look as if one had spent time grooming oneself. 
Not to make it uniformly messy or spiky or anything else unruly, unkept, uncombed and wanting for a mirror and comb. 
Believe me when I tell you that I am not particular when it comes to how I look.  Often, I walk around with a spot on my shirt, or my fly unzipped until my too kind and loving wife says, “You’re not going out like that are you?” 
Note that it was a question, but it was not meant as a question.  It was clear that it was an order to not even think about leaving the house until I fixed the problem, and she gave the “Okay you won’t embarrass me by looking like a homeless man down on his luck.” 
As I sit on the chair with Shrek towering over me, I know exactly how Turbo felt when we took him in for a bath and haircut for the first time. 
After $100 for a spiffy haircut, the first thing Turbo did when he came home was find a dead deer carcass and roll around in it. 
I could so relate.  I go in the bathroom and look in the mirror, I suck in my gut and look at my new haircut and yell across the room to my too kind and loving wife, “Hey Sister Torres, you know I do look Mo’Bettah!”