There was a preacher whose wife was expecting a baby so he went before the congregation and asked for a raise. After much discussion, they passed a rule that whenever the preacher's family expanded, so would his paycheck. After 6 children, this started to get expensive and the Congregation decided to hold another meeting to discuss the preacher's salary. There was much yelling and bickering about how much the clergyman's additional children were costing the church. Finally, the Preacher got up and spoke to the crowd, "Children are a gift from God," he said. Silence fell on the congregation. In the back pew, a little old lady stood up and in her frail voice said, "Rain is also a gift from God, but when we get too much of it, we wear rubbers." And the congregation said, "Amen."

A man’s relatives from Mexico came to visit for the first time, and he wanted to give them a true American experience. He decided to take them to a football game. Unfortunately, by the time they got to the stadium, the only seats left were in the nosebleeds, partially blocked by a giant support column. The man was embarrassed. He apologized to his uncle and said, "I'm so sorry the seats aren’t better. We can hardly see the field from here." But his uncle waved him off and said, "Don’t worry about it! I’m just happy to be here." The game started, and the man noticed his uncle was incredibly cheerful, even more so than he expected. He clapped along, cheered loudly, and had a smile plastered across his face the entire time. After the game ended, the man couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer. “Uncle, I’m so glad you had a good time, but tell me, why were you so happy? We could barely see the game!” His uncle beamed and said, “Well, I was so touched by how nice everyone is in America! The entire stadium stood up and asked, ‘Jose, can you see?’

It was a celebratory mood with the boys at NASA; they had just made the scientific achievement of a lifetime. As they were uncorking a bottle of champagne, Dr. Lowenstein, the head scientist at NASA, asked everyone to be quiet as he had received a congratulatory phone call from the President of the United States. He picked up a special red phone, and spoke into it. "Mr. President," said Dr. Lowenstein, grinning broadly, "after twelve years of hard research and billions of dollars spent, we have finally found intelligent life on Mars." He listened for a second, and his smile gradually disappeared, replaced by a frown. He said, "But that’s impossible... we could never do it. Yes Mr. President,” and hung up the phone. He addressed the crowd of scientists staring at him curiously. "I have some bad news," he said, "the President said that now that we’ve found intelligent life on Mars... he wants us to try to find it in Congress."

A catholic man's lifelong dream was to meet the pope. For years and years, he scrimped, scrounged, and planned his lavish trip to Italy. Wanting to look his best for the pontiff, he had a custom-fitted suit tailored to his exact measurements and bought the finest Italian leather boots money could buy. The next morning he awoke before the dawn to make his way to Vatican City to meet the pope on his morning walk through his crowd of devout followers. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd, wanting to get as close to the Holy Father as possible. The grand doors opened and the pope emerged, greeting his followers, shaking hands, and offering blessings. The man caught the pope's eye, and the pope smiled and started walking towards him. This was it! He was finally going to get to share words with God's representative on Earth! Just as he was approaching the man, the pope noticed a downtrodden beggar lying in the ditch opposite the man. The pope changed course, made way for the beggar, bent down, and whispered something in the poor man's ear. The beggar nodded, got up, and walked off. The pope, now on the other side of the crowd, continued on away from the man. The man was devastated. He had missed his only chance to fulfill his ultimate dream. As the crowd dispersed, he noticed the beggar in the distance. A plan emerged in his mind. He made his way up to the beggar and said, "Sir, I would like to offer you a trade. I will give you my suit, my boots, and all of the cash in my wallet in exchange for your rags and tattered shoes. I believe this act of humility is my best chance to finally meet the pope." The poor man quickly agreed, of course, and the two men traded clothes. The next morning, the man made his way back to the Vatican and proceeded to lie down in the exact spot the beggar was the day before. The grand doors opened once again, and the pontiff emerged to meet his people. As the pope was walking through the crowd, the man saw that the pope was heading his way! His plan was going to work! Sure enough, the pope came over to him, knelt down and whispered, "I thought I told you yesterday to get the heck out of here!"

Jesus was walking along one day, when He came upon a group of people surrounding a lady of ill repute. It was obvious that the crowd was preparing to stone her, so Jesus made His now-famous statement, "Let him who has no sin cast the first stone." The crowd was shamed and one by one began to turn away. All of a sudden, a lovely little woman made her way through the crowd. Finally getting to the front, she tossed a pebble towards the woman. Jesus sighs and says, "I really hate it when you do that, Mom."

The devil was sitting at the gates of hell when an old man suddenly arrived in a burst of flames, looking confused and lost. The Devil looked at his paperwork, and frowned. He was unable to find this old man’s data file. “This can’t be right,” the old man said, looking at the Devil accusingly, “I’ve been a good man my whole life!” The Devil nodded apologetically, most people said this when they arrived at Hell. “Why don’t you start with how you died and we’ll figure it out.” He said The old man signed and said: “Well, I was out with minding my grandchildren, enjoying a fun day out. I don’t get the grandchildren often because my eyesight is starting to fade. But we were having the most wonderful time.. And that’s when everything went crazy! Out of nowhere, I spotted the largest most grotesque mouse I’ve ever seen moving towards us. It was absolutely enormous! And that’s when it moved. Straight towards the grandchildren first, limbs outstretched. You don’t know where mice have been, what if it had bitten one of them? Can you imagine if they got rabies on my watch?” “So what did you do?” The Devil whispered, entranced by the story. He was munching on a box of popcorn. The old man continued, “You don’t get how big this mouse was! Radiation it must’ve been. Too many phones these days, that’s what causes it. I did the only think I could! I grabbed my walking stick and I cracked it over the head. Now my eye sight isn’t that good anymore, but I whacked it good! The kids started screaming at this point. You know how they get when you have to kill an animal. But I needed to keep going. You see with mice, you need to see their guts to know their dead. Otherwise they’ll be back with others.” “So you killed it?” The Devil asked. Some of his demigods had come to listen to the story. The old man nodded, “By golly I did! Guts and all were splattered for all to see. The kids had lost their mind at this point. Tears everywhere. A crowd had gathered as well, all screaming at the sight. It was at this point though, that the exertion caught up with me. I felt my heart give way. I must have suffered a heart attack. Next thing I know, I’m here.” “Well,” the Devil said, concerned, “This doesn’t seem to add up. Let me just give Heaven a call and we’ll try and see what’s going on here. The Devil pulled up a phone from thin air and dialed a number. “Hey Jesus,” the Devil said, “I think I’ve got one of yours here. His story checks out. Must have been a mix up.” The Devil nodded as a voice on the phone spoke back to him. He gave the old man a silent celebratory thumbs up as the voice continued. The Devil covered the phone speaker with his hand, turned to the old man and said, “You’re all good, they just want to know where you were when you died.” The old man nodded, “Oh that’s easy, I was at Disneyland.”