Sometimes funny, sometimes thoughtful, always a good time
Another six weeks have come and gone, and our little family in the Valley is changing again. We loved the missionaries in our first transfer, and again in our second, and now we’re saying goodbye to those in the third. Here’s a fine-looking bunch of guys:
And the rest of the zone:
A few are staying with us, and we’ll be gaining seven new missionaries. Four of them have just started their assignments, so they’ll be brand new to mission life. It’ll be fun.
Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight.
– Gordon B Hinckley
My friend Ryder is serving a mission in the St Charles area (small world!) and sent me this photo from a local game store:
Just last week, I finished reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the tenth time, so Middle-earth was on my mind. It was really cool to see this wall-sized map of the fantasy world. We traded a few emails about it, and it turns out he’s almost— almost– as big a nerd about Lord of the Rings as I am.
I keep hoping that the board games I bought a couple months ago will come in handy. But when we get together with the missionaries, they typically want to play sports (which is great) or more simple games. Today we played a rousing game of Scum. Sisters Maravilla and Olsen were– in their words– the best scum. Here they’re doing their job of shuffling the gigantic cards:
After Scum, Pepper and I convinced the dozen missionaries that Catch Phrase would be a good time. Sure enough, it was an absolute riot. It was men versus women (mostly; Elder Steinhour played with the gals because there weren’t enough for balanced teams). The ladies took the first game and handed the guys a crushing defeat. The second game was much closer, with both teams neck-and-neck as we traded victory in each round. Sister Maravilla was hilarious to watch because she’d be sitting down when she got her word, but she’d gradually stand up as she gave clues, even pushing her chair back and getting more and more animated. There was a lot of screaming and cheering by both teams.
It all came down to the final round. The teams were tied, and tensions were high. Here’s what it looked like as we went through the last few words and hit the buzzer:
You could say it was… exciting.
About a month ago, we invited the four sister missionaries serving in the Valley to our place for a pizza night. It was a ton of fun, and the ladies loved making and baking their own pies.
Last week, we were doing apartment inspections… we have monthly appointments to make sure all the missionaries keep their homes clean, and we help them repair things that are broken or missing. We decided on a whim to award a pizza party to the companionship who had the cleanest apartment. Not surprisingly, it was the sisters. They asked if the other sisters could join us for the party. Of course four missionaries is more fun than two, so tonight we had all of them over and we made our pizzas.
When you’ve done something twice, I think it’s officially a “tradition”. So I guess we’ll offer the award again next month, and see if the guys can rise to the challenge…
A few days ago we saw a lighted traffic sign in town that said “El Grito – Bucklin Park – Sat 6pm”. We weren’t sure exactly what that meant, but upon returning home I looked it up. It turns out El Grito is short for El Grito de Dolores, the Cry of Dolores. That’s the event on September 16, 1810, when a Catholic priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang the bell at his church and gathered his congregation to start the movement that led to Mexico’s independence from Spain.
In short, El Grito is to Mexico what July Fourth is to America. Since we live in a city that’s over 80% Mexican, it didn’t surprise us that there was a big city-wide celebration this weekend.
The weather was a refreshingly cool 95 degrees, so we headed out. It’s about a mile from our apartment to Bucklin Park, and it felt like walking weather.
The park is quite large, and it was filled with thousands of people and dozens of booths. You could buy tons of Mexican flags and hats, any kind of taco you could imagine, and about five different varieties of snow-cone or shave-ice. There was definitely a fun carnival atmosphere.
When we arrived there were flamenco dancers doing their thing onstage:
Later, they were replaced by a mariachi band.
We enjoyed walking around and feeling the same sort of excitement from the crowd that you’d find at a Fourth of July carnival. Happy Independence Day, Mexico! Or, as they say, Viva Mexico!
It was back in October 2012 that I had my first In-N-Out burger. Thom and I were on a trip, and he insisted we go. He loves In-N-Out, and since there weren’t any near his home at the time, he wanted to take the opportunity when we were in southern Utah. Although my memory probably isn’t fully intact, I feel like he made many comments during our week together about how amazing that burger was going to be. He built it up to the point where it sounded like I’d have a religious experience as I bit into my five-dollar bun and beef.
Sadly, it wasn’t so. The burger could only be described as mediocre. I’d been betrayed. I’d been let down. Let down in a soul-crushing way that made me wary of In-N-Out for years.
In later years I’ve returned to In-N-Out a handful of times, always at the insistence of others. I’ve tended to shy away from it, knowing in my heart that it just doesn’t measure up to what Thom had made it out to be.
As it happens, we live two blocks from an In-N-Out, and it’s always busy. Shortly after moving here, I snapped a photo as I drove past, just to send it to Thom. It was around nine at night, and the drive-through line literally snaked around the restaurant, through the parking lot, and into the street. An entire traffic lane was blocked by people waiting for their mediocre burgers! And it’s that way every night.
That many people can’t be wrong, I guess, so today Pepper and I finally relented.
It’s still mediocre. But it’s cheap (in a time when even fast food is becoming frighteningly expensive) and for the price, it’s actually pretty good. So yeah, maybe we’ll come back a few more times while we live here.
If nothing else, I’ll do it for Thom.
We coordinate and lead a small scripture study class for young adults, and although we’re technically the teachers, lately we’ve invited the students to each teach a small part of our lesson that week. It’s worked surprisingly well, and it feels like they really enjoy an opportunity to study and prepare a five- or ten-minute presentation on what they’ve learned.
Today one of the women talked about faith, and she mentioned what Jesus taught:
Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Matthew 17:20
As a fun demonstration, she brought a jar of… mustard seeds! (She loves to cook, and apparently she uses them in some of her recipes.) Right beside the pen on the table you can see a single seed:
I love object lessons: they’re a good way to focus everyone’s attention in a class, and really add depth to the message. It was great to see an actual mustard seed while we talked about faith!
In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal.
Seneca
I’ve been thinking about how to decorate our little apartment, and my first experiment in printing a poster-size photo and framing it failed pretty spectacularly. The print was far more expensive than it should’ve been, and the frame I bought at a thrift store (much cheaper than a custom-cut frame from Michael’s or wherever) ended up breaking. In the end, we have a wrinkled, sad-looking little print hanging on a dark wall.
I realized that standard 4×6″ photo prints at Walmart are really cheap, and can cover a lot of wall space. Instead of large prints and frames, why not have a hundred– or hundreds– of little prints stuck to the wall?
Bam.
There are about seventy photos from the first quarter of our missionary adventures. Pepper pointed out that I’ve already used about half of the wall space in the living room, but I figure I’ll just wrap around to the other walls later.
For now, it’s fun to see reminders of the awesome people we’ve met and things we’ve done on our mission as we’re heading out the door or sitting on the couch. More to come!