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While Alex was on his mission, he was encouraged to keep a journal, recording his experiences daily. Most missionaries want to do that so they can look back in later years and remember the things they did and the people they met. Well, apparently Alex stalled out roughly a year into his mission, and didn’t continue writing in his journal. Now back home, he decided it would be really cool to have all of that, so he’s catching up by looking through his appointment book.

Apparently his appointment book contains daily notes and commentary about visits he made, people he taught, and activities with his companion. He says it’ll remind him of what to write.

It’ll be interesting to see if he catches up on a year of journaling in the next month or so before he heads off to college…

In the days following Halloween, I dropped by Walmart to buy a couple of bags of cheap candy. Over the years I’ve learned that candy is a powerful motivator for teenagers in the early morning, so I incorporate it into my seminary lessons from time to time.

Today I cracked open a big bag of assorted chocolate candies: 240 pieces of Twix, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, and Snickers. Of those four, I love three. Snickers just aren’t that good, and I tend to avoid them.

Imagine my chagrin when I poured out a few candy bars for my first taste, and saw this:

Since Snickers should be one-fourth of the total volume of candy in the bag, I would expect a commensurate ratio when I dumped eleven little bars from the bag. Nope. Ten of eleven are Snickers.

This doesn’t bode well for how the rest of the bag is going to go…

Alex is in the market for a laptop for college, so he and I have been looking at the various options available. He’s narrowed down his search to a Dell XPS or an Asus Zenbook.

On the Dell web site, you can get a pretty “loaded” XPS for $1,000. I have an account rep at Dell for my hosting business, since I’ve purchased over a hundred servers from them, so I figured I’d contact her to see if she could offer a bit of a discount. For, you know, being a long-time client who’s spent well over a hundred thousand dollars there and stuff.

She came back with a quote for $1,600.

Umm. So I reminded her that the web site price– for the average plebeian consumer– was $600 less. For the same hardware. She apparently hadn’t noticed that, so she put together another quote for me.

$1,300.

I was a little flabbergasted again. She explained that buying it through a corporate channel means I can get two years of Dell support, instead of just one. Wow! What a bargain! If this laptop croaks in a year I’m going to be very, very disappointed in Dell’s products. (I have servers that have been running 24/7 for almost fifteen years.)

Anyway, I told her no thanks and if Alex decides to go with the Dell, he can just buy it through the web site. What a surreal experience.

I bought something on Amazon and received some kind of mysterious “Extra Savings”.

I have no idea why, but I won’t complain…

What do you believe?

I asked that question of my seminary class this morning.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect; often deep questions elicit a few wisecracks, silence, and occasionally a profound, thoughtful answer. I guess it wasn’t surprising when one girl said, “I believe I’m sixteen years old!” Taking it in stride– and aiming for a way to talk about faith, which was my goal– I replied with, “Well, your parents told you you’re sixteen. Do you trust them? Do you truly know without a doubt that’s true?” That provoked a few chuckles but I could tell the mental wheels were turning for a few of the kids.

Imagine my surprise when another girl raised her hand and said quietly, “I believe I can accomplish anything.”

I didn’t have a response for that beyond, “Wow, that’s awesome!” Because, hey, it is awesome. I love that a high-school girl has that kind of self-confidence. She’s going far.

It’s been twenty-five months since Alex headed to Peru for his mission. He had an amazing time, but all good things come to an end, and despite wanting to stay and continue the work, he came home today.

Wow. What an amazing feeling to see him after two years– when the only communication we really had was via a weekly email message (and even that was spotty at times). It was immediately obvious that he’d grown as a person: he’s more thoughtful and mature, although he discovered to his chagrin that he’s not as tall as Zaque.

We headed home from the airport, and when we were home I noticed his shoes.

That’s two years of walking miles every day through the dusty, rocky streets of Lima.

It was also cool to see his passport, showing the day he left and the day he returned:

Now we’ll have two months to hang out with him until he heads off to BYU for college. We have some weird Peruvian soda in the fridge…

… and who knows what else is still to come. I’m waiting for him to whip up a big bowl of suri for us…

Well, last night was the tournament to finish the fall ultimate league. My team’s record was abysmal. We went 2-12 for the season, which is the worst team I’ve ever played with. And yet, the whole team was a barrel of fun… we were positive every week, had a great time together, shrugged off our losses, and celebrated our wins. After our games we went to grab some food together, and almost the entire team went every week (most teams get maybe 3-4 people for social hour after games). In short, despite how much we sucked on the scoreboard, we were one of the most fun teams I’ve ever been on.

Every season there’s a survey to the players, and for the first time there was a question specifically about the team captains. How did they do? Did they promote a positive atmosphere? Did they help players improve in ultimate? The survey was anonymous, but I was tickled to get this feedback:

So, I guess it wasn’t a total loss…

Today was our annual Halloween party in seminary (a three-year running tradition now) so of course I dressed up, along with my fellow teachers. It was a lot of fun. Jodi was the gold plates, and Suzanne was a dust bunny. GET IT?