October 28

As we get closer to Halloween, it's time for me to remember what happened three days before All Hallows' Eve.

2012. I wore my jack-o-lantern tie to church. As I came home with my roommate Scott, we saw some people putting up lights on the house across the street. I probably had leftover pizza for dinner. That night I wrote a blog post.

2011. I would have watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and I wrote a blog post.

2009. We had to get up at 1:00 a.m. to drive from Clarkston to Spokane in order to go to the temple. An old man from the Clarkston elders' ward worked there, so he was driving us. I tried to sleep in the car, but it didn't work. When we got to the temple, he went in for meetings, while we missionaries slept in the van. That was the only time I was really able to fall asleep. Then we went in. Since we were dependent on riding back with that brother, we were there long enough to do two sessions. After one of them, I talked to some members of my first area, but they didn't really remember me. Elder  Tamblyn and Elder Critchfield did initiatories instead of another endowment session, which annoyed the temple workers. I wasn't able to stay awake very well. After we were done, Elder Masten had a conversation with one of the temple workers about wrestling (I won't describe how that one came about). Then the member we were with took us to Denny's. (That's one thing I miss--free meals all the time.) We drove back through Idaho, and the member had to stop at the cabin of his son, or something like that. Elder Critchfield went in with him while the rest of us slept in the car. It took a long time, which annoyed us, because we were losing valuable P-day time. They finally came out, and they had a stinking garbage bag with rotted turkey meat. Elder Critchfield held it out the window while we drove to the nearest Dumpster. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was a very loong day. Elder Critchfield had told us we would have to leave at 4:00 A.M. But he was wrong. We had to leave at 2:00. If I had known it was going to be that early I probably would have declined. I had a hard time sleeping on the way up. We got to the temple about 4:30, and slept in the car until about 5:30. That was the only time I could actually sleep and it wasn't long enough.

"We did a 6:00 session. President (now Brother) Wells, Brother Jones, and Brother (now President) Grimes from my first area were there. Elder Tamblyn and Elder Critchfield did initiatories while Elder Tamblyn [I meant Masten] and I did another session. I had a harder time focusing in that one as the hunger and fatigue were getting to me. On the way out I saw Ashley Guiler's fellowshipper from the Greenbluff ward (I can't remember his name).

"We went to Denny's, and then headed back. I slept a little better, but we were waylaid because we stopped at our ride's son-in-law's house. Elder Critchfield went in with him and over an hour later they came out with a bag of stinky, rotting meat.

"When we got back we only had time to shop. Then we saw Elijah, then the Hugheses. We put on thermals, and saw a PI named Melissa, then visited the Loves, then met with Bishop.

"I have understandably been tired all day."

2008. We had zone conference up near Deer Park. I think when we got there, Sister Shaw was singing in the chapel, and I thought it was an elder with a tenor voice. When we got in line to greet President Clark, he told me that "Sister Turnbridge got baptized." I didn't know what he was talking about, but eventually I realized he meant Kristi Turnidge, whom we had taught and who got married to the less-active Brother Turnidge right before I transferred out of my first area. There are other things I remember, but my journal describes them pretty well:
"Today is my eleven month mark. Exactly one year ago, I taught nursery for the last time, giving out pumpkin candy to the kids.

"This morning (and afternoon) we drove through Mead. It's mostly as I remembered, except for a few things. The Pehl house, the home of the murder, is now remodeled. A church being built then is now complete. Signs are plastered saying the contract for the big freeway is complete.

"President Clark told me that Kristy Turnidge got baptized in Montana. At first I didn't know whom he meant because he said "Sister Turnbridge." Also he asked for people who know Spanish, so I told him I did. All of our MTC group was there; it was Northland and Spokane zones. Sister Van Noy badly wanted a picture but Elder Maxfield and Elder Hansen both left before we could take it. [We did take a picture of just three of us, but that picture apparently is on the one memory card I haven't been able to find from my mission.]

"Elder Hightower came up to hug me while I was next to President. I didn't hug back and President tried to get me to, but I said I didn't like to hug. Then President lifted his elbow and said touching elbows will be our hug replacement. He can be kind of silly sometimes. I feel a lot less uncomfortable around him.

"Elder Condie tried to hug me, but I blocked him and told him to get his claws off of me.

"On our way back from Airway Heights, where we stayed last night, we saw Joel in Reardan. Then we decided to see some distant potentials near Davenport. We entered a shady gully with lots of trees. It was more like someplace up north of Spokane. It was too dark to determine the house we needed, but now we know where it is.

"Right now we're staying at Sister Stackhouse's old house. It's not the cleanest."

2007. It was my turn to teach nursery. The lesson was "I can be honest," so I decided to test their honesty by giving them candy pumpkins and then asking who didn't get one. Only one kid said they didn't get one, but I think they were too young to really know what they were saying. I also brought jack-o-lantern pictures for them to color, but apparently that was too sacrilegious and some other teachers printed off pictures that said "I can be honest." They let them color the pumpkins at the end of nursery.

2006. My dad had considered going to Fillmore, but my sister convinced him otherwise. My family had made brownies, and I tried to come up with excuses to eat them. There was a Munsters marathon that day, and we also watched Frankenweenie. I think we vacuumed the basement.

1995. I went to Boo at the Zoo with my cousins. I was wearing my mummy costume. They gave us little plastic trick-or-treat bags that had a picture of a witch made out of candy on them. We kids filled our bags, and my brother David got a solitary piece of candy near the butterfly exhibit. I remember talking with Chancey near the fish exhibit, near the place with the fake jail. Later we got our faces painted; I told the woman I wanted a mummy on my face. Then we went to my grandparents' house. They had a fire going, and I remember thinking that we couldn't get the balloons near the fire, because they would pop.

1994. David was having his birthday party with a few friends, playing video games. I remember they had some Doritos that had a Halloween picture on the bag. My cousins were also all there, because their mom was having a baby.