Groundhog Day

Although I think Groundhog Day is the most pointless day printed on the calendar, I'm still going to try to remember what I can about it.

2013. In the day, my wardie Morgan Crockett and I had to go out knocking on people's doors to get them to sign up on our ward website. I didn't have a tablet or a smart phone, so I was less efficient, and several people lied to me about whether they'd sign up. (Remember that question, "Are you honest in your dealings?") While Morgan was talking to people at the Elite complex, I was standing out on the sidewalk, kicking ice around to try to get it to melt. I looked up at the mountains in the east, and I watched a van drive down the road, and I began to think that it was too incredible that our world happened by chance.

2011. That evening, I went to a test review session for my astronomy class in the BNSN. There was a girl there with some vending machine pretzels, and we were talking about the winter solstice. The TA said, "The sun is highest in the sky at the winter solstice." The pretzel girl said, completely serious, "Is that in August?" The TA politely responded to her question, but I couldn't believe a university student was asking such a question! Then I went to the humanities computer lab in the JFSB and posted the story on the Overheard at BYU Facebook page. I think I had to work on a project for my Web publishing class, and then I probably went to institute.


2010. My family came down to Provo because they needed to get our Subaru, since it wasn't working. When I got in the Suburban, Allie looked greedily at my planner, because for some reason she loved to look at my planner. Part of the object in her coming was for me to observe her speech for my introductory ELang class, and I got to observe those things. She said something to me, and said, "Do you renember [sic] that?" They took me to dinner at Brick Oven. I got a meal that came with a cookie, and when I got it, Allie began looking greedily (again) at it, sticking her tongue out. Susanne saw what she was doing, and said, "No!" But I gave her a piece of the cookie anyway, and she said the chocolate chip tasted like Nutella. (I was less strict about eating seasonal desserts then.) They asked Allie what her favorite February holiday was, and she said, "Valentime's [sic] Day and Groundog [sic] Day." Then we got back to my apartment, and they called a tow truck to take the car. I had to take Allie up to my apartment to use the bathroom. Then Allie was sitting on her mom's lap in the car, and Susanne pulled the door shut, and it closed on Allie's fingers. She began crying, so Susanne asked me if I could get some ice for her fingers. My mom also needed to use the bathroom, so she was following me up the stairs. I went really fast to get Allie's ice, and my mom got mad. My going faster than my mom didn't do much good, though, because my mom ended up taking the ice back down anyway. I asked my roommate James if she could use our bathroom, so he left the bedroom. As my mom was leaving, she asked him if he was keeping me in line (or something like that), and I thought it was awkward, because James hated all people. Later James asked me about my dinner and what I got. He didn't know Brick Oven served anything besides pizza.

2009. I remember our dinner at the Johnsons', a recently converted family whose daughter was getting baptized that week. They served us a meal that was tater tots on sour cream. I had tater tot casseroles multiple times in that area (but never before and never after), but I didn't like this one. Neither I nor Elder Wilson liked sour cream, but we pretended to like it. They offered us soda, and I didn't want one, but Elder Wilson wanted a Mountain Dew, and the nine-year-old daughter Danielle had a meltdown because she didn't get a Mountain Dew. Elder Wilson felt bad, but Jason (the dad) told him not to worry. Then we went over to the church to have them try on baptismal suits. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was a rather boring P-day. Elder Colton took almost two hours to email, and then we went to Spokane so they could play basketball. I was not pleased with the topics of conversation today. I think Elder Colton and Elder Wilson bring out the worst in each other. Elder Colton was shocked when I tried to bite him last night, but I warned him to be quiet.

"But the Johnsons had us for dinner--which was just all right--and then we went to the church so they could try on baptismal clothes. They seem really excited." 

2008. The zone leaders came to the house where we lived, and we watched President Hinckley's funeral on TV. Then Elder Gammon stayed in the area to work with me. We were walking around, and Elder Gammon said he felt impressed to knock on a house on Peone, but no one was home. When we were walking back to our house, he asked me if I shared the gospel with my friends before my mission. I told him that I didn't have any friends, but he didn't believe me. "Everyone has friends," he said, so I asked how he would define a friend. He said it was someone who you did things with. I told him that by that definition, I didn't have any friends. I told him a few anecdotes of irresponsible gospel sharing that I had done (or hadn't done). Then we drove over to a dinner appointment in the Northpointe Ward, and we tracted that street. The first guy told us not to come back. Another lady was not interested and said she had lived in Ogden. We knocked on one house and they didn't answer, but we heard a teenage boy say something like "I'm not a slut!" The next house was a member house. I was going to skip it, but Elder Gammon suggested talking to them anyway. So we knocked, and they let us in. We told them about our tracting experiences, and I relayed the experience we had had at the previous house, but I didn't realize that it probably wasn't appropriate for me to say that in their house. I asked how long it had been since the street had been tracted, and they said it was about a year. (That was my first area, so I thought that was too recent for comfort, but in later areas, I would have loved to find a street that hadn't been tracted in that time.) After dinner, a member in the Greenbluff Ward called and asked if we could come over. So I drove to their house, and they gave us some cinnamon rolls. We were meeting up with the other elders at Cold Stone, so Elder Gammon and I waited there. The last time we had met there, we had gotten ice cream, so I thought we were going to that time. Elder Gammon asked me, while we were waiting, if we should pray to start our fast. I said I wanted to wait, and he guessed that I wanted to get ice cream. But I said I wanted to wait for Elder Chun. We didn't get any ice cream. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today the zone leaders came here and we watched President Hinckley's funeral and had lunch with the Welshes. Then Elder Gammon stayed with me in our area. We walked to a referral who wasn't home but we stopped by a less-active on our way back. Then we tracted around our dinner appointment and had a member visit after Tina Andersen, the lady to whom we gave a blessing after her car crash, gave us cinnamon rolls."

 1997. Our primary chorister, Karen Brunner, had some sort of Groundhog Day activity for us in primary. She loved clipart, so she had a clipart groundhog, and then she had some pieces of paper that had the sun shining on the groundhog (meaning more winter), or a cloud preventing shadows (meaning spring). I don't remember what the point of it was.

1996. I think it was snowing, so when our principal, Mrs. Park, gave morning announcements, she said the groundhog must have seen its shadow.

1995. My mom told me that the groundhog hadn't seen its shadow, and everyone seemed to kind of think it was a big deal. I had never heard of Groundhog Day.