April Fools' Day

April Fools' Day isn't really a day I care about, but I will remember what I can about it anyways.

2013. We were having FHE at our bishop's house, so I rode with Joel DeVore up to Bishop's. On the way there, one of the passengers was playing solitaire on his laptop. They were talking about The Onion, and I said that on April Fool's Day the Onion should run real news. When we got there, I admired Bishop's granite boulder, like I usually do. (It's inside his house.) When we left, I remember there was a discussion about dubstep. I was impressed with Google's treasure map theme, and I appreciated the Delicate Arch and Salt Lake Temple pictures they put on the map.

2012. I watched general conference, and I remember seeing someone outside running, something that surprised me in Provo, since it was Sunday. I made a blog post, and I think my roommate Bryton came back from visiting home.

2011. I was walking on campus when I overheard a middle-aged lady reporting on a conversation she had previously heard: "'Let's not jump off the building. Let's go actually study instead.' She's like, 'Oh, all right...'" I was going to a mission reunion that night. I had parked far away, and I was carrying a jug of Gatorade to take to the reunion. I was walking past an apartment complex when I heard them playing Rebecca Black's "Friday," so I sang along as I walked by. Traffic was horrendous. I have never seen it that bad in Provo/Utah County before. I was listening to Owl City that day. At the reunion, there was a little program in the chapel, and my companion Elder Kitchen said he and a sister there were engaged--but it was an April Fool's joke. Elder Kitchen and his friends were staying at my parents' house (they were visiting for general conference), so he wanted my mom's number.

2010. Our internet was down, so I called to get it fixed, and I had my planner there to write down anything I might need to know. When I told my phone number to the guy who answered, I wrote my own number in my planner. (I only remember this happened this day because I put it on Facebook.)

2009. We did service by helping a family set up their trampoline. It was really cold. In their house, the members had the radio tuned to a Christian rock station, and I recognized the songs from my first area, when my companion wasn't overly obedient. We got picked up for interviews, and there were six of us missionaries crammed in one car. Elder Kitchen wanted to sing "Oh Holy Words of Truth and Love" for the opening hymn (since conference was coming up), and I was glad to sing a lesser-sung song, and Elder Nixon had never heard it. This is my journal entry for the day:
"I suppose the only April Fool's joke was the weather. My fingers were numb today when we helped the Formans with their trampoline. The wind was cold and biting, but it later yielded to snow. We talked with a man--a PI--who said he can't be baptized because he's living in sin.

"We had interviews--my interview wasn't too significant--and then we went back to work. We saw the Williams family, knowing it wasn't a PMF, but they have four kids, and only two of them are on the directory. The others are 8 & 9, which bodes well for us."

2008. We went to the temple, and on the way, Elder Johnson was complaining about people driving "slow" in the fast lane. We took pictures, and Sister Gillins took a picture with my camera. She saw some of the other pictures, and she was perplexed at a picture of a toilet (since I had taken a picture of a tiny nursery toilet, which I had never seen before).

2007. We were on the road on the way to Nashville. My mom looked for conference on the radio; we heard some religious choir on a station, so my mom stopped there. But then she changed the station when a narrator said, "Friends in Christ." I wondered why that was so bad--certainly not LDS parlance, but not something bad. So we listened to weird CDs. We listened to this one called Songs for a Mormon Child; I wondered why my mom liked it so much (even she commented about the girl who tried too hard), especially since there were no kids in the car. Then we listened to all five discs of the Children's Songbook CDs, which I thought were awful. (I actually grew to like them on my mission, but now I think they're terrible again.) Then we stopped at my cousin Tammy's in Iowa. I think we had missed all of conference. They told us about how they had set up a blanket fort tabernacle for the kids to watch conference in. When they began putting the kids to bed, I remember Tammy telling her oldest son, Adam, that two-year-old Ben, when saying prayers, had repeated "Uncle Ricky" as "Uncle Ribby." That night we talked with Tammy. We talked about the synesthesia blog post I had made before leaving. She talked about how she wanted to line me up with a girl from her ward who wanted to be an editor, "this girl Candice." I told Tammy I had actually met her. She said, surprised, "Candice Bellows?" I told her that I had met her at Y-Weekend the previous fall. She told me how she had called her mom, distraught, that she was at a play at BYU that seemed to laugh about a girl being pregnant and not married. I said I was a little surprised at some of the content in the play.

 2006. I remember that my two-year-old niece Allie was playing with my mom's friend's niece Austin (what a weird name for a girl!), who was a little older. We were trying to concentrate on conference, but the girls were playing. Allie was getting annoyed with Austin, and Austin kept saying, "She's yelling at me!"

2001. We were watching conference and I said to my mom, "There's a spider on you!" My dad actually seemed more surprised, maybe because he was sleeping. Then I told them, "April Fool's!"

2000. I remember using the Health Rider during one of the Saturday conference sessions. My brother told me it wasn't good to do a cardio workout during conference, but my mom reproved him and told him it was impressive that I was watching Saturday sessions. I think it was that day I put plastic Easter eggs on pieces of yarn and draped them around the rearview mirrors of all three of our cars. (These last four memories were lifted from a previous blog  post.)

1999. I was wearing the arm cast that had been pulled off of my arm in one piece two years earlier. I was trying to pass it off as a new break. Some people noticed the name "Reiko" signed on the cast, and said it must be fake, if it was the Reiko (RAY-ko) in our grade. I told them it was my cousin "REE-ko,"  but that was not true.

1998. Our teachers told us we needed to run laps or else we wouldn't be able to make it to fourth grade. Being a fat little kid, I really struggled, and after running, I asked if I had made it. Mrs. Slagowski said I had. But then when we learned it was a joke, I was really annoyed. One of my classmates, Skyler, told me that I needed it.

1997. Our teacher, Miss Slater, had a card-pulling system in which yellow was default, red was a warning, green was timeout, and it escalated from there. On this day, she told us she was starting a new system, where everyone started on red, and you had to be extra good in order to get up to yellow. Erica Lovell did something she shouldn't have, so she had to pull her card, which meant she had to go in timeout. Later in the day, Miss Slater told us it was a joke, and we were surprised that we had believed her, and that Erica had to go in timeout on this "new" system.

March 30-31, 2013

With Easter coming up, I'm going to remember what happened last year at Easter.

Saturday, March 30. I looked at my Easter basket and was glad to see that I got Frankenweenie on DVD/Blu-Ray. I took a plastic Ziploc bag of Easter candy in the car as my mom and I headed to the funeral of "Other Suzanne." My mom wasn't sure if she was at the right church, but it was right. We met Sue, Peter, Quin, Nicole, and "Wallace" there, and before we sat down, Peter pointed out to Wallace that I had glasses and that he (Wallace) liked glasses. We moved to one of the center pews. Throughout the funeral, Wallace kept walking between us, taking the hymnbooks out of the holders and giving them to us. If we put them back, he went give them back to us. At one point, he came up to me and had me put my hand in front of my eye. Then he did a little breathy laugh. It was really funny. At one point in the funeral, they played a song that a relative on a mission had recorded (I think "His Hands"), and Wallace got really confused, because he heard the voice, but he didn't see anyone singing. After the funeral, we took Peter home. My mom remarked about how well attended the funeral was. I learned that Sue had once been in charge of  a daycare, which I never knew. Peter was annoyed that he hadn't seen my memory post that week, but I told him that I had just posted it the night before. That night, Allie came and we colored eggs. I put in two new Easter specials, The First Easter Rabbit (during which Allie said, "If my mom were here, she'd be singing,") and Yogi the Easter Bear. After coloring eggs, I went downstairs with my candy to watch Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie.

Sunday, March 31. Before church, we watched an Easter video from lds.org on our big TV. Then we went to church, and after church, we prepared for everyone coming to our house for dinner. Sue called and said they would be late because they had Wallace but no car seat, but they eventually got one and came. Allie was playing with Wallace, and he would run into my parents' room and flap his arms with excitement until Allie came and got him. Once I crouched down and growled at him as he ran by, and he laughed. I do sometimes have a filter, so I won't explain why Chancey and Nicole were late, but when they arrived, Chancey had Nicole dish out some potatoes, which were in the oven because they weren't warm enough. He kept saying brusquely, "More. More." I should have said, "That's no way to talk to your wife," but I didn't. Wallace ran in the kitchen, and Jesse saved him from running into the hot oven. Later, we heard Wallace fall down the stairs, and Chancey rushed over to him. He was fine. Allie was saying, "It was my fault," since she had been watching him previously, and Chancey said, "It happens, Al," as though he thought it really was her fault, and Peter shook his head disapprovingly. I tried to assure Allie that it wasn't her fault, because she wasn't the one who was supposed to be watching him. (I said I only have a filter sometimes.) My mom made a cake with pink frosting, Peeps Bunnies, jelly beans, and green coconut on it, and I had plenty of it. Then it was time for me to leave; my mom commented on my yellow shoes. I needed to pick up a girl from her sister's apartment (or something) in Salt Lake, so I used my trusty GPS to get me there. I waited for Amber to come out (crossing the crosswalk a few times to make sure I was in the right place), and then we loaded up her stuff and I headed out. We talked about our families and about her upcoming mission. She told me she liked my MoTab CD. When we got back to Provo, I dropped her off, and then I went to my apartment. My home teacher, Westin, came by to see me. I told him a little about my blogs, and he was impressed that I could remember dates. Before he left, he said to my roommate Scott, "Do you know he has two blogs?" Scott said he knew I had a memory blog, and I was a little worried about Westin telling him about it, since I had made some posts about tarantulas. Then I made a blog post and went to bed.

March 29

I'm going to remember what I can about the half-birthdays of my life. This is one of the few days in the year on which I can eat whatever I want.

2013. I was taking a girl in my ward whom I home taught, Kayla, to the airport, so I parked over by her place and helped her load her suitcase in my car. We took off, and I was at a stop sign, waiting to turn left. Eventually I turned, and Kayla screamed. Another car was coming and honked--I hadn't seen them. I felt dumb the whole way for having done that. At one point I asked where Kayla got her mission call to--she said she hadn't even finished her papers. I felt dumb because I should have known that; I just got confused because so many girls were going on missions. We talked about the band fun. and I said I didn't like them; Kayla said she didn't like the lyrics of "We Are Young" but it was so catchy. We talked about little kids (since she was an el-ed major) and she told a story of a little kid saying there were bugs in raindrops (because he learned water could condense around bacteria in the atmosphere). My GPS confused me and I got off at the wrong exit, but it got me back where I needed to be and I was able to take off my sunglasses, since it was then dark. I went home and my mom had put a new Easter DVD on my bed. I asked if there was any candy I could have, but there wasn't. I went in her room while she cleaned and watched The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, and then I went downstairs and watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I stayed up late writing a memory post, and my dad came home.

2012. I went to Subway for lunch and wanted a cookie. The guy there said the cookies were a little stale, so he gave me three for the price of one. I went to school and after my Doctrine and Covenants class, I got a Pop-Tart from a vending machine and went to my geology class, where apparently we learned about groundwater. I was working on stuff for my student journal (I think) and I went to South End Market and bought some Charleston Chews, which I found disappointing. I stayed up late to register for classes at midnight. I was sad that geomorphology and Middle English overlapped, but I chose geomorph (which was an excellent class; I'm glad I made that choice). My roommate Cameron Haas was really mad because it wouldn't let him register because he didn't have his ecclesiastical endorsement, which he didn't know was already due.

2011. I had invited my friend Lori to come to Provo to see a performance of Jane Austen's Persuasion, which one of my home teachees was in. I was in the kitchen munching on dry Reese's Puffs when Lori knocked on the door. We walked up and I told her about my classes. When we got to the HFAC, she said she liked daffodils. She said she didn't like Victorian styles and pointed to the awkward pants of the man in a drawing in the program. She told me she liked the play, and after the show she yelled across the theater to one of her friends, "Marcy!" I invited her to come to my apartment, but she needed to get going, so I walked her back to her car. She thanked me and left.

2009. We walked to our dinner appointment, and I was hungry, so I wasn't very motivated. We got there, and afterwards they invited us to another member house for dessert. I agreed, and we went over. But I should have been out working instead. I think that Elder Kitchen was looking through their LDS Family Hymnbook, and I think this was the first time I ever saw metallic-looking plastic silverware. This is my journal entry for the day:
"I feel kind of like an abominable person--yesterday we exceeded our weekly goal for QGIs ["quality gospel invitations"], so being very hungry since today was Fast Sunday, I kind of slacked off, and we stayed too long with the Averetts and the Sagers. We did this afternoon see the Batts and the Grants to give them the sacrament, and this evening we saw Ralph Sproul and the Andersons." 

2008. I seem to remember gorging myself on leftover Easter candy.

2007. In my AP English class, our teacher introduced to us the concept of synesthesia, in which someone is able to perceive senses by means of other senses. After she talked about it, I piped up that I could see sounds. That afternoon in my ASL class, I was telling my classmates about it, and one named Vince said he had overheard our discussion in his class next door, since the walls were thin. He cited the example of a man seeing a pile of pink mashed potatoes when he ate certain things.

2004. In my school planner, I wrote, "This is my [birthday with the top half of the letters cut off]" and showed it to my friend Houston. That night, I told my mom I wanted doughnuts, since it was my half  birthday, and she was nice enough to get them. It was a Monday night, so we were in charge of baby Allie.

1997. This was the day before Easter, so this is posted from a past memory post. I had wanted my Easter basket hidden this year, instead of just the eggs. My basket was the only hidden one (it was hidden behind some plants). I got a St. Patrick's Day flag since the wind had torn mine. Our Easter grass was this green cottony stuff that was less messy than the typical plastic kind. Then we went to Fillmore; maybe this was the year when I saw my cousins' eggs that had plastic decorative bands around them. I think one egg cracked at the hard interdune (the ground behind a sand dune--I'm glad I know all these geological terms now).

Primary talks

I was thinking about some of the Primary talks I gave as a kid.

What started me thinking about this is that in first grade, I wanted to give a St. Patrick's Day talk. I had seen Kenny Christiansen give a Thanksgiving talk, so I wanted to do a relevant holiday talk myself. I talked to my mom about it, and she told me the story of St. Patrick teaching the Godhead with a shamrock. Although he was actually teaching the Trinity, which we profess not to believe in. Before the day, we went to Kmart and bought me a tie that had some green in it; it was my first non-clip-on tie. I think it was a bit of an ugly tie--maybe brighter tie colors weren't popular then. I kind of cringe at the idea of giving that talk in church, for a few reasons.

(However, as an aside, I think we Mormons believe in the Trinity more than we think we do, because I've talked to many people of other faiths who tend to believe what we do. We DO believe that Christ is God, we DO believe he is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He's just not the Father. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus is inferior to Jehovah, so they don't believe in the Trinity, but we believe he IS Jehovah. It's more of a semantic issue.)

One Sunday when I was seven, I gave a talk about Alma and the four sons of Mosiah. After I gave it, I was asked to give it in sacrament meeting. I didn't practice before sacrament meeting, which was a bad idea. I remember standing there and not saying anything, so one of my parents came up and reminded me what I was saying. I remember crying afterwards because I was so embarrassed. My mom tells me that I had forgotten one of the names, but when I was reminded of it, I finished the talk. I don't remember than part. 

I remember one Sunday morning writing up the story of the First Vision on our old computer, the one where the printer paper was all connected and you had to tear off the hole-punched sides. I wrote the story down from memory.

Once I gave a talk about singing. During the opening song, I watched how many people sang. I wasn't surprised that Jaydon Bean didn't sing, but I was surprised that David Christensen didn't. When I gave my talk, I said that I had watched during opening exercises and noticed that most of the people singing were the teachers. Afterwards, my mom said that was a mature thing to do.

After my aunt Darleen died, I gave a talk about springtime and the Resurrection. I remember one teacher (Sue Palmer?) asking us later how my aunt was related to us.

I had a preoccupation with the Second Coming, so I wanted to give a talk about it. My mom had looked up some signs of the Second Coming. I remember talking about "baby flies, called maggots." I'm not sure where my mom got her information, whether it was doctrinal and whether it was meant to be taken literally.

I gave a talk that had been a family staple about an unusual animal at the zoo. One of the Primary leaders held up the flannel board while I put up the pieces.

Once I gave a talk about Saul's conversion to become Paul.

After a trip to Kirtland when I was eleven, I gave a talk about Section 110 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I was reading what I wrote down and I pronounced "Elias" as "ELL-ee-us" instead of "ee-LY-us." I felt really dumb about that, and I remember talking to my grandparents on the phone about it. They told me I shouldn't worry and cited an example of a General Authority messing up, but it didn't comfort me.

Those are all the talks I can think of at the moment.

Pi Day

I don't think of Pi Day as a real holiday. It's not that I don't think that pi is important, it's just that I think it's a little silly, because 3/14 isn't exactly pi, and people think "pie" just because it sounds like "pi." I haven't always felt this way and used to somewhat celebrate it. At one time, I would allow myself to eat pie for the one day, but now only the regular St. Patrick's Day rules apply.

2013. I went outside to do some homework because it was a lovely evening. While I was outside, Michael Wyatt came out and said hi to me. He said that there was that one day every spring where everyone quit doing homework and went outside, and that day was the day. He said I could have some pie at his apartment, but I didn't because I didn't think there would be any green pie. Then I needed my bishop to sign something, so I walked up to his office to get him to sign it. When I got there, I learned that he wasn't there, so I had gone up there for nothing. Not wanting to have my time wasted, I found a small hill on the campus grounds to study on. I was amused to see a large amount of ducks sitting on the lawn where there were "Don't walk on me" signs.

Then I went grocery shopping. I thought that since everyone was eating pie that day, I could try to find a green one I could eat. I went to Fresh Market, but I didn't see any. Then I went to Smith's to try to find one. While I was there, I realized that, of course, the key lime pies would be in the freezer section, not the bakery section, so I bought two small key lime pies. But they turned out not to be green. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"I really need to get better about writing in my journal, and about going to bed earlier.

"This morning after Phonetics I did some Planets studying. Then I went to work and finished my second-to-last Nibley abstract. I'll be so glad when those are done! Then I did some studying outside, since the weather's amazingly springlike. I went to the Wilk because I needed Bishop to sign something, but he wasn't there. So I studied on a grassy hill on campus. Then I went grocery shopping, and then I studied for one of my exams next week." 

2012 or 2011. I remember that on one of these days, I was sitting on a bench eating lunch--including a mint chocolate granola bar--while I heard a loudspeaker announcing the pi day activities. Someone was able to recite a lot of the numbers of pi.

2010. I went to dinner group that day, and the other members liked my shamrock tie. Later, I was in the kitchen eating carrots when my roommate Jeff and some of his friends came in, since it was his birthday. I was deeply embarrassed, and I couldn't say anything because my mouth was full of carrots. I left the room because I felt so awkward. Then I went to a pi party in the ward, where they had some music playing and a pi image on a TV screen. Collin Allan had bought peach pie and a circular cake, and I ate more of it than I should have.

2009. My companion, Elder Betenson, and I went just out of our area to the grocery store to get pies. He got a strawberry rhubarb pie, but I can't remember what kind I got. Elder Betenson was riding with the bag of pies on his handlebars. He was riding ahead of me, and suddenly an enormous St. Bernard started barking and chasing him! It freaked both of us out, but then the dog retreated. We went home and ate our pies.

2008. This is my journal entry for the day:
"We didn't do too much today--but, very oddly, we drove on a street I've dreamt about. In my dream it was all muddy and family members were present but it was the same location. I had the dream I think in the MTC. It is the second place I've found on my mission that I've dreamt of before."