October 25

As I continue to remember days surrounding Halloween, I get further and further from the day itself. This time I'm remembering what I can about October 25.

2014. In the evening I went to stake conference at our stake center; my friend Emily texted me and asked me if I could save her a seat for her because she was running late. One of the stake presidency made some comment about being old (I don't remember what it was), and then another of the presidency later made allusion to the comment, so I had to explain to Emily what was going on because she had missed that part. After the meeting I went to the overflow to help put up chairs; I saw Crystal and David Hawks talking to each other. I had never met David, so I introduced myself and told him we were home teaching companions. This might have been the night when I watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown at home and Allie said, "It's trick or treat, not tricks and treats." I journalized as follows:
"This morning I went running. It seemed unusually hard. This afternoon, I picked an apple from our own tree and threw another dead rat away. Then we went to Winegar's, and I made dinner. I went to stake conference, and Emily sat by me. Then I got gas and washed my windows, and then we watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

2013. Hmm...I think that Friday night I watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and my roommate Scott came in toward the end, and I think he was mildly disappointed he had missed it.

2012. I looked at my class notes, so this might have been the time our geomorphology professor, Jani Radebaugh, told us about climbing a mountain in Africa to see a lava lake. She said that most lava lakes were hard to access; this one was hard and it was one of the more accessible ones. She showed us the fascinating footage she took and said they could feel the heat every time the lava churned. That night I was watching the sixth-season Halloween episode of Bewitched, and my roommates Bryton and Cameron joined me. Cameron and I sat on the couch facing the TV, while Bryton reclined on the love seat that was sideways. He said, "I'm sorry I'm taking up the whole couch," and Cameron said, "It's OK--fatty." We laughed, and Cameron said, "Sorry, I grew up with brothers," and Bryton said he only grew up with sisters. After the show, Bryton said he liked that episode less than some of the others we had watched, because it seemed like a UNICEF commercial, and Cameron agreed. Cameron said, "Wasn't her husband in the military?" I said no; then I realized he was thinking of I Dream of Jeannie, where Tony was an astronaut. Bryton said Bewitched was a better premise than Jeannie because they were married, rather than her being a "wench" in the house.

2010. I went to my first working day at my new job at the Distribution Center. We all sat at the tables that were in the break area just off of the work area. Most of the other workers had gone home, so they put us to work filling garment orders on station 6. Maybe it was station 5, I can't remember.

2009. After Sunday School, a less-active member we were teaching told us that he wasn't married to his girlfriend. They had a three-year-old kid together, so I assumed they were, as they were a very close family. That night, we went to our bishop's house because we wanted to tell him, but he told us--the man had told him as well. I think we had a discussion about beliefs sometimes getting misconstrued. For example, he had a Protestant preacher who lived next door, and he was sure that he believed in doing good things and living good lives, but the "faith vs. works" things sometimes got in the way. I said sometimes the same thing happened with the view of the Trinity. This is my journal entry: "Today was a fairly routine Sunday. Shaun texted us to tell us he couldn't make it, but Michael and Nash and Barbie came. We had to teach Gospel Essentials, and we learned that [name] and [name] are not married.
"Elder Tamblyn did a good job speaking in the branch. Then we had dinner with the Dukes, and visited the Palmers. Elder Tamblyn wasn't feeling well again so we came home."

2008. We tracted a little street in Ritzville and a lady had her door open. She invited us in and talked to us forever; I think we finally left without discussing anything with her because she talked the whole time. I think we borrowed some members' bike pumps to fill up the tires for our investigator's kids. We left Ritzville and went to Davenport, where we tracted again. An elderly couple let us talk to them, and they were folding their white laundry (including whity-tighties) in the living room. They invited us back. Then we went to the Mondovi grange, which was a ways out. They had hay bales and other fall decorations, and they had paper on the tables with crayons on them, so we could draw on the tablecloth. We sat with some members, and we were supposed to draw something on the tables about something from our past or childhood. The member drew some incident about a bear when she was a baby. I wanted to draw my broken bones, so the only thing I could think to do was to draw my skeleton with broken bones. The member guessed, "You're a skeleton? Or you were a skeleton." They had a talent show. The first part was playing "The Monster Mash" and having the branch president's son walk around in a costume; the member we were sitting with "sang" along with the spoken lyric "Boris sent you." They had the bishopric doing some poem or song from Hee-Haw while their wives were dressed up in costumes. One of the lyrics was "the way she's built" and Sister Kieffer was stuffed with padding in her overalls. Elder Love was laughing his head off. We took pictures with a pitchfork and the hay bales. Then we drove out into the countryside, down a little ravine where there was an unexpected neighborhood. We were looking for a potential investigator we found in our area book, but it was dark and we were too nervous in the dark to knock on these rural doors. Then we went back to our "residence" with the Herron couple. I wrote a long journal entry detailing the weird dream I had had:
"Last night I left my glasses on, planning to get up again, but I unexpectedly fell asleep with them on. At 3:00 I woke up hot, with my glasses on, loud trains going, and somewhat confused.
"Then I had a very interesting, detailed dreams with a bunch of storylines. We were looking for a package Dad supposedly sent Mom--I don't know why he wouldn't have given it to her. We traipsed around Ritzville to find it, but Dad later said he hadn't sent it. I couldn't believe he went along looking for it, knowing he hadn't sent it.
"With Elder Love we were listening to my Hymns, and one had an electric guitar. It seemed a little edgy for church music, and sounded like a country or rock song.
"I had a spider made of a pom-pom and pipe cleaners and paper eyes that scared Allie. So I took it and gave it wiggle eyes and a paper smile and planned to increase the amount of legs from six to eight. But then I found I had more than eight legs, and soon I was making an old brown fridge into a spider. I put the head on the top and was gluing the legs on the side. There was a magnet for a bank, and a representative from the bank decided to capitalize on the spider. She was talking about members, as in members of the bank (not of the the church, as I was thinking), and talking about how they knew their members. To illustrate, she said the spider's legs were members of its body, and she could tell stories of each leg. I found that many of the legs had faces, but I just accepted it and went on. I had to object when she said two legs were husband and wife when I knew them to be brother and sister.
"Then I found a Christmas ornament that was a green ice skating mouse, as well as a little candy cane mouse. Then I was pulling garlands and things out of a bin while the TV played Christmas episodes.
"And we went to see some members who had a cement room with a blue wooden stand thing. When we saw them they had a crazy white animal jumping all around the room, but the room was actually meant for displaying polar bears in the clothes the members made for them.
"But in the much more important real life, we tried to see some people. One lady let us in and just chatted while she made potato salad. Funny how some people can do that. We filled up the tires on Michelle Jensen's kids' bike. Then we left Ritzville.
"Driving through Harrington I suggested seeing Michael Heit, a less-active building a plane in his garage. He also has his own radio station--100.5, I believe.
"We got to Ritzville [I meant Davenport] and tracted into people that I think will be a bash session concerning the deity of Christ. He said he will have someone over with him.
"Then we went to the branch harvest festival, out in Mondovi, a small place. It was at a grange hall. They had dinner and a few silly activities. We got to see the stars in their brilliance before we came home and made calls."
Man, that was my favorite area. I miss it.

2006. I believe this was the day Woods Cross had the trunk or treat. On my way home from school, I stopped at Kmart to buy some candy to take; I found some chocolates that had M&Ms embedded in them. I went home, listening to the Corpse Bride soundtrack, to change into my vampire costume. Then I went back to the school and met up with the other Spanish Club people in the lunchroom; they had a bowl for the candy. Then we went out to the front parking lot for the trunk or treat. I talked a lot with Mrs. Jamison, who had been my French teacher. Many people admired my costume; someone said I couldn't be wearing the pendant I was wearing, since it was an X. A girl--Analia?--was saying how cold it was, and I was thinking it wasn't that cold, but then I remembered I was in a suit. There were some of the less virtuous girls wearing scanty costumes; an overweight one was wearing a short-skirted nurse costume, and we were sure they were cold.