Newness of life (7/21/08)

What was up with Pops's letter!?[1] Is it national bad news week? That is so sad about the nursery child. That must be really weird for you, for one of the kids you knew and worked with to have died, and then to have his twin still around. I don't know what I'd ever do if I lost one so little. Was Z. M. the son of the M.’s in our ward, C.'s brother? In seminary once C. bore his testimony specially because he had had a lethal amount of alcohol and was in the cold wintry gutter and should have died, and therefore knew there was a God. It's always so sad and shocking to hear about people dying, especially when they are young. Were you still out of town when you heard about those?

Last Monday after email we went to Great Clips, and I gave a Book of Mormon to the lady cutting my hair. Afterward the three of us went to the store and Elder Moench was saying something about the Lord or the Spirit or something as we got out of the car. A lady with poofy hair and goofy tight pants said to us, "I heard that. Now which one of you is an Indian?" We repeated what she had asked because we didn't understand, and she started trotting oddly in the other direction. Then she stopped and proclaimed, "I'm not drunk!"[2] Proverbs 23 is right--at the last it biteth like an adder. (Proverbs 23 is a very humorous chapter; I recommend it.)

I of course can somewhat remember what Allie and Preston look like, but a lot of times I just picture pictures that I have seen often and memorized. This week I had a very vivid vision of Allie. It was not a picture, and I could see her exactly. She was making her disgruntled lowered eyebrow face, and she had pigtails. I think being away from all my favorite kids is the hardest thing about being a missionary. I'll try to get a card sent off tomorrow for Allie.[3] I know it will be late but I completely spaced it last week until we had already got home.

I can't think of anything else to write now. Until next week. Or unless I write another letter today.

Love,

Elder Melville

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[1] My dad wrote in his email, “I assume you heard that one of our nursery boys . . . died while he choked on some thing while his Mother was driving. He was brain dead for a while before they took him off of life support. He still has a twin brother. Did you know Z. M.? He was about 20. He overdosed in NYC and had to be taken off life support after he was Brain dead.”

[2] This was one of my favorite funny stories of my mission. I used to say, “I heard that. Now which one of you is an Indian?” to the other missionaries when I saw them. When she said, “I’m not drunk,” I thought, “We never said you were, but now that you mention it . . .”

[3] Her birthday is July 22.

third wheel (7/14/08)

So I am currently staying with other elders because I am companionless. One thing I've noticed about transfers is that I'm sad to lose the old but I'm perfectly fine once I get the new. Unfortunately, I don't have the new yet. Tomorrow I will get Elder D. I've met him briefly a few times. He's been out about a year. I know what he looks like but I know very little about him personally.

I feel like writing another anecdotal, non-flowing email.

There are major wildfires going on in our area. To the east of us is Badger Mountain, and we frequently see the smoke. It almost looks like a big cloud with a hint of yellow. Haze sets over the whole Wenatchee valley. Our back door overlooks a field behind a junior high, and the field now is full of tents of firefighters and a truck with portable showers. I guess Sister Knighten's son from Mead is a firefighter, and as I was leaving yesterday I met him. I can tell why he was a do-not-contact in my last area.[1] As we were leaving we heard a big rumbling and a couple of young men were veering in a screeching car on the road behind our house. He was yelling at them with very vile language. He apologized for his language, but my companionim (I've been reading the scriptures too much and become accustomed to Hebrew plural forms)[2] were shocked.

Elder B. had to speak for his last sacrament meeting. Also present was Elder (Dixon or Dickson) of the Seventy.[3] I felt bad because I was trying to listen to him but I was falling asleep. So then I started flipping through the hymn book to stay awake but then I wasn't paying very good attention. It's not every day a general authority speaks in sacrament meeting.

It's been so good to hear about my niece and nephews. For a while I figured by the time I got home my sign wouldn't say "letter Mark" but it sounds like it very well will, considering it's been the same thing for a year now.[4] I really wish I could see Franklin.[5] And I think three is a little young to know about daddy baby DNA, even if the details are not discussed.[6] I cannot believe Allie is going to be five in a week! That is so old!

This week we were checking up on some people and doing typical daytime missionary work. We had an appointment at 2:00. Elder Bramall looked at his watch at 12:50 and thought it was 1:50. I figured I had it down for the wrong time since we'd been on exchanges. So we were biking down the road and a woman on her bike saw us and stopped and waved us over. She said, "I was tired so I thought I'd stop and talk to some nice guys." She actually had been investigating in Wyoming and was on date for baptism in November but then she moved. We are now teaching Shannon. We gave her July 26 as a baptismal date, but we don't think she'll be able to keep it because she smokes. Regardless, it was interesting because it was a mistake that we were where we were at that moment, but it was actually exactly where we needed to be. I love it when investigators find us instead of us finding them. Elder Bramall gave her his bike before he left because hers wasn't very good, and his wasn't worth selling or taking home.[7]

Love,

Elder Melville

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[1] Mead was my first area. Sister Knighten was the member we lived with, and when I told her I had served in Mead, she said her son lived there. I remember knocking on his door a few times before I learned he was on our do-not-contact list.

[2] Cherubim, seraphim, companionim. 😄

[3] Elder John B. Dickson. He had a family member in our ward.

[4] My niece, Allie, had noticed a sign in our neighborhood that said “Welcome Home Elder D!” She hadn’t heard the term “Elder” before, so she thought it said “Letter D,” and then she thought they would make a sign that said “Welcome Home Letter Mark!” I was disappointed when I got home and it actually said “Elder Mark.”

[5] My nephew Franklin was soon after I left on my mission.

[6] My mom wrote me a letter that my three-year-old nephew, Preston, had learned about genetics from his dad, so he drew a picture of “daddy baby DNA,” aka sperm.

[7] We taught Shannon for a month or two, but then she quit meeting with us. I still believe, though, that we were meant to meet her that day, even if she used her agency differently in the end.

One Fourth of July down, one to go (7/7/08)

So in a week's time my companion will be heading home and I will be spending P-day in a temporary threesome with Elder H. and Elder M. [pronunciation]. Elder H. and I were in the MTC together. He has a tendency for threesomes. Last transfer he killed off his companion and therefore was in a threesome here, and in the MTC his companion had to take the bus with a Spanish elder (who has since gone home),[1] so he was in a threesome with me and my companion. Elder B. will leave immediately after church to go to Spokane and fly out the next day. I will get my new companion on Tuesday. Everyone has been telling me I would train, but we had interviews on Thursday and I didn't get that vibe from President C., which is a good thing. He told me not to worry about taking over the area, but I am worried. I know it will be fine, though. It's just hard with Elder B. having been here since November, and him being such a good missionary. Every door's been knocked on, everyone on the ward list's been contacted, all the potential and former investigators have been met--I'm not sure what I'll do.

I found something interesting in the scriptures this week. In Zechariah 11:13 is a prophecy on the Savior. In the beginning of Matthew 27 that prophecy is fulfilled. However, in verse nine it says it is fulfilling the prophecy of Jeremy, not Zechariah. This means one of two things. Either someone goofed up at some point with who prophesied, or else Jeremiah prophesied the same thing but we don't have it recorded today. I find the latter to be more likely, as the JST still mentions Jeremy, and though I haven't read Zechariah yet, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all had many similar prophecies to each other. Either way, it is an indication of the incomplete nature of the Bible. I don't know how so many people accept it as the complete, infallible "Word."

The Fourth of July was OK. It was P-day. The other elders played basketball for a while (I am completely incapable of anything involving a ball, so I don't even try), and then we had dinner in the mansion of the bishop of the other ward (we spent the day with two other elders), then went to a park to meet some recent converts but they weren't there. We watched a few fireworks from our house after we had come home and changed. Being out in the night air dressed like that felt really good. I won't be able to do it again, though, until 2010.

So I'm kind of all over the place today. This week on exchanges we stopped by a part-member family whose records weren't here (they might be now) and they fed us dinner.[2] I do think one day the husband may be baptized, but not for a long while.

And my randomness has run out for now.

Love,

Elder Melville

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[1] When I was in the MTC, we saw an elder who looked like he was forty. It turned out he was going to our mission as well, but he was speaking Spanish instead of English. He was a 23-year-old convert from Mexico. After I had been in the field for approximately four months, I went on an exchange with a Spanish elder, and we visited a member where the Spanish elders lived. The member talked about this Elder G., who had already returned home, and she said he had lots of problems. He had returned home early because of back problems. “Back problems” was often an excuse for other (sometimes bigger) problems.

[2] This is one of the memorable moments of my mission. We had tracted into a man one day who said his wife’s family were all Mormon, and he said we could come back for dinner sometime. A few weeks later, on July 2, I was on exchanges in my area, and I didn’t know exactly what to do. We had our dinner break, but neither of us felt like eating dinner. I decided to go back to the house where we were, and the wife answered and let us in. She happened to be making spaghetti for dinner, and she invited us to stay. It was a tender mercy that we hadn’t eaten dinner! It was a great visit, and a few months later she came to church with her son, I think. This is what my journal says about the incident: “We came home for dinner, but Sister K.’s relatives were upstairs, so we got water and went downstairs. I was looking at the potentials sheets, enjoying the cool and resting, so I didn’t eat dinner. . . . Then we saw Dan and Shawna, a PMF we tracted into, and they fed us dinner. She doesn’t want her records here. We’ll probably ask the members at the end of the street to work casually with them.” Shawna’s records did move into the ward.

[moans dramatically] (6/30/08)

So we have a truly aesthetic area. To the east we have brown hills, and to the west we have a descending hill overlooking the Columbia River, with the Cascades rising behind it. Ripe cherry orchards sprinkle the neighborhoods.

But it is no fun being in such an area as a missionary, not being able to stay inside an air-conditioned building, especially when we are on bikes part-time.

Yesterday I understand it hit 107 degrees. Usually when one bikes down a hill, a refreshingly cool breeze comes over the biker. Or, if it's winter, it's not so refreshing. But there's a point when even high speeds cannot cool the air, and a hot, not cool, breeze is what greets the rider.

Furthermore, it is not fun to stand talking to someone while you can feel beads of sweat rolling down your back, which is dressed in a garment top, a shirt, and a backpack.

It also is not fun to take your pajamas off while sleeping on top of the covers with the fan on, and still be uncomfortable.

And I am going to be here through August.

I can stand cold. I can stand when the car thermometer reads -3, but not 102. If someone wanted to torture me, he or she would merely have to lock me out of a building during a July afternoon.[1]

Another factor is the sunlight. Nothing is more depressing than a July or August afternoon sun. And those are on their way. June is bad enough. But the sixth month of 2008 dies today. Something in my chemical makeup triggers very negative emotions when exposed to sunlight. This confuses many people, but it has long been the case with me. I have very clear depressing feelings from being in sunlight in the summer of 2004. That was four years ago.[2]

Not to mention that I don't get to be pale like a vampire.[3]

A less-active member may have provided some consolation, informing us that it is not always this hot, that it usually only hits the 100s for a few days in a row before it cools down again--to the 90s. Then later it rises again. But even the 80s are sure uncomfortable. I can't wait until fall.

Happy Birthday, by the way, Mom!

I started a letter last week but I didn't get to finish it. This week our P-day today ends at noon. Then on Independence Day we do our weekly planning in the morning and have the rest of the day for "preparation." Holidays sure are different as a missionary. Yesterday we had "Invite your friends to sacrament meeting" day, so it had to be focused on the Savior, and we didn't get to sing any patriotic hymns, except in the combined fifth Sunday class. I think the New Year has been the most enjoyable missionary holiday so far.

And I did get your package, soon after you sent it. Thank you very much. I will send the decorations home because I have to send some other things home as well. Seeing Elder B. prepare to leave makes me worry about getting everything home (not that I have to worry yet), especially since we have to pay more for luggage now.

Yesterday we confirmed a 14-year-old. He's my second baptism of my mission. Hopefully I can get some more here. I am concerned for some of our investigators, for there is a lot of anti-Mormon material out there. My thought is this--if the Church truly were bad, why would there be so many lies? Why wouldn't they just focus on the true bad things? Because there isn't anything bad, and what some might consider bad can be easily explained.

Sincerely,

Elder Melville

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[1] I have become more tolerant of heat and summer since then.

[2] I still get depressed if I spend too much time in the sun.

[3] I was still going through my awkward “I want to be a vampire” phase.