A new transfer

So, we got calls on Saturday and everything is staying the same with us for the next six weeks. I think I'll leave at the end of the transfer, October 7, but Elder D. thinks he's going to leave. Our ward mission leader thinks I'm going to be here for seven months, which would keep me here until December 30. But we'll see.

[Paragraph redacted]

I am so excited for the dates of the transfer. September 1 starts the best month, September 15 is when I can legitimately begin thinking of Halloween, September 29 all of your kids are in their twenties, and October 1 is the first month with a holiday in a while and starts a monthly pattern through April. October 6 my first companion goes home--wow, I've been out a while...

It has been gloriously cloudy and cool this week and at this moment clouds of darkest hue hang o'er me (see Hymns 121).[1] The best bad thing ever happened this week. We were walking home and we had brought our umbrellas because the skies were threatening. When it started precipitating we pulled them out. Umbrellas make me think of Mary Poppins anyway, but the way I was holding my umbrella and the way the wind was blowing caused my umbrella to pop out backwards, causing it to break. It was so funny. I felt like I was in a movie. Then I had to walk home basically with a bowl over my head, which doesn't stop rain very well, so my pants were soaked by the time we got home. But the umbrella wasn't functioning properly anyway, so now that it's completely broken, I get to get a new one. Last night we stopped at an investigator's house and visited a while, so we got to ride home in the dark and rain. It was so fun. Elder B. gave me the headlight to his bike, as well as the tail-light, but I haven't placed the latter yet (it doesn't work too well).

To answer another question, I don't have to speak much. My public speaking has extended to a few testimony meetings, two opening prayers (one was here and one was my last week in Mead), and a few halftime shows at baptisms (teaching the first lesson while the people change).

Don't stress too much about the package. I don't need anything you haven't bought that badly. What I might need are either a large supply of batteries, or more simply a plug cord for my CD player. I also would like some recipes. Honestly the contents of any package are pleasing.

We taught ten lessons to non-members this week, including first lessons. We only got two new investigators and one of those dropped us, but we weren't expecting them at all, and we have the potential for more this week.

This is a very choppy letter...

Love,

Elder Melville

After the above-mentioned rainstorm, I went home and changed into my pajama pants, prompting this awkward picture.

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[1] “Misty vapors rise before me.

Scarcely can I see the way.

Clouds of darkest hue hang o’er me,

And I’m apt to go astray

With the many, with the many

That are now the vulture’s prey.” From “I’m a Pilgrim, I’m a Stranger”

On this Day of Joy and Gladness (8/18/08)

First item of business: Some members in our ward, Brother and Sister Raab (ROB), are heading down to Utah this week with a box. In it is a Fourth of July shirt I bought at the end of my sojourn in Spokane, the Independence Day decorations you sent me, a belt that is too big (even with the hole I put in), and my Charlie Brown music.[1] I decided to send it back because, while it's not bad music, it's not really spiritual. The Raabs were heading to Provo, and they offered to take boxes. Elder D. is from Orem so he took them up on the offer, but I wasn't going to unless they specifically asked me, because I didn't want to impose if they weren't planning on heading to the Salt Lake area. But I prepared a box just in case, with our address and phone number, and when they came to get his box, I was changing my pants so he just took my box and asked them. So they should be calling this week to drop it off, and so if you'd like you can probably just send my package back up with them (I think they offered that, too).

The last few days have been very hot. On Saturday our car thermometer read 105. Yesterday we didn't have the car and it didn't sound too appealing to hop on a bike, so we were walking around, and one lady asked if we wanted to know the temperature before telling us it was 104. I had a sunscreen-and-sweat mix dripping in my eye. But word is tomorrow it's supposed to be down in the 70s,[2] and the miserable heat spell is over. I am so excited. Especially that August is more than halfway over. I can't wait for the ninth month, the best one of the year. (That is a source of argument in our companionship, for he hates September, but I hate August.)

I remember when Allie was two how she was so obsessed about "There's my school!" every time we passed Orchard. It's kind of sad to me that that's not her school now.[3] Oh, well. I just can't believe she is old enough to be in kindergarten. One of the hardest things about being a missionary is seeing all the kids ages 0 to 6 and knowing that those are either ages that I'm missing, are now gone, or are what I'll see when I get back, and I'm not now seeing among my niece and nephews. We're not allowed to hold or tickle children. I was looking at Dave's blog[4] and it's so weird to have an almost-seven-month-old nephew I've never seen. The pictures are cute but they're not the same as the real thing. Last night I was listening to the Primary songs and they got to singing "fathers are so special" and it took me back to Father's Day of last year, when Allie was up there, a sunbeam, singing with everyone else, and then she made Pops and me a Father's Day card, and then that evening she was singing it again and saying she was singing a tale of it.[5] Ah, memories.

One of our investigators has two sons, four and two, and we had lunch with her this week. The two-year-old decided to befriend me. He kept bringing me cars to play with with him. At one point there were some extra ice cubes on the fridge (where they had just come out) and he got them and brought them to me one by one. It was so funny. Then he sat down and the chair next to him had a game on it, so he moved it and told me to sit. I felt like I was back in nursery.

We didn't have the best week this week, although someone let us in off tracting but wouldn't listen and said the Bible is the word of God because it says it is. I fail to see the logic in such a statement, especially since he seemed to have that aura that he thought he was scholarly. And when we questioned him about it, he changed the subject. (I've found a lot of people do that when they realize they don't make any sense.) But if everything goes through, we should have around five new investigators this week. We really could use some fresh people.

Love,

Elder Melville

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[1] My first companion loved “Linus and Lucy,” so I had my mom send up the albums Charlie Brown’s Holiday Hits and A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Three of my four companions at this point tolerated it and thought it was acceptable missionary music, but I always felt a little guilty.

[2] It does seem unreasonable to me that missionaries can’t check weather forecasts (or at least they couldn’t when I was out).

[3] My niece went to my mom’s school for kindergarten instead of our neighborhood school, but she did go to Orchard later on.

[4] I would look at my brother’s blog when I was emailing, because I figured it was no different than reading a letter or email.

[5] Check out the entry for 2007 in this post.

August is a third of the way over! (8/11/08)

The weather was absolutely glorious on Friday. In the morning and afternoon gray clouds shrouded the skies, rain fell to the earth, and lightning and thunder cracked from the sky. Everyone said that doesn't happen very often around here, so I'm disappointed it probably won't happen again, but it was sure good while it lasted.

I've found that early in my mission I mostly dreamt about home. After a bit I only dreamt about missionary work. Now I dream a combination. For example, this week I dreamt Jesse was my companion, and in a room that looked like the sunroom--but it was in a house up here--was a foot-long spider. (I think this dream came from the very large spider we saw in the church bathroom, but may also have been related to the discussion on the six-foot Gilligan's Island spider, if you remember that.) I got out my camera to record it and was recording the shadow, but before I could record the spider itself, Jesse had disassembled it and had its eight legs hanging in circles on a tool, as well as other smaller spider parts.

We got a new investigator this week. We've been teaching her boyfriend (they live together) and he's really interested, but she's avoided us. This week she came up to us and said, "I have to ask you one thing before this goes any further. Do you believe in having multiple wives?" When we said no, she was relieved. She had heard a lot of other stuff, so we cleared that up, and now she's interested too! We were on exchanges that day, so Elder D. wasn't there, but I was very excited.

And another investigator works at Ross and she bought us clearance ties. It was really nice of her.[1] We watched The Testaments with her last night, and played with her boys, who are four and two. The four-year old kept showing us his collection of DVDs and told me the ones he hated (he hates Chicken Little, the little guy) and it reminded me of when we'd go over to Nan's and Allie would take out all of her DVDs. He has one that's "The Animated Passion," cartoons about Jesus, and he told us it was called "My God." It was really funny but you probably had to be there.

[Sentence redacted] (We have helpful little pamphlets for the Restoration, the Plan of Salvation, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Word of Wisdom, Chastity, and Tithes and Offerings, which we give to our investigators. The pamphlets, not the tithes.)

Well, I'm out of time for this week, so until next week,

Love,

Elder Melville

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[1] She brought out four ties and said we could each have one. My companion took two, so I took two, but I think she only meant to give us one each. I always felt guilty after that, because I didn’t even like the second one I took.

The Summ'ry Day, Descending to Its Close (8/4/08)

I am so excited it's August and the summer is two thirds of the way through! I've been in East Wenatchee for two months now. For a few days it was relatively cool. Word is it's going to get pretty hot, and that the annual two-week hot spell hasn't come yet, so I'm not looking forward to that--but it's starting to get dark a lot earlier than when I first came. I'm going to have to put my headlight on my bike now for the twilighty eight to nine hour. I could be out of the warm Wenatchee area by the time September comes, but I really am excited we're on the downward slope. September is the best month of the year, and it's not that far!

Last week I didn't tell you things I need. Well, I would like replacement heads for my shaver. I got some two years ago online. I have a Norelco Quadra Action, and a number on the back on the little trimming thingy is 7886 XL. The heads themselves say T-series.

And most missionary music is common among everyone. Oddly, pretty much the only approved stuff I have that is not heard everywhere else is the Hymns and Children's Songbook (which we in the Church need to be a lot more familiar with--I'm falling in love with the W. W. Phelps hymn "Now We'll Sing with One Accord"). Another exception is the Christian artist Michelle Tumes. She is somewhat popular around the mission but not too overplayed (like EFY or Joseph: Nashville Tribute to the Prophet). Another one of her albums might be good.[1] I have "The Very Best of" and its songs are:

Heaven's Heart (I think it's OK)

Dream (which is a little too upbeat to listen to)

Do Ya (which I can't listen to because it's a love song)

Heaven Will Be Near Me (one of the best)

Christ of Hope

Healing Waters (very good and very popular with missionaries)

Everywhere

Please Come Back (another love song)[2]

Deep Love (many songs on the CD sound like they could either be love songs or God songs, and this is one of those--it's hard to know because there are unquestionable songs for both sides)

Life Is Beautiful (not really religious, but very mild and positive)

Lovely (like "Deep Love")

For the Glory of Your Name

Introit

You maybe could get one with some different songs, and even listen before you send it to give me a heads-up to what might be not so good to listen to.

I also need shoelaces, as the stores here don't sell the kind I need, and I have had to tie knots in the laces in one of my pairs because they keep snapping. Just send me sufficiently long black dress laces, but not the super thin ones.

And you know the pants I was telling you about last week that I got when I got here? Well, they now have a hole worn in them. I'm definitely going to need to get some more, and to get my existing ones tailored. Maybe I'll just get them from Fred Meyer. And the shoes whose laces are broken have lost most of their tread. Maybe when it gets icy I'll just wear my overshoes, which do have tread.

This was a decent week. We got to do a lot of service. We actually did three projects this week, and usually you can only find one a month if you're lucky.[3] The first two were for active members, and the third was for a part-member family. It was good because the bishop wanted us to see the new PMF, and that day we were planning on seeing them, but they actually called us first and wanted us to help them paint. So we did. If they had been active members, we wouldn't have done it, or if they had been the first project of the week, we wouldn't have done the rest, but it was too good of a contact. The nonmember husband acts more like a member than the less-active wife. Hopefully when they get settled we can teach him :)

And one of our investigators called us to tell us when he unexpectedly couldn't come to church. No one ever calls to tell us something like that--people only call to cancel appointments--so we were very glad. Sad he couldn't come, but glad he called.

Love,

Elder Melville

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[1] My mom had written me the previous week and asked “Is there anything in particular that you would like me to send with that?  Do you need more music?  More clothes?  Any particular treats?”

[2] I would skip this song on my mission because I thought it was a love song, but when I got home I learned it was about the Prodigal Son.

[3] One of the things I would like to change about missions is having more service. We had weekly recommendations for service, but we rarely met the hours, and no one seemed to care. In fact, toward the end of my mission, I heard some missionaries thought the service hours were the maximum, not the goal. I think service—picking up trash, weeding goatheads, volunteering at charitable institutions—would be far better than daily tracting.

I have reached the age of accountability in mission years (months) (7/28/08)

So I am kind of at a loss about pants. When they "tailored" my pants in the first place, they were several inches too big in the waist.[1] Then I've lost about thirty pounds on my mission, and that hasn't helped. When I got here there was a pair of pants in the closet that fits me quite well, and I have been wearing those. Elder B. (I'm still sad he's dead)[2] told me that our ward mission leader has some suits the same size that I could ask him about (they were in our closet and they gave them to him but they don't fit him that well). But as for my own pants--four suit pants and two pairs of slacks--they were too big. I finally took one suit pair and one pair of slacks to get tailored three inches. But I think it was about $12 each pair of pants, and to get four more pairs tailored could be costly. I probably will just have to do it anyway and put it on my debit card. But another problem is I was wearing my slacks and sat down in the driver's seat while I heard a very disconcerting sound, and my seam split about three or four inches. I am attempting to repair them, but if a professional stitching doesn't hold, I firmly doubt my primitive sewing will. So I currently can only wear the slacks I got here since I don't want to wear suit pants. I just worry about splitting all of my pants if I get them all tailored.

One thing that's bad about having a bike and a car is I often find myself looking at my speedometer to make sure I'm not speeding. Then I remember my bike doesn't have a speedometer.

On my mission other missionaries often talk about the things they did back home. It's good I didn't do anything because I don't miss anything.[3] But I do kind of miss TV, and of course there are various reminders of the things I cannot do right now. For example:

In Spokane was a billboard for American Family Insurance with a Munsters theme.

A member of the ward asked me if I ever got called Herman (referring to the Melville), and then she added, "At least it's better than Herman Munster."

We tracted into a lady who asked if I knew another Melville in the area. Then she told me she looked like That Girl, and I was able to remind her of the name Marlo Thomas. Watching TV in that case actually helped me talk to someone!

In Mead the ex-con in the room next door would sometimes watch The Beverly Hillbillies and I could hear it.

I've heard The Andy Griffith Show both from the Welshes in Mead and while tracting.

I really liked the Monkees song "What Am I Doing Hangin' Round," and once we went into an investigators' home and she was listening to bluegrass. I generally try to tune music out, but I was highly distracted as I heard the bluegrass--and presumably original--version of that song. (The Monkees do it better.)[4]

And as we get into the holidays in a few months I'm sure it will get a lot worse with images of Jack Skellington and the Grinch. (In the MTC a speaker actually quoted Dr. Seuss's Christmas story, and I thought that was not fair because we were all missionaries who couldn't watch it.)

Um...this was a really weird letter...

Love,

Elder Melville

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[1] I do not recommend Mr. Mac. I think they judged me for being fat and assumed I would get fatter, so they literally gave me pants that were four inches too big in the waist.

[2] “Dead” in mission lingo, meaning gone home.

[3] When people asked me what I did for fun, I would say something like, “I don’t have fun.” My hobby consisted of watching 1960s sitcoms and geeking out over them online. How awkward!

[4] I think the Monkees were the first to perform it, but they didn’t write it. That does actually remain one of my favorite Monkees songs.