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
[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.
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