Thanksgivings past, present, and future (11/24/08)

Two years ago we spent Thanksgiving in Fillmore, in the empty Melville house. That morning we got crackers for Allie, who remarked how Miss Sue[1] had those crackers at school. We watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on a travel DVD player.

One year ago, I was transitioning off of my crutches, and scared out of my mind for the upcoming Wednesday. I had a hard time believing that that was actually going to be the last time I would see my family. I had a hard time believing I would actually be able to tolerate being gone for so long.

But here I am, and I still have not seen my family. But it does not feel that way, because I have called twice and I get weekly correspondence in writing. Today I looked at the blogs,[2] and that was what made me realize how long I've actually been gone. I can't believe the age of my niece and nephews, one of whom I've never seen. I think Preston appears to have aged the least. Do not infer that I am homesick, because I am not. I just cannot believe how much time has passed.

This Thanksgiving is kind of a day off for us. We have our regular morning schedule until 10:00, then we can do whatever we want. We've been invited to two dinners so far, so hopefully they're at different times. I think I'll make this amazing spiced cider some members gave us a few weeks ago, and I tried my hand at it one morning. Warming apple juice with stick cinnamon and whole cloves in it tastes amazing and leaves a really good smell.[3] It will be a nice Thanksgiving and Christmas treat. This Thursday is also the three year anniversary of the first time Preston spun in circles.

The next day starts the yuletide season and is also my year mark! Scary! This week we helped a member with some yard work, and we took some trimmed evergreen bush branches for a natural, somewhat fragrant decoration. We don't have tools in our apartment, however, so I don't know how I'm going to turn the pruning into a festive hanging. But it will work out somehow.

I can just imagine Thanksgiving a year from now. I'll be at some member dinner and the conversation will go something like this:

Member: Now, Elder Melville, you just started your mission, didn't you?[4]

Me: No, actually I've been out a while.

Member: Oh? When do you go home?

Me: Monday.

Member: Oh, wow, are you excited?

Me: Not really.

Member: Really?

Me: Yeah, I mean, it'll be nice to see my family, but I'm really sad to leave.

Member: Aww. So where else have you served?

Me: I started out in Mead, north Spokane, then I went to East Wenatchee, then I went to Ritzville and Davenport, then I went to [my next area], then I came here.

Member: East Wenatchee--did you like it over there?...

This is how a lot of member conversations go, but without the part about going home.

Holidays sure are different as a missionary. It can be very difficult for it to feel like any given holiday. The New Year was my favorite mission holiday so far. And after this Thursday, I'll have come full circle. Ever since leaving my first area I've been much more inclined to try to make it feel like the upcoming holiday. I just wish I hadn't bought so much Thanksgiving candy; we still have over three pounds we have to eat. Today and at district meeting on Wednesday I'm going to do a lot of sharing. Because candy corn can get bland pretty fast.

Thanksgiving wishes, harvest love, and year-mark sincerity,

Elder Melville

P.S. I don't know how much time I'll have next week, because we may not be in Cheney for P-day. We found a new person to teach but it sounds like Mondays are the only days that work for them, and the Ritzville library may limit our time more than here. (The Davenport library isn't open on Monday, and that's why we have to come all the way up to Cheney on Mondays.)

---

[1] Allie’s preschool teacher.

[2] I would look at family blogs during email time. I figured that was just like reading letters.

[3] It has been a tradition for me for Thanksgiving and Christmas ever since then.

[4] Indeed, people did think I was new even in my last area.

Ten days until Thanksgiving (11/17/08)

I can't believe Preston is four now! I was going to send him a card or something but then I remembered that I don't have their new address. (I don't know if he would have appreciated it anyway.)

Well, nothing is happening this week for our transfers. Within this transfer is Thanksgiving, my year mark the day after :(, Elder L.'s birthday, and Christmas (but not the New Year). I can't believe what time of year it is already. I was glad today that Wal-Mart no longer is playing Christmas music. (I may have to endure some music in preparation for singing as a porter at the Spokane nativity display in December.) I just hope some lousy customer didn't complain, because I cannot stand complainers, having worked there, and I don't think they should get what they want. Hopefully it was an employee (or "associate," as Wal-Mart prefers) that stopped the nonsensical yule tunes.

This week our branch mission leader in Ritzville sent us out to see a friend he's been working with for a while. Her daughter was baptized five or six years ago and it's actually her house but she's been less-active. It was good to go there because she wants to ask her boss for Sundays off now and wants her records sent and visiting teachers and all that. She also wants us to teach her, which is good for us because L. Tom Perry wants us to teach twenty lessons a week to investigators, recent converts and less-actives, and we're not even close to that. Plus, her mom might sit in on the lessons and she would be a new investigator.

Let's see...this week was somewhat blah so I can't think of anything else really noteworthy. We got flu shots on Tuesday. It was a requirement from the mission president. I've never had the flu in my life, and last year was the first time I got the shot as far as I know. On Monday evening we had a lesson set up we feared would be a bash so we were prepared to leave immediately but it wasn't. He just had questions. He asked about Jesus and Satan being brothers. I explained it but he didn't understand it because he kept talking about how he couldn't believe that and I asked him a question and lost control of the situation. I wish everyone wouldn't believe everything everyone tells them. Far too many people consider themselves authorities on Mormonism without knowing the slightest idea what they're talking about. But that is how I know without a doubt that the Church is true. It is Joseph Smith's martyrdom that is the foundation of my testimony more than anything else.

I cannot believe Allie's dictation.[1] That is so much older than the "I didn't say fat"[2] and "You're moving out"[3] Allie that I remember. I was amazed at Mother's Day. It will probably be weirder on Christmas. I hope I'll be able to call before you take off that day. We don't have our itinerary for Christmas yet and it's hard when we live in our own apartment without a land line and we can't use the cell phone.

I have yet another request. It won't be long before my journal is full, so I would like another journal for the second half of my mission.

A year ago at this time I was in Tennessee. Tomorrow is the anniversary of my sprained ankle.[4] I don't even want to think about December. It has gone by so fast and it's scary.

I can't think of anything else right now to say. I always do at other times but I don't know what to say now.

Love,

Elder Melville

---

[1] My niece was five years old, and my mom included a message from her in her email:

“This is a warning.  This will be a long letter.  This first segment was dictated by Allie.  I don't edit, I just do what I am told.  Even the "um" part...she was watching what I typed and said, "Hey, I just said 'um', you are sposed to write that down."

“Kindergarten friends: Peach Shalene, Emma Kirk, Grace Kirk, Allie Melville, Maxine Ma, Sam VanMinde,  Nathan Wright, Andy Ho, Griffin Berg, Austin Lair, McKenna, Sione, Julia, Ethan who just moved to the afternoon class 'cause he didn't like it being too loud in the morning.  Levi is in the afternoon class and I love him .cause he is cute.  He likes McKenna, too.  Allison is in the afternoon class.  I am trying to give her a hug but she keeps running away from me. 

“My favorite thing in kindergarten is at recess.  I love to play princess.  I usually play with Emma and Grace but they are starting to play Indians now.  But I like playing with Levi now.  And Ethan is the one who plays, too.  At lunch time I even play with Grandma's kids Emily, Sydney, Andrea and Casey.  We like playing that.  One day they came to stare at me at lunch and Mrs. Capson asked if I was the one they came to see.  Do you know what we do with half the second recess?  We use the little white bars and Andrea is the witch - I promise.  I bet she is going to get me first.  Because me, Sydney and Emily are the princesses and Casey is the prince.  He killses Andrea..  We pretend there's alligators.  OK, let me tell you something.  On Friday, um, we did run around the playground and Emma and Grace said, "Indians, Indians."  And I ran and then I lineded up first.  At princess we run and Andrea gets Emily and captures her, then I get captured and then Sydney.  Then Casey starts to save us.  And when they go in I ask Elliot if I could play with him and he letted me play with him.  Isn't he nice?  What I usually do with Elliot is that we play a lot of games and we pretend that I am stuck on the red slide.  Elliot's cute.  He comes and saves me.  But when I play with Maxwell and I get up the slide and find Andy and we try to get Maxwell up and keep him from falling. 

 “Bye, bye.”

[2] A few months before my mission, we were at my sister’s apartment with the TV on. There was a weight-loss commercial with an overweight cartoon woman, and Allie said, “Look, Grandma, her belly’s as big as yours!” My sister said, “Allie, that’s really not nice.” Allie responded, in complete innocence, “I didn’t say fat.”

[3] When Allie was mad at me, she would tell me I had to move out.

[4] I had visited Tennessee to see my brother’s family before my mission. We were practicing bike riding one day, and I crashed and sprained my ankle.

Here it is, a week later (11/10/08)

[1]So it sounds likely my birthday package may be the same as my Christmas package...[2]

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the weather this week. Most days it was foggy or rainy. It even snowed in Davenport this week, but unfortunately we were in Ritzville that day. It seemed like in the winter Utah weather mirrored Spokane weather, but not now. I hope it snows soon.

The following paragraph is an exact copy of what I sent in my email to President Clark. I didn't feel like retyping it for fear of lazily omitting details:

Yesterday we had a very interesting experience. We were having dinner with some members. The parents are active, and the daughter is too, but she's married to a nonmember. During dinner the nonmember, Don, explained that he was having tooth problems and was going to see a dentist that week. After the meal he told us he was going to go lie down because he was in too much pain, and I could tell by his face and his voice that he really was hurting. Elder L. asked if he wanted a blessing. He accepted, but he'd never had an LDS blessing, only Catholic blessings. We explained it and gave him the blessing. A minute or so after the blessing we were just talking with the family and he had a stunned look on his face. He explained that it was the first time in two weeks he hadn't had any pain. Even his shoulder, which he hadn't told us about, wasn't hurting. He said he'd always been a skeptic, but from then on he wasn't. The family took the opportunity to tell him that they weren't surprised because they knew the power of the Priesthood, and that when he is baptized he can have the same priesthood, and he is just a dry Mormon. I don't know how soon it will be before he is interested in joining, but it was definitely an important event in his probable eventual conversion. The family thanked us because he had declined previous suggestions for blessings from family members. It was the first time I'd seen a blessing work so amazingly, but it was especially joyful because it was to a nonmember.

That was probably the highlight of the week. In addition to that I got to learn the area a little better by going on exchanges (where the district leader and us swap companions for a day) and staying in Ritzville. The last time we exchanged I went up to Cheney. Having an exchange in your own area when you have been there less time is the most excellent way to learn an area. I hope what I learned won't come in handy soon; transfer calls are this Saturday and I hope our call comes from the zone leaders, telling us we're both staying, and not from President Clark, telling us one of us is leaving.

Last Monday Elder L. cut my hair, but he put the wrong size on the clippers, and didn't realize it before he started cutting.[3] Therefore I had a very short haircut, probably shorter than it's ever been in my life. I felt like Gilligan when he woke up and proclaimed, "I'm bald!"

This week I got to travel to Odessa, another one of the small towns we cover. It's always fun to get to a new town. I think there are still a few towns and definitely a few settlements I haven't been to yet. This whole area has a lot of German background--a lot of businesses have the word "haus" in them. Lutheran has been the predominant religion here for a while, although I think it's waning in popularity. Missionaries many years ago left a bad taste in the residents' mouths when they went into a Lutheran church and left pamphlets in all the pews. It sounds, though, like much of that feeling has left as many people have left and members have set good examples. There is, however, a sign in town that lists all the churches, but what I've heard is that the other churches didn't want us listed, even though the Church at one point did a service project to redo the sign. Even the Seventh Day Adventists have a listing on the sign with as different as they are. But we're not alone. The Jehovah's Witnesses aren't on there either. But the joke's on the churches. Ours is the first steeple you see when you come into town that way. I think we should get with the JWs and put up a big sign that says, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Jehovah's Witnesses welcome you to Ritzville." It's so funny how much other churches hate us. Ding ding ding! We have a winner for the modern-day Pharisees and Sadducees and the true Church of Jesus Christ.

I'm glad you liked my pictures. I'm preparing a small memory card to send home soon with my pumpkin dodgeball. I'm glad you liked the Wenatchee shots.[4] It was beautiful, but I think I like the aesthetics of arboreal areas and wheat farming (i.e. Spokane and where I am now, respectively) more than the deserty Wenatchee Valley. But don't get me wrong, it truly was beautiful. It probably was more pleasing to the eyes there, but I like the environment more in this part of the mission, for some reason. Maybe it just has to do with the time of year.

Climbing up that mountain was scary. I don't know if you remember my email about it or not.[5] The other elders suggested taking a shortcut since we were short on time, but they didn't know that the shortcut took us straight up the mountain, and took more time. It was very scary. It was dangerous to go up, but it would have been more dangerous to go down (which we inadvertently did do to some extent--gravel is not safe on such steep slopes!). Rock climbing is against the rules, but hiking isn't. We just didn't expect that one would turn into another.

Today I also sent off my birthday check with my verses to "Follow the Prophet." The one about Zechariah is my favorite.

Well, my companion's waiting for me to finish. Goodbye!

Love,

Elder Melville

---

[1] The title of my letter comes from a quote from an old Green Acres episode.

[2] My mom’s letter said she still hadn’t sent my birthday package.

[3] Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of this. Perhaps because my mom lost the SD card with the pictures from this part of my mission.

[4] My mom said she had just barely looked at the pictures I had sent home.

[5] See this email.

How can it already be November? (11/3/08)

I express similar sentiments with Pops about thinking of last November.[1] Yesterday was my anniversary of going to the temple, and a year ago today we helped April prepare to move, looked for stuff to get my pilgrim lights set up, and ate at Subway. I am now at that horrible part where I can say I've been out about a year (and a few people still think I'm a new missionary) and I have a year left. 2008 will soon be over and it is the only complete year of my mission.

Congrats on all the Church stuff going on, with temple worthiness, mission call, mission preparation, and the like. I will soon no longer be the only missionary out.[2]

Transfers are in two weeks, and we have no idea what will happen. I hope we stay the same. But there are reasons both for and against that. Elder L. is going on six months here, and the Brethren have asked that we generally stay in an area six to nine months. I also think President Clark wants companions to stay together a little longer. However, it seems Elder L. has some premonitions about him leaving. So we really have no idea. This week we had related dreams on the same night. I dreamed I was being emergency transferred to Brewster and Twisp, two bilingual branches near Wenatchee.[3] He dreamed he was starting a new Church program by getting a new companion who was a girl. We doubt that both of those will happen.

Zone Conference was good. I found out someone I taught in Mead, Kristy W. T., was baptized. I was there when we started teaching her this time around and when we gave her a date for baptism. I got my transfer call the day she married her less-active boyfriend so she could live the law of chastity and be baptized. She didn't keep the date we set but she moved to Montana and recently got baptized. (I was confused when President Clark told me at first, because he told me "Sister [a similar name that started with T]" was baptized. I understood when I took out the "[extra letters].") Also, President asked if anyone had learned any noteworthy Spanish in case there's ever an odd number of Spanish missionaries or something, so I told him. (That's what prompted the transfer dream.)

I was disappointed at the amount of Christmas stuff going on at Wal-Mart today. I was so distracted by the wickedness that I bought an excessive amount of clearance Halloween/Thanksgiving stuff. I used my home card for this. I bought orange lights because we have Christmas lights hanging in our apartment and occasionally Elder L. likes turning them on because "it's relaxing." Now I will forbid him from doing this and only allow the orange lights to be on (maybe I should have bought more). I am going to get so fat over the next two months. An investigator gave us her leftover Halloween candy, almost an entire box of full-size Baby Ruth bars. And I bought four bags of Thanksgiving candy. But I am about the weight I was when I got my first driver's license, so I'm still lighter than I've been for a long time.

However, as in four weeks it will be Christmastime, I have a request. I would like a special Christmas mix CD. "Music should invite the Spirit, help you focus on the work, and direct your thoughts and feelings to the Savior. Do not listen to music that pulls your thoughts away from your work, merely entertains, has romantic lyrics or overtones, or dulls your spiritual sensitivity by its tempo, beat, loudness, lyrics, or intensity" (Missionary Handbook, pg. 25). I would like the following:

"What Child is This," "My Little Drum," and "Greensleeves" from A Charlie Brown Christmas

"It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" by the King's Singers (I know some of their stuff was played in the halls at the MTC, and they sang with the MoTab. More than this song could be fine, but it's the only one I can specifically think of.)

I have the Children's Songbook CDs already, so these aren't super important, but they might be nice on a special Christmas disc: "He Sent His Son," "Samuel Tells of the Baby Jesus," "Stars Were Gleaming," "Mary's Lullaby," "Oh Hush Thee My Baby," "Away in a Manger," "Have a Very Merry Christmas!" "Picture a Christmas," "The Shepherds' Carol," "When Joseph Went to Bethlehem."

Also any other songs you think I would like and would fit the above guidelines.[4]

I also would like my line of authority, since I've never even seen it. This can just be sent in a letter, of course.

I don't know how much time I have left. We're pretty busy today. I hopefully soon should be sending home my birthday check, along with my own original verses to "Follow the Prophet."[5]

Love,

Elder Melville

---

[1] My dad’s email talked about preparing for my mission a year earlier.

[2] Among other news, my mom told me about my cousin getting his mission call.

[3] All my mission, I hoped this would happen to me. Then, at the end of my mission, it happened to my companion, who didn’t even know any Spanish!

[4] My mom did send me a burned CD with Primary songs, most of A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the King’s Singers. She wrote “Mark’s Christmas” on it, and I wrote over it “Elder Melville’s Christmas.”

[5] I wrote seven original verses to “Follow the Prophet,” with ones about the brother of Jared, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Amos, Samuel the Lamanite, Joseph Smith, and Abinadi, both Almas, and Amulek.