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.
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