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.

I don't know why I'm bothering (6/23/08)

I wrote a long letter to President today and I also wrote both of my siblings so I can't write. I'm amazed now my sister is 29 and my parents have been married thirty years! On Saturday I hit seven months.

Love,

Elder Melville

According to the Church's system you emailed at 3:25 p.m. today... (6/16/08)

Where'd you get the time machine?1

This week I have had several weird dreams. Four nights in a row I've had dreams about disobedience. One night I was watching Green Acres2 (the Church's system does not allow for manual, keyboard, or HTML formatting for italics, and quotation marks are also technically grammatically incorrect, so I am not formatting the titles--I recognize this and waive myself of responsibility for violating standard English practices), and trying to justify it; another night the white handbook said not to sing simple common songs like "Jingle Bells" but instead to sing songs like "I Am the Walrus" around our companions, although we still were not permitted to listen to those songs (I think that detail comes from the fact that the Ensign this month mentioned the Beatles in the Random Sampler section, which I thought was kind of worldly3); another night I tried to buy pet fish; and last night I was listening to Coldplay and trying to justify it. In addition to disobeying rules, I have seen people hanging off of airplanes hovering over cherry orchards (cherry orchards are very prevalent here), I have slept on a pile of corpses (I wasn't sure they were under the blankets at first), and I have tried to come up with whatever clothing I could when I had to walk home in my garments.

And I think I forgot a shirt in my list to you, the orange one that says, "You drive me batty." Odd, since that's my favorite one.4

I am excited for a week when we baptize Jess K. His grandma is his only close active relative, although he wants his RM cousin to baptize him, but we're not sure if he's active because he's not in our ward. In addition to his date and Nan's birthday, it is also Elder H.'s birthday, a missionary who was in the MTC with me and with whom we share the car, so we see him on a daily basis.

My bike has been somewhat problematic. During the transfer the back brake became disconnected but that was an easy fix; last week the handlebars decided to loose themselves and continually had to be tightened; and on Friday the tire went flat.5 We thought we had repaired it with slime and patches, but indeed it was flat again yesterday. I may have to get a new tire or something.

For some reason I can't think of what more to write this week. I thought of Allie yesterday, thinking of last Father's Day when she went up and sang, and gave me a Father's Day card.6 That was before I started work, and was a wonderful time.

Love,

Elder Melville

1I sent my email in the morning, but my missionary email account said my mom had sent a letter in the afternoon.

2According to Chicago Manual of Style and others, names of long works, including TV shows, should be italicized. But my anguish over this issue might have been alleviated if I had known that AP style uses quotation marks. Or I could just not have worried about it.

3See this.

4My family had told me they had gone through my clothes and found I had 26 or 27 Snoopy shirts. Very awkwardly, I sent home a handwritten letter documenting all the Snoopy shirts I owned, which was more than they told me. Most of them were holiday shirts. I have since gotten rid of most of them, because they quit fitting me, and I’m less comfortable wearing cartoon characters, and most of them were just stock pictures with some kind of decoration outside the official Peanuts canon.

5East Wenatchee was where I was first introduced to goatheads, a plant that has plagued me ever since.

6On Father’s Day in 2007, my niece was not quite four years old. She sang Father’s Day songs with the primary. Her class made Father’s Day cards. She didn’t have a father, so she made cards for me and my dad. The one for me said “I like to play Mario with my Uncle Mark.” The one for my dad said “I like to watch Monster House with my Pops.” That night we went to my grandparents’ house, and she sang a line from one of the songs she had learned: “Back to our home above.” Then she said she had sung “the tale of it.” See this post.

Funny scripture of the week: Jeremiah 24:2 (6/2/08)

1Well, this is my last week emailing from the North Spokane Library. Tomorrow I am leaving for East Wenatchee, which is fairly far from here. Today we have to work out how I'm going to get to the transfer van. I have to be at the site at 7:00 a.m. and it could be hard to get members to take us that early,2 especially since they would have to wait for Elder C.'s new companion to come at 11:00.

Wenatchee is at the western edge of our mission. (I think East Wenatchee's name is like ours is North Salt Lake.) Apparently it is like Utah County--desert on one side and mountains on the other. Everyone tells me it gets hot there, and I hate heat. Therefore, I have a request. I do not have seven short-sleeve shirts. I'm not sure how many I have, especially since one just got a mysterious stain. So I need a few short-sleeve shirts.

I just sent a package full of clothes I don't need anymore--socks that don't match my slacks, plain T-shirts I don't need because I've acquired some other shirts (and I mostly use them just for sleeping and P-day), pajamas I don't need since I got some at Christmas, unopened garments that aren't the kind I like and I have plenty, and the aforementioned stained shirt. I am almost packed, I think, and hopefully I can make it. I have to put my books in a box, and it's pretty heavy, especially with History of the Church.

My new companion will be Elder B. I think that's how his name is spelled. It's pronounced [redacted]. According to last month's mission newsletter, if B. is indeed [redacted pronunciation], he is a district leader, which means I'll have to go on a lot of exchanges. I hate exchanges. I lose track of what's going on in my area. I've never liked them since I had to do one for a week. District leaders are supposed to go on two a week, which doesn't bode well for me.

I have Mead and all the names of the ward list practically memorized. I have half of the addresses of the people we're working with memorized. All the knowledge in my head will soon be invalid and irrelevant. Time to relearn everything.

If East Wenatchee follows the pattern I've had here (i.e., four transfers), I'll be there through Halloween.3 I know I'll be there for the Fourth of July, which is coming up pretty quickly.

Um...again I can't think of anything else. I realize this letter sounds like I'm not excited, but I am actually very excited. (I wasn't too excited, though, when they made me say the opening prayer in sacrament meeting since I'm leaving.) I loved the Allie story. I wonder what she was thinking...4

Love,

Elder Melville

[This email was followed by another one, entitled “One other thing”:]

I forgot to tell you...my companion is from Hurricane. Not that that matters, I just forgot to tell you.

That's all!

1Jeremiah 24:2: “One basket had very good figs, even like the figs that are first ripe: and the other basket had very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.” “Very naughty figs” became one of my favorite passages throughout my mission.

2We had a member who worked at the temple take me, since the van met right by the temple.

3Nope, I was only there three transfers.

4Allie was my four-year-old niece. My mom wrote, “I do have a quick Allie story. We were sitting in church and Allie looks up at the ceiling and says, softly but audibly, ‘Preston you get down from there. I told you not to go up there.’ I wonder what the people in front and behind us thought.” Preston was her imaginary brother (named for her real-life cousin).