I think every kid has moments where they learn new words and want to put these new words into use, but they don't get the nuances of the word quite right. So, I'm going to remember some of the times I got words wrong. Undoubtedly, there were more times than are included here.
Once when I was in kindergarten, I was at my friend David Christensen's house. We were getting out of his van and he was talking to me, but for some reason I wasn't responding. His mom said to me, "Don't ignore him." Well, I had heard the word annoy, and here I heard ignore, so I might have thought that I had simply misheard annoy and it was actually ignore. Not long after that, my brother David was teasing me, as he usually did, and I said, "Quit ignoring me!" To which, of course, he said, "I'm not ignoring you!"
Another time, probably in first grade, I was on the playground, hanging on a bar. Another kid was also hanging and we were approaching each other. I said, "Caution," and he said, "My name's not Austin!"
One night at dinner, my dad asked me if I wanted more soup, and I said, "In fact I do!" That's not entirely misusing that expression, but it made David laugh.
For a time, I confused the words deaf and death. After I broke my arm, it was a rule that there were no more than two people on the trampoline at a time. One time, I remember reading the warning label on the tramp out loud as explanation to a younger cousin why he couldn't be on the tramp. (My gut tells me it was Peter, but he might have been too young.) In addition to things like "broken bones," the last item was "death." Jesse said, "That means you die." I said, "No, it means you can't hear." We had a little argument about what death meant.
On another occasion, when I was six or seven, we were at my paternal grandparents' house. My cousin Krishelle wanted us to draw pictures to give to Grandma Judy. She was drawing a picture of some fruit (one of her older siblings, I think Lacey, said that the bottom of her apple looked like the bottom of a 2-liter bottle). I was using my imagination and drawing some picture with a backstory to it. I was drawing a girl protagonist in her garden, and I also drew the dreary garden of a wicked person and labeled it "Garden of Death." I don't think I fully understood the negative connotations of the word. Well, we gave the pictures to Grandma Judy, and after that, my mom and my cousin Kadee asked me why I drew a garden of death. I began crying, because I hadn't meant anything bad by drawing it, but it seemed I was in trouble.
When I was seven, my dad said something was "gruesome." I asked him what gruesome meant, and he said, "It kind of means, just awful." Well, I don't think that's a very satisfactory definition. Then on Labor Day weekend in 1996, we were camping in Fillmore Canyon, and I was walking in the creek, and I slipped somewhere and landed on my shin, bruising it. It was very painful, and I think I had a bit of an overreaction to it, and I began hating the creek. (I created a jingle, "Chalk Creek, you're a geek," because geek was the only word I could think of that rhymed with creek.) I told my cousin Terrill that the creek was gruesome, remembering my dad's definition: "awful." However, it seems that I understood it better less than two months later. In my second grade class, for Halloween, we created paper candy corns, and we had to put a Halloween word on it, going down, and then each letter in that word would begin another word. My Halloween word was "Gruesome." I think I used ghost for g and I used eerie for one of the e's.
Showing posts with label Fillmore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fillmore. Show all posts
Friday, January 9, 2015
Monday, August 25, 2014
The day before Labor Day
Labor Day is coming up on Monday, so I'm going to remember what I can about the Sunday before.
2013. I went to church early for bishopric meeting, and when Bishop came in, he said to me, "Hi Beardie." I told him that I had grown it in my field studies class, my one chance to grow a beard in a BYU class. He asked what the field studies were in, and I told him geology. We met in the Varsity Theater for church. I remember hearing Matt Markham saying his brother wanted to move into our ward. During priesthood meeting, I got up and urged everyone to get on our ward website so I could get their records. I told them to talk to me if they had questions (I think), and Bishop said they might not recognize me without my beard, and I said, "Yeah, the beard's coming off tomorrow." After the block of meetings, Brother Jensen said he was scared to do tithing with me because I looked scary. Then I came home and wrote up about Geology 210 and wrote on this blog.
2012. I think I got the member sheets that everyone had filled out, and after church I spent time in the clerk office, pulling in records. I think I might have split up the work with Cory Newton. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"It was a good Sunday. I finally got set apart. Then today I was able to input info from all the new member sheets and write both of my blogs. It helps that there's no school tomorrow."
2011. I wrote a weird blog, but I don't remember much about the day, really.
2009. In ward council in the morning, we reported about our visits of the week. When we talked about Bea Dorsett, I had written on the progress report, "If Negative Nancy and Daniel Downer had a baby, they would name her Bea Dorsett." Everyone thought that was really funny. Then I announced that transfers were occurring, and I said I was staying. They said that I sounded like I was Daniel Downer, and someone said, "Look where he's going," as I had written that Elder Warren was being transferred to Brewster, WA. Sister Presnell's convert mom came to church that day, and she was very gung ho. We were happy to have Heidi Wohlmacher, an investigator from Culdesac, ID, come. After gospel essentials, she said she was looking for a flock, and Sister Presnell's mom very strongly said, "This is the right one!" We hoped she wasn't overbearing. This is my journal entry for the day:
"We were pleased today that Heidi came to church. Shaun didn't, but he called later and said he had a stomach bug. [It is rare for investigators to actually call you when they miss church!]
"I wonder what my purpose is in dying here. I will see what it is, because I know there must be some reason."
2008. We were going down Baker Ave, which didn't have a bike lane and had lots of cars parked in the road, so we were riding on the sidewalk. There was a garbage can in the sidewalk, but there were cars in the road, and I thought I could make it between the can and the fence. But I hit the can and crashed. Some people driving by saw it and stopped to see if I was fine, which I was. But then my gears weren't working right (they only worked in 3rd gear), so we walked the rest of the day. I think this was the day when we were walking uphill on 9th Street when there was a cloudburst. I didn't have my umbrella, so I got rained on. I was annoyed that my planner got wet, because it meant I would need to go through most of a transfer with a warped planner. We went and had dinner with the Raabs, who had been to Utah and taken some of our stuff. Sister Raab asked if the five-year-old girl she had met was my sister. I said she was my niece, and she said that Allie seemed amazed that they had been in my presence. This might have been the time Brother Raab gave us apples, and Elder Duncan immediately began eating his, so I followed suit, and Brother Raab said, "You didn't need to eat them now." Sister Raab might have asked if my first name was Herman (Melville), and she said that would be a better name than Herman Munster. While we walked home for the evening, I might have sung the closing song from A Boy Named Charlie Brown, "Now the shadows of the morning have gone beyond the August afternoon," since it was the end of August. This might have been the time Elder Duncan said his high school had sung that song in their production of You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, even though it wasn't part of that musical. I told him it wasn't part of that musical, but he said they added it, but I'm skeptical. This is my journal entry:
"We dropped Jason. We were sick of him bailing on us. And the Gillespies bailed on us. I hope this doesn't become a regular thing.
"Today we were biking down Baker. I was biking on the sidewalk because there were parked cars and people in the road. I thought I'd be able to dodge a trash can, but I didn't and I crashed. Now my gears don't work properly. I hope they can fix the bike. When I crashed some people were driving by. They saw me and stopped and asked if I was OK, which I was."
2004. My mom said we weren't going to church that day, because it would probably be the last time we went camping with my Grandpa Boyd (and it was). I was wearing new pants, but I thought my mom would be mad that I was wearing new clothes camping. She said to me, "Those must be new pants," and I said, "How did you know?" She pointed out that I had left the tag on them, and I felt dumb. She wasn't mad, however.
2003. In the day, I remember reading scriptures, and my cousin Cannon came in and said, "Oh, you're reading scriptures." David was playing Sequence with Ya-ping and one of her friends, and he asked if I wanted to play. I said no, and he said that the Mormon rumor about face cards wasn't true. That wasn't really why I wasn't playing, but I ended up playing anyway. Later, I remember standing near the bridge at the Pistol Rock campground with Dave and Ya-ping, and Cannon's baby Lillian was very giggly.
1996. We were playing in the creek, and I was really excited that it was September. I remember picking a red leaf and putting it on my little boat. I hated the water skeeters that were in the water. Later, we walked up the creek, and I slipped and hurt my shin. I was an over-dramatic not-quite-eight-year-old, and I was crying. I suggested getting a rag wet in the stream to use as an ice pack. After I had recovered some, I remember telling my cousin Terrill that the creek was "gruesome." He said, "How is it gruesome?" and I explained my shin situation. (I had only recently heard the word gruesome from my dad. I asked him what he meant, and he defined it as "awful." So I tried to use it, not quite getting its sense.)
2013. I went to church early for bishopric meeting, and when Bishop came in, he said to me, "Hi Beardie." I told him that I had grown it in my field studies class, my one chance to grow a beard in a BYU class. He asked what the field studies were in, and I told him geology. We met in the Varsity Theater for church. I remember hearing Matt Markham saying his brother wanted to move into our ward. During priesthood meeting, I got up and urged everyone to get on our ward website so I could get their records. I told them to talk to me if they had questions (I think), and Bishop said they might not recognize me without my beard, and I said, "Yeah, the beard's coming off tomorrow." After the block of meetings, Brother Jensen said he was scared to do tithing with me because I looked scary. Then I came home and wrote up about Geology 210 and wrote on this blog.
2012. I think I got the member sheets that everyone had filled out, and after church I spent time in the clerk office, pulling in records. I think I might have split up the work with Cory Newton. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"It was a good Sunday. I finally got set apart. Then today I was able to input info from all the new member sheets and write both of my blogs. It helps that there's no school tomorrow."
2011. I wrote a weird blog, but I don't remember much about the day, really.
2009. In ward council in the morning, we reported about our visits of the week. When we talked about Bea Dorsett, I had written on the progress report, "If Negative Nancy and Daniel Downer had a baby, they would name her Bea Dorsett." Everyone thought that was really funny. Then I announced that transfers were occurring, and I said I was staying. They said that I sounded like I was Daniel Downer, and someone said, "Look where he's going," as I had written that Elder Warren was being transferred to Brewster, WA. Sister Presnell's convert mom came to church that day, and she was very gung ho. We were happy to have Heidi Wohlmacher, an investigator from Culdesac, ID, come. After gospel essentials, she said she was looking for a flock, and Sister Presnell's mom very strongly said, "This is the right one!" We hoped she wasn't overbearing. This is my journal entry for the day:
"We were pleased today that Heidi came to church. Shaun didn't, but he called later and said he had a stomach bug. [It is rare for investigators to actually call you when they miss church!]
"I wonder what my purpose is in dying here. I will see what it is, because I know there must be some reason."
2008. We were going down Baker Ave, which didn't have a bike lane and had lots of cars parked in the road, so we were riding on the sidewalk. There was a garbage can in the sidewalk, but there were cars in the road, and I thought I could make it between the can and the fence. But I hit the can and crashed. Some people driving by saw it and stopped to see if I was fine, which I was. But then my gears weren't working right (they only worked in 3rd gear), so we walked the rest of the day. I think this was the day when we were walking uphill on 9th Street when there was a cloudburst. I didn't have my umbrella, so I got rained on. I was annoyed that my planner got wet, because it meant I would need to go through most of a transfer with a warped planner. We went and had dinner with the Raabs, who had been to Utah and taken some of our stuff. Sister Raab asked if the five-year-old girl she had met was my sister. I said she was my niece, and she said that Allie seemed amazed that they had been in my presence. This might have been the time Brother Raab gave us apples, and Elder Duncan immediately began eating his, so I followed suit, and Brother Raab said, "You didn't need to eat them now." Sister Raab might have asked if my first name was Herman (Melville), and she said that would be a better name than Herman Munster. While we walked home for the evening, I might have sung the closing song from A Boy Named Charlie Brown, "Now the shadows of the morning have gone beyond the August afternoon," since it was the end of August. This might have been the time Elder Duncan said his high school had sung that song in their production of You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, even though it wasn't part of that musical. I told him it wasn't part of that musical, but he said they added it, but I'm skeptical. This is my journal entry:
"We dropped Jason. We were sick of him bailing on us. And the Gillespies bailed on us. I hope this doesn't become a regular thing.
"Today we were biking down Baker. I was biking on the sidewalk because there were parked cars and people in the road. I thought I'd be able to dodge a trash can, but I didn't and I crashed. Now my gears don't work properly. I hope they can fix the bike. When I crashed some people were driving by. They saw me and stopped and asked if I was OK, which I was."
2004. My mom said we weren't going to church that day, because it would probably be the last time we went camping with my Grandpa Boyd (and it was). I was wearing new pants, but I thought my mom would be mad that I was wearing new clothes camping. She said to me, "Those must be new pants," and I said, "How did you know?" She pointed out that I had left the tag on them, and I felt dumb. She wasn't mad, however.
2003. In the day, I remember reading scriptures, and my cousin Cannon came in and said, "Oh, you're reading scriptures." David was playing Sequence with Ya-ping and one of her friends, and he asked if I wanted to play. I said no, and he said that the Mormon rumor about face cards wasn't true. That wasn't really why I wasn't playing, but I ended up playing anyway. Later, I remember standing near the bridge at the Pistol Rock campground with Dave and Ya-ping, and Cannon's baby Lillian was very giggly.
1996. We were playing in the creek, and I was really excited that it was September. I remember picking a red leaf and putting it on my little boat. I hated the water skeeters that were in the water. Later, we walked up the creek, and I slipped and hurt my shin. I was an over-dramatic not-quite-eight-year-old, and I was crying. I suggested getting a rag wet in the stream to use as an ice pack. After I had recovered some, I remember telling my cousin Terrill that the creek was "gruesome." He said, "How is it gruesome?" and I explained my shin situation. (I had only recently heard the word gruesome from my dad. I asked him what he meant, and he defined it as "awful." So I tried to use it, not quite getting its sense.)
Friday, August 22, 2014
Two days before Labor Day
With Labor Day coming up, I'm going to remember what happened the Saturday before that day.
2013. In the morning I had to go up to the geology computer lab to work on the writeup for Geology 210. The TA Brad had shaved his beard, and he looked really different without it. I worked all day on that writeup. Others left, planning on working on it later, but I'm glad I stayed--even though I worked most of the day, I didn't totally finish. I had to use Adobe Illustrator to modify one of my pictures:
I think at one point I took a vending machine lunch break, and in the evening I went over to the CougarEat. I also bought a newspaper jack-o-lantern decoration from the Bookstore, that being my favorite of their Halloween decorations (they also had orange and black owl salt and pepper shakers). When I left for the day, I went to 7-Eleven to get my last Slurpee of the season (it was August 31), and by the cash register there were Reese's pumpkins. I think when I got back to my apartment, there was no parking, so I had to park far away and walk back. (Maybe I ran back.) I had to go through some sprinklers, and I was worried they would ruin my new shoes.
2012. It was September 1, and I was kind of sick. I slept in and took a nap, listening to my music to try to get my new Kelly Clarkson and Owl City music integrated into my collection. It was rainy when I went grocery shopping. I remember seeing the shaved ice shack outside the store and thinking that I couldn't get them anymore, since it was September. I saw gummy werewolves and gummy vampires for sale, but it was still too early to get them. I wanted some cough drops, so I bought some apple cider-flavored ones. Then I went home and watched some of the Frozen Planet documentary. My roommate Cameron and his friend came in while I was watching. They wanted to watch something, but they finished the documentary with me, watching a fight between a wolf and a reindeer (or something like that). Before they watched Downton Abbey, I had to show them the clip of the ice trapping starfish:
2011. I went to Famous Footwear to buy new running shoes. I really liked my K-Swiss Tubes, so I bought some more of them, but orange and black instead of green and grey. I tried some new Adidas, and as I was checking out, the cashier said her husband had some and he loved them. (I ended up not liking those shoes.)
2010. I left early in the morning with my parents and Allie to go to Moosehorn Lake to ride on our little inflatable boat. At one point, I was having a hard time steering and almost ran into another guy. I apologized, and he was very friendly, saying it was a great day for boating. At one point, Allie was in the boat with me and said "gooder." I told her that "gooder" was nonstandard, and that she should say better, but she said people knew what she meant. (I don't think I would have corrected her today.) At one point she made a remark about putting her hand up and making the waves stop, like Jesus. On our way home, we stopped at McDonald's in Park City. We had to wait a really long time for my mom, because she was helping some lady who had a disease and needed to get new clothes from her husband.
2009. We had dinner with the Browns and their parents (whose name I can't remember). After dinner, we went to our apartment. Elder Warren had held the phone that day, because it was transfer call day and we were super anxious. We got our call from President Palmer, and I remember Elder Warren saying, "So do I have to learn Spanish?" Then President talked to me and said I was staying and getting Elder Tamblyn. Elder Warren told me that he was being transferred to Brewster and Twisp, in a newly organized "zebra" companionship, where one companion was English speaking and the other was Spanish speaking. I said that that had always been my dream--to go to that exact area and have to speak Spanish, but that people told me it wouldn't happen. Elder Warren said he thought he was the person who said that would never happen. And then he got it instead of me, even though I knew some Spanish! That night we went out to go tracting, but as we were locking our bikes to a sign, a wasp stung me on the neck. Elder Warren said I should get some Benadryl. We walked to the convenience store on the end of Grelle Ave., got some Benadryl, and walked back. We might have stopped at the recent convert Renee's on the way back. I was super tired filling out the progress report for Sunday, and Elder Warren laughed at me.
2006. We were in Fillmore, camped out in my grandma's backyard. My aunt Michelle took Susanne and Allie to a little store in town, where Allie got a sheet of sticker earrings. That day we also went to Duane's grocery store, where Susanne got some Hershey's chocolates. The chocolates were haunted houses (I think) and the white chocolates were ghosts. We saw some Halloween Peeps, and Allie said they should get them for my birthday. I was impressed that she remembered I got some for my birthday the previous year.
1999. We were camping in Fillmore Canyon, and I think this was the time David had brought his friends up. They were excited to feed cows on the Christensens' farm.
1997. I remember seeing a bunch of tombstones. Later I learned that that was a mortuary, and I said that I had thought it was someone with their Halloween decorations up early.
2013. In the morning I had to go up to the geology computer lab to work on the writeup for Geology 210. The TA Brad had shaved his beard, and he looked really different without it. I worked all day on that writeup. Others left, planning on working on it later, but I'm glad I stayed--even though I worked most of the day, I didn't totally finish. I had to use Adobe Illustrator to modify one of my pictures:
2012. It was September 1, and I was kind of sick. I slept in and took a nap, listening to my music to try to get my new Kelly Clarkson and Owl City music integrated into my collection. It was rainy when I went grocery shopping. I remember seeing the shaved ice shack outside the store and thinking that I couldn't get them anymore, since it was September. I saw gummy werewolves and gummy vampires for sale, but it was still too early to get them. I wanted some cough drops, so I bought some apple cider-flavored ones. Then I went home and watched some of the Frozen Planet documentary. My roommate Cameron and his friend came in while I was watching. They wanted to watch something, but they finished the documentary with me, watching a fight between a wolf and a reindeer (or something like that). Before they watched Downton Abbey, I had to show them the clip of the ice trapping starfish:
2011. I went to Famous Footwear to buy new running shoes. I really liked my K-Swiss Tubes, so I bought some more of them, but orange and black instead of green and grey. I tried some new Adidas, and as I was checking out, the cashier said her husband had some and he loved them. (I ended up not liking those shoes.)
2010. I left early in the morning with my parents and Allie to go to Moosehorn Lake to ride on our little inflatable boat. At one point, I was having a hard time steering and almost ran into another guy. I apologized, and he was very friendly, saying it was a great day for boating. At one point, Allie was in the boat with me and said "gooder." I told her that "gooder" was nonstandard, and that she should say better, but she said people knew what she meant. (I don't think I would have corrected her today.) At one point she made a remark about putting her hand up and making the waves stop, like Jesus. On our way home, we stopped at McDonald's in Park City. We had to wait a really long time for my mom, because she was helping some lady who had a disease and needed to get new clothes from her husband.
2009. We had dinner with the Browns and their parents (whose name I can't remember). After dinner, we went to our apartment. Elder Warren had held the phone that day, because it was transfer call day and we were super anxious. We got our call from President Palmer, and I remember Elder Warren saying, "So do I have to learn Spanish?" Then President talked to me and said I was staying and getting Elder Tamblyn. Elder Warren told me that he was being transferred to Brewster and Twisp, in a newly organized "zebra" companionship, where one companion was English speaking and the other was Spanish speaking. I said that that had always been my dream--to go to that exact area and have to speak Spanish, but that people told me it wouldn't happen. Elder Warren said he thought he was the person who said that would never happen. And then he got it instead of me, even though I knew some Spanish! That night we went out to go tracting, but as we were locking our bikes to a sign, a wasp stung me on the neck. Elder Warren said I should get some Benadryl. We walked to the convenience store on the end of Grelle Ave., got some Benadryl, and walked back. We might have stopped at the recent convert Renee's on the way back. I was super tired filling out the progress report for Sunday, and Elder Warren laughed at me.
2006. We were in Fillmore, camped out in my grandma's backyard. My aunt Michelle took Susanne and Allie to a little store in town, where Allie got a sheet of sticker earrings. That day we also went to Duane's grocery store, where Susanne got some Hershey's chocolates. The chocolates were haunted houses (I think) and the white chocolates were ghosts. We saw some Halloween Peeps, and Allie said they should get them for my birthday. I was impressed that she remembered I got some for my birthday the previous year.
1999. We were camping in Fillmore Canyon, and I think this was the time David had brought his friends up. They were excited to feed cows on the Christensens' farm.
1997. I remember seeing a bunch of tombstones. Later I learned that that was a mortuary, and I said that I had thought it was someone with their Halloween decorations up early.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
The day before Memorial Day
Last week I blogged about the Saturday before Memorial Day, and this week the topic is the day before the holiday (Sunday).
2013. After church I drove home, and I remember in the evening sitting on the couch in the living room, writing my blogs.
2012. I remember going to the singles ward up in NSL, and I felt bad that Brittany Bowman moved into that ward after I had unfriended her on Facebook. My mom had made a birthday cake for my dad with red, white, and blue sprinkles so that I could eat it. When she dished out my bowl, she had even put sprinkles on the ice cream. I didn't think sprinkles belonged on ice cream, and I would have been able to eat it anyway, since it was paired with the patriotic cake.
2011. I think I wore a sweater to the NSL singles ward, because it was a cool day and I could.
2010. I would have been home this day, but I can't remember what I did.
2009. This is what my journal says. I think when we met Rebecca's brother, we were looking for her, but he was the only one home and invited us in: "At church today Kim told us the talk with her mom wasn't the greatest, so we're going over tomorrow.
"This afternoon we tracted a small street but few people were home. Then we had dinner with the Smiths. After that we contacted Rebecca Dyer's brother, who isn't a member, so hopefully we can possibly teach him. Then we visited Brother Nickel, and gave Sister Carter a blessing."
2008. My companion at this time ruined my mission for those three months, and later during the week blamed me for all his shortcomings. At our visit with the Hokes, we were there way too long, and they played Bill Cosby's chocolate cake routine. Here is what the journal says:
"Today, Kristy and Austin were our only investigators at church, although Gina, an investigator from another stake, came with her friend.
"We overstayed with the Hokes--great family--and then we tried to see people. Our numbers this week are bad, and P-day isn't tomorrow. It will be an interesting day."
2007. We were camped in the backyard of my late grandparents' house, and I think that night we watched The Flying Nun on the little portable DVD player, in the trailer.
2004. I think this was the time that we went down to my grandparents' house in Fillmore to go to church. I was dismayed when I realized that I had forgotten my dress shoes, but Grandpa Boyd told me that a lot of people at church wouldn't be in dress shoes either. But people wouldn't have noticed my shoes. David, Ya-ping, and a friend had not brought any church clothes at all. David said it was because they didn't know if they would be going to church. It seemed pretty obvious to me that if you didn't know, you would bring clothes just in case. They didn't even shower before church, and we had been camping. We were embarrassed to be with them, and Mom was really mad.
2001. My dad wasn't happy to turn 50. We were at Shingle Mill campground in Fillmore Canyon. That day we went to my grandparents' house in Fillmore before and after church; my dad said that it was fifty years ago to the day that he first entered the doorway to the kitchen (when he was born, the kitchen door was the front door of the house). Grandpa Boyd told my dad that he remembered when he came into the world. We went back up to the canyon, and my aunt Sarena brought my dad a cake that had "Over the Hill" decorations and black frosting on the edges. My cousin Steven got some all over his face and we discovered that the black frosting was blue when it was diluted. Then my uncle Mike invited me to go adventuring in the red Jeep with him and my cousins Krishelle and Terrill. We went up the canyon, and I think we saw a place for cattle to drink. Then we looked out over Fillmore from the canyon; Mike pointed out the Maverik station. Krishelle pointed out tiny Flowell. We went to the "M" for "Millard" on the mountain; there were tin can lanterns all over the M for them to light up. I was immature and I thought it would be funny to make some weird noises by vibrating my cheeks. It really annoyed Krishelle, who kept saying "Stop that!" Then we went to a place known colloquially in Fillmore as Pink Elephant Lane; my uncle said that my dad had once crashed there. He told some silly jokes: Why do pink elephants paint their toenails red? So they can hide in cherry trees and Why do they paint their toenails green? So they can hide in lime trees. Then we went and filled up the Jeep at the Maverik station; I was surprised my uncle was buying gas on Sunday and I was especially surprised that he was also buying drinks. A snake had hitched a ride on the Jeep and fell off at the gas station. Mike asked a girl at another pump if she wanted a snake; she saw it and was a bit grossed out. Then we went back up to the canyon and our trailer's porch light was on. It was about 10:30 and everyone was going to bed; I was sad I missed a night of campfire business. This paragraph was taken from My dad's birthdays.
1993 or 1994. This might have been the time we had a little campfire devotional service. My memory tells me we even had sacrament, which is a big no-no, but since I was so young, it's possible that didn't happen.
2013. After church I drove home, and I remember in the evening sitting on the couch in the living room, writing my blogs.
2012. I remember going to the singles ward up in NSL, and I felt bad that Brittany Bowman moved into that ward after I had unfriended her on Facebook. My mom had made a birthday cake for my dad with red, white, and blue sprinkles so that I could eat it. When she dished out my bowl, she had even put sprinkles on the ice cream. I didn't think sprinkles belonged on ice cream, and I would have been able to eat it anyway, since it was paired with the patriotic cake.
2011. I think I wore a sweater to the NSL singles ward, because it was a cool day and I could.
2010. I would have been home this day, but I can't remember what I did.
2009. This is what my journal says. I think when we met Rebecca's brother, we were looking for her, but he was the only one home and invited us in: "At church today Kim told us the talk with her mom wasn't the greatest, so we're going over tomorrow.
"This afternoon we tracted a small street but few people were home. Then we had dinner with the Smiths. After that we contacted Rebecca Dyer's brother, who isn't a member, so hopefully we can possibly teach him. Then we visited Brother Nickel, and gave Sister Carter a blessing."
2008. My companion at this time ruined my mission for those three months, and later during the week blamed me for all his shortcomings. At our visit with the Hokes, we were there way too long, and they played Bill Cosby's chocolate cake routine. Here is what the journal says:
"Today, Kristy and Austin were our only investigators at church, although Gina, an investigator from another stake, came with her friend.
"We overstayed with the Hokes--great family--and then we tried to see people. Our numbers this week are bad, and P-day isn't tomorrow. It will be an interesting day."
2007. We were camped in the backyard of my late grandparents' house, and I think that night we watched The Flying Nun on the little portable DVD player, in the trailer.
2004. I think this was the time that we went down to my grandparents' house in Fillmore to go to church. I was dismayed when I realized that I had forgotten my dress shoes, but Grandpa Boyd told me that a lot of people at church wouldn't be in dress shoes either. But people wouldn't have noticed my shoes. David, Ya-ping, and a friend had not brought any church clothes at all. David said it was because they didn't know if they would be going to church. It seemed pretty obvious to me that if you didn't know, you would bring clothes just in case. They didn't even shower before church, and we had been camping. We were embarrassed to be with them, and Mom was really mad.
2001. My dad wasn't happy to turn 50. We were at Shingle Mill campground in Fillmore Canyon. That day we went to my grandparents' house in Fillmore before and after church; my dad said that it was fifty years ago to the day that he first entered the doorway to the kitchen (when he was born, the kitchen door was the front door of the house). Grandpa Boyd told my dad that he remembered when he came into the world. We went back up to the canyon, and my aunt Sarena brought my dad a cake that had "Over the Hill" decorations and black frosting on the edges. My cousin Steven got some all over his face and we discovered that the black frosting was blue when it was diluted. Then my uncle Mike invited me to go adventuring in the red Jeep with him and my cousins Krishelle and Terrill. We went up the canyon, and I think we saw a place for cattle to drink. Then we looked out over Fillmore from the canyon; Mike pointed out the Maverik station. Krishelle pointed out tiny Flowell. We went to the "M" for "Millard" on the mountain; there were tin can lanterns all over the M for them to light up. I was immature and I thought it would be funny to make some weird noises by vibrating my cheeks. It really annoyed Krishelle, who kept saying "Stop that!" Then we went to a place known colloquially in Fillmore as Pink Elephant Lane; my uncle said that my dad had once crashed there. He told some silly jokes: Why do pink elephants paint their toenails red? So they can hide in cherry trees and Why do they paint their toenails green? So they can hide in lime trees. Then we went and filled up the Jeep at the Maverik station; I was surprised my uncle was buying gas on Sunday and I was especially surprised that he was also buying drinks. A snake had hitched a ride on the Jeep and fell off at the gas station. Mike asked a girl at another pump if she wanted a snake; she saw it and was a bit grossed out. Then we went back up to the canyon and our trailer's porch light was on. It was about 10:30 and everyone was going to bed; I was sad I missed a night of campfire business. This paragraph was taken from My dad's birthdays.
1993 or 1994. This might have been the time we had a little campfire devotional service. My memory tells me we even had sacrament, which is a big no-no, but since I was so young, it's possible that didn't happen.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Two days before Memorial Day
Memorial Day is coming up, so I'm going to remember what I did on the Saturday before Memorial Day.
2013. I went to the Deseret Book/Distribution store to buy a new journal. I wanted the Church-made ones, so I looked all over Distribution. I asked someone where they were, and she directed me back to Deseret Book. I looked at their journals, but there were none of the Church-made ones, so I didn't buy one. I remember spending a lot of time in the library, working on an assignment for my editing class. This might have been the time that when I went over to the restroom, I saw two people from my ward, Ben Savio and David Jones. This is what my journal says:
"I went to buy a new journal today, but apparently they don't make these anymore. I've had a really hard time staying focused and motivated today. The only productive thing I did was spend a few hours on an editing assignment, but I should have done more, 'cause it's a doozy. I have a cold or something."
2012. We were camping, and I had some hot chocolate with red, white, and blue star-shaped marshmallows in it. It was cold and wet. Susanne came up, and she had brought Buddy the dog. He was getting all in the mud, and then he would jump up on Allie and Susanne and get his muddy pawprints on the blanket. Nan said she used to make fun of someone who brought her dog camping, and here she was the crazy dog person. We were all thinking the same thing. Eventually we all left, and I was dropped off at my apartment. I offered to Allie to use my bathroom, but she didn't want to. When I told her that my roommates weren't home, she was willing to come in. My dad came in too, and for a brief moment my roommate Cameron came home and he seemed a little freaked out to see a strange man in the apartment. They left, and I got ready to come up. But I left a little later than I expected. I went to Smith's in Bountiful to get salt and vinegar chips and root beer for my dad's birthday, and while I was there my mom called me (or texted me) to see where I was.
2011. I remember going to Walmart with my family, and Allie was saying she wanted a treat. My mom offered to get her the movie Gnomeo and Juliet. But then she was saying again that she wanted a treat, and would rather have it than the movie. I pointed out to her how silly that was, because she could watch a movie over and over, and we still had some of my dad's birthday cake at home. My mom agreed with me, to Allie's chagrin.
2010. My parents came early in the morning to pick me up to go to Fillmore. I gave my dad the DVD I had bought for his birthday when I got in the car, and I even told my parents about the concert I had been to the night before and had brought the CD I got there, but they didn't seem interested. We went to McDonald's for breakfast, which I wasn't happy about, and Allie said, "Maybe we're going here because I'm here." She had a bunch of DVDs to watch in her portable DVD player. She had brought the movie Mamma Mia! which I didn't want to be around, as very few PG-13 movies fit my standards (I wondered why she was allowed to watch it!). My mom asked Allie if she could watch something else for me. Later, Allie was watching a Barbie movie, and she told me that I could watch it because it had boys in it; and she also told me I could watch Mamma Mia! because it had boys in it. I thought it was funny that the six-year-old thought I didn't want to watch a movie because I thought it didn't have boys in it. We went to Fillmore Canyon, and Matt and I were standing on a grassy portion near the creek, where the kids were throwing rocks into the stream. Matt asked me what classes I was taking; I said, "French and New Testament," and he said he had taken French. Allie tried to throw a rock in the stream, and she missed horribly and threw it at us. We went back up to the picnic area, and Sarena was making homemade ice cream. Allie said, "I want to sit on this rock," so we let her and walked away. Then Susanne realized that she was sitting there, waiting for Sarena to share her ice cream. She went and took Allie away. Allie was really mad, and Nan tried to explain why that wasn't polite. But then Sarena came around and offered some of her ice cream to all of us. Allie was happy about that, but I declined. We went back to Provo, and my dad rode up with me. I asked him if he wanted a granola bar, but he didn't.
2009. We were helping the Catmulls next door, and Sister Catmull offered us pizza. She asked me what I liked or didn't like, and I said I liked everything but mushrooms. One of the pizzas ended up being Hawaiian, which Elder LaPratt didn't like. Their grandson Tyson and his girlfriend and our investigator, Kim, were there. They also had a great-grandson, a two-year-old named Jake, there. He pointed to the fancy pizza with tomatoes on it, probably because he thought the tomatoes looked good. But when he tasted it, he got this cringe on his face. It was really funny. This is what my journal says:
"This morning we were going to help Brother Cooper, but he wasn't home. We visited Brother Sabin. At the end of lunch, Tyson Ball asked if we could help his grandpa next door. We did, and that allowed us to have a lesson with Kim after dinner. That went well. After that we helped the Ruddells."
2008. I don't remember much about this day, but I think we met with Denise in the church building after Elder Condie played in the stake softball game. This might have been the day I was amused by the scriptures talking about the fathers eating a sour grape and the children's teeth being set on edge. One of the members said, "Sounds like sour grapes to me." (Our district, including our zone leaders, would play softball with the ward members, which I don't necessarily think is a bad idea, but it was later forbidden. I would sit and read my scriptures, but it probably would have been better if I interacted with members, which was the point of playing.) This is what my journal says:
"There were two softball games today. I was able to read much of Isaiah during it. Then Denise kept her appointment and hopefully she'll come to church. We met with the Curtisses, and then stopped by various people. The Welshes made us dinner.
"Elder Condie wanted me to redo the progress records. It seems like he disapproves of everything I do since interviews."
2002. I was released from the hospital in the morning from having anaphylaxis. My grandparents came over, and my mom was folding laundry. I was mortified that she was folding my underwear in front of them, so I kept throwing water at her in the hopes that she would stop, but it just made her mad. I was talking about how my Spanish teacher had said that any extra credit had to be done before Friday (the day before), no exceptions, that if you were in the ambulance on your way to the hospital, it would still be too late. Although I wasn't doing any extra credit, I was in fact in an ambulance on my way to the hospital that day.
2001. I think we were playing with the little helicopter toys my mom had brought camping. Sometimes they would fly on top of the outhouse, which was brand new and therefore not smelly. My cousin Rayce would climb up and get it. I think I imagined it would be really funny if it landed in the little pipe thing.
1995. I think this was the time that I was riding up in a car with my dad, Susanne, and my cousins Rayce and Krishelle. My dad and sister were remarking about how high the creek was and were saying we couldn't play in it. Krishelle and I were talking about how it freaked us out to drive by the cliffs on the side of the road. When we got up to the campsite, my mom, who had been in another vehicle, got all the kids together and said, "OK, the rule is," and then she explained we couldn't go by the water. We told her we knew that already. She clapped her hands together at some point (I think after "OK"); I don't know if it was to get our attention or for dramatic effect.
2013. I went to the Deseret Book/Distribution store to buy a new journal. I wanted the Church-made ones, so I looked all over Distribution. I asked someone where they were, and she directed me back to Deseret Book. I looked at their journals, but there were none of the Church-made ones, so I didn't buy one. I remember spending a lot of time in the library, working on an assignment for my editing class. This might have been the time that when I went over to the restroom, I saw two people from my ward, Ben Savio and David Jones. This is what my journal says:
"I went to buy a new journal today, but apparently they don't make these anymore. I've had a really hard time staying focused and motivated today. The only productive thing I did was spend a few hours on an editing assignment, but I should have done more, 'cause it's a doozy. I have a cold or something."
2012. We were camping, and I had some hot chocolate with red, white, and blue star-shaped marshmallows in it. It was cold and wet. Susanne came up, and she had brought Buddy the dog. He was getting all in the mud, and then he would jump up on Allie and Susanne and get his muddy pawprints on the blanket. Nan said she used to make fun of someone who brought her dog camping, and here she was the crazy dog person. We were all thinking the same thing. Eventually we all left, and I was dropped off at my apartment. I offered to Allie to use my bathroom, but she didn't want to. When I told her that my roommates weren't home, she was willing to come in. My dad came in too, and for a brief moment my roommate Cameron came home and he seemed a little freaked out to see a strange man in the apartment. They left, and I got ready to come up. But I left a little later than I expected. I went to Smith's in Bountiful to get salt and vinegar chips and root beer for my dad's birthday, and while I was there my mom called me (or texted me) to see where I was.
2011. I remember going to Walmart with my family, and Allie was saying she wanted a treat. My mom offered to get her the movie Gnomeo and Juliet. But then she was saying again that she wanted a treat, and would rather have it than the movie. I pointed out to her how silly that was, because she could watch a movie over and over, and we still had some of my dad's birthday cake at home. My mom agreed with me, to Allie's chagrin.
2010. My parents came early in the morning to pick me up to go to Fillmore. I gave my dad the DVD I had bought for his birthday when I got in the car, and I even told my parents about the concert I had been to the night before and had brought the CD I got there, but they didn't seem interested. We went to McDonald's for breakfast, which I wasn't happy about, and Allie said, "Maybe we're going here because I'm here." She had a bunch of DVDs to watch in her portable DVD player. She had brought the movie Mamma Mia! which I didn't want to be around, as very few PG-13 movies fit my standards (I wondered why she was allowed to watch it!). My mom asked Allie if she could watch something else for me. Later, Allie was watching a Barbie movie, and she told me that I could watch it because it had boys in it; and she also told me I could watch Mamma Mia! because it had boys in it. I thought it was funny that the six-year-old thought I didn't want to watch a movie because I thought it didn't have boys in it. We went to Fillmore Canyon, and Matt and I were standing on a grassy portion near the creek, where the kids were throwing rocks into the stream. Matt asked me what classes I was taking; I said, "French and New Testament," and he said he had taken French. Allie tried to throw a rock in the stream, and she missed horribly and threw it at us. We went back up to the picnic area, and Sarena was making homemade ice cream. Allie said, "I want to sit on this rock," so we let her and walked away. Then Susanne realized that she was sitting there, waiting for Sarena to share her ice cream. She went and took Allie away. Allie was really mad, and Nan tried to explain why that wasn't polite. But then Sarena came around and offered some of her ice cream to all of us. Allie was happy about that, but I declined. We went back to Provo, and my dad rode up with me. I asked him if he wanted a granola bar, but he didn't.
2009. We were helping the Catmulls next door, and Sister Catmull offered us pizza. She asked me what I liked or didn't like, and I said I liked everything but mushrooms. One of the pizzas ended up being Hawaiian, which Elder LaPratt didn't like. Their grandson Tyson and his girlfriend and our investigator, Kim, were there. They also had a great-grandson, a two-year-old named Jake, there. He pointed to the fancy pizza with tomatoes on it, probably because he thought the tomatoes looked good. But when he tasted it, he got this cringe on his face. It was really funny. This is what my journal says:
"This morning we were going to help Brother Cooper, but he wasn't home. We visited Brother Sabin. At the end of lunch, Tyson Ball asked if we could help his grandpa next door. We did, and that allowed us to have a lesson with Kim after dinner. That went well. After that we helped the Ruddells."
2008. I don't remember much about this day, but I think we met with Denise in the church building after Elder Condie played in the stake softball game. This might have been the day I was amused by the scriptures talking about the fathers eating a sour grape and the children's teeth being set on edge. One of the members said, "Sounds like sour grapes to me." (Our district, including our zone leaders, would play softball with the ward members, which I don't necessarily think is a bad idea, but it was later forbidden. I would sit and read my scriptures, but it probably would have been better if I interacted with members, which was the point of playing.) This is what my journal says:
"There were two softball games today. I was able to read much of Isaiah during it. Then Denise kept her appointment and hopefully she'll come to church. We met with the Curtisses, and then stopped by various people. The Welshes made us dinner.
"Elder Condie wanted me to redo the progress records. It seems like he disapproves of everything I do since interviews."
2002. I was released from the hospital in the morning from having anaphylaxis. My grandparents came over, and my mom was folding laundry. I was mortified that she was folding my underwear in front of them, so I kept throwing water at her in the hopes that she would stop, but it just made her mad. I was talking about how my Spanish teacher had said that any extra credit had to be done before Friday (the day before), no exceptions, that if you were in the ambulance on your way to the hospital, it would still be too late. Although I wasn't doing any extra credit, I was in fact in an ambulance on my way to the hospital that day.
2001. I think we were playing with the little helicopter toys my mom had brought camping. Sometimes they would fly on top of the outhouse, which was brand new and therefore not smelly. My cousin Rayce would climb up and get it. I think I imagined it would be really funny if it landed in the little pipe thing.
1995. I think this was the time that I was riding up in a car with my dad, Susanne, and my cousins Rayce and Krishelle. My dad and sister were remarking about how high the creek was and were saying we couldn't play in it. Krishelle and I were talking about how it freaked us out to drive by the cliffs on the side of the road. When we got up to the campsite, my mom, who had been in another vehicle, got all the kids together and said, "OK, the rule is," and then she explained we couldn't go by the water. We told her we knew that already. She clapped her hands together at some point (I think after "OK"); I don't know if it was to get our attention or for dramatic effect.
Monday, July 1, 2013
July 5
Last year I didn't get around to writing about the day after the Fourth of July, so here it is.
2012. I think I had to go do a source check in the library for work, and it was raining quite a bit. It made me really happy. It felt like September. I remember the cool weather made me think of "The Great Pumpkin Waltz," but then I had to remind myself that it was still more than two months until the beginning of the Halloween season, let alone the holiday itself. Then that day some of my "horse" friends wanted to go to a production of Cyrano de Bergerac in the HFAC. I was going to go meet Carissa, the one who had suggested it. While I was on my way to her apartment, I met my former roommate Jeff Anderson. I talked briefly to him. Then I went to Queen's Arms apartments, but I didn't remember which was Carissa's. So then I went to my apartment to find her apartment or phone number on lds.org, but the ward directory was down. So then I just went up to the HFAC. I went into the play, and I saw my roommate Cameron sitting there. I went and sat down. Then Hanna and Kristen (and maybe someone else) came in. They told Cameron that Carissa was outside the theater waiting for him, so he went out and met her. We moved seats just before the play started. It was an abbreviated, happier story than the original Cyrano. After the play, we walked home, and I talked to Hanna about how it felt like September. She was from Rexburg, so she didn't know what Utah Julys were usually like.
2011. I woke up in the morning in the apartment below me. I didn't make my bed, but I took my Fourth of July pillowcase up to my apartment. When I went back to that apartment to sleep that night, Jimmy (my temporary roommate) had made my bed.
2010. We didn't have school, so I slept in. I think my roommates bought some maple bars and made bacon to put on top of them--but I was still sleeping when that happened.
2009. Our investigator Nick Montez was supposed to come to church, since he was getting baptized that week. He showed up during the gospel principles class--he was late because his truck had broken down. He met with President Landeen, the branch president of the Lewis-Clark YSA branch, and President Landeen gave him a serviceman's scripture set. President Landeen approved it, so then we went to the stake center so that Elder Hinebaugh, the district leader, could interview him. He passed!
2008. Elder Bramall and I had to get up early. Elder Bramall was the district leader, so we had to go meet with a member of the stake presidency, along with the district leader of the Spanish area. When we showed up, we saw the Spanish elders about to knock on a door on the other side of the street. Elder Bramall called out to them and asked what they were doing. They said that the stake presidency member had given them the wrong address, so it was a good thing we got there just in time to prevent them from knocking on the wrong door--it would have been like tracting at 7 or 8 in the morning (I can't remember what time it was). I think we had some kind of breakfast. Then we were singing a hymn to start off our meeting. Elder Bramall said that President Clark liked "Saints Behold How Great Jehovah," but the stake presidency member didn't want to sing that. After our meeting, we went home and took naps, since we had gotten up so early. Then we had a service project because a less-active part-member family was moving into our ward boundaries. The Wenatchee 3rd elders, Elder Bates and Elder Major, helped them move, too (that was the ward the PMF was moving from). The family provided us Costco pizza. It came up that I didn't like mushrooms, and Elder Bates said that he thought that I would like them. He knew I wanted to be a vampire, so he thought that I would like something that grew in dark, damp environments.
2007. I had to have my pre-mission physical. There was someone being trained, so Dr. Cope asked if that trainee could observe. They gave me an extra sheet for modesty.
2006. I think I was casually eating the crumbs leftover from the Fourth of July cake we had bought.
2000. Since the next holiday was Halloween, I took out my small Halloween decorations, including my school art projects, and put them up in my room. (I don't do that anymore, although I still get a little sad at the holiday drought that starts in July.)
1996. I seem to remember throwing snaps outside the backdoor of my paternal grandparents' house. There was a puddle from a sprinkler, so the snap didn't work. I purposely tried to do that because I heard that it made a cool sound in water, but it didn't work. My dad told me about the time he ended up at the hospital the day after the Fourth of July because he was trying to light leftover fireworks.
2012. I think I had to go do a source check in the library for work, and it was raining quite a bit. It made me really happy. It felt like September. I remember the cool weather made me think of "The Great Pumpkin Waltz," but then I had to remind myself that it was still more than two months until the beginning of the Halloween season, let alone the holiday itself. Then that day some of my "horse" friends wanted to go to a production of Cyrano de Bergerac in the HFAC. I was going to go meet Carissa, the one who had suggested it. While I was on my way to her apartment, I met my former roommate Jeff Anderson. I talked briefly to him. Then I went to Queen's Arms apartments, but I didn't remember which was Carissa's. So then I went to my apartment to find her apartment or phone number on lds.org, but the ward directory was down. So then I just went up to the HFAC. I went into the play, and I saw my roommate Cameron sitting there. I went and sat down. Then Hanna and Kristen (and maybe someone else) came in. They told Cameron that Carissa was outside the theater waiting for him, so he went out and met her. We moved seats just before the play started. It was an abbreviated, happier story than the original Cyrano. After the play, we walked home, and I talked to Hanna about how it felt like September. She was from Rexburg, so she didn't know what Utah Julys were usually like.
2011. I woke up in the morning in the apartment below me. I didn't make my bed, but I took my Fourth of July pillowcase up to my apartment. When I went back to that apartment to sleep that night, Jimmy (my temporary roommate) had made my bed.
2010. We didn't have school, so I slept in. I think my roommates bought some maple bars and made bacon to put on top of them--but I was still sleeping when that happened.
2009. Our investigator Nick Montez was supposed to come to church, since he was getting baptized that week. He showed up during the gospel principles class--he was late because his truck had broken down. He met with President Landeen, the branch president of the Lewis-Clark YSA branch, and President Landeen gave him a serviceman's scripture set. President Landeen approved it, so then we went to the stake center so that Elder Hinebaugh, the district leader, could interview him. He passed!
2008. Elder Bramall and I had to get up early. Elder Bramall was the district leader, so we had to go meet with a member of the stake presidency, along with the district leader of the Spanish area. When we showed up, we saw the Spanish elders about to knock on a door on the other side of the street. Elder Bramall called out to them and asked what they were doing. They said that the stake presidency member had given them the wrong address, so it was a good thing we got there just in time to prevent them from knocking on the wrong door--it would have been like tracting at 7 or 8 in the morning (I can't remember what time it was). I think we had some kind of breakfast. Then we were singing a hymn to start off our meeting. Elder Bramall said that President Clark liked "Saints Behold How Great Jehovah," but the stake presidency member didn't want to sing that. After our meeting, we went home and took naps, since we had gotten up so early. Then we had a service project because a less-active part-member family was moving into our ward boundaries. The Wenatchee 3rd elders, Elder Bates and Elder Major, helped them move, too (that was the ward the PMF was moving from). The family provided us Costco pizza. It came up that I didn't like mushrooms, and Elder Bates said that he thought that I would like them. He knew I wanted to be a vampire, so he thought that I would like something that grew in dark, damp environments.
2007. I had to have my pre-mission physical. There was someone being trained, so Dr. Cope asked if that trainee could observe. They gave me an extra sheet for modesty.
2006. I think I was casually eating the crumbs leftover from the Fourth of July cake we had bought.
2000. Since the next holiday was Halloween, I took out my small Halloween decorations, including my school art projects, and put them up in my room. (I don't do that anymore, although I still get a little sad at the holiday drought that starts in July.)
1996. I seem to remember throwing snaps outside the backdoor of my paternal grandparents' house. There was a puddle from a sprinkler, so the snap didn't work. I purposely tried to do that because I heard that it made a cool sound in water, but it didn't work. My dad told me about the time he ended up at the hospital the day after the Fourth of July because he was trying to light leftover fireworks.
Sunday, May 19, 2013
The Friday before Memorial Day
In recent years, the Friday before Memorial Day has been kind of an exciting day because it's one of my arbitrary days when I start a holiday season. On the Friday before Memorial Day I start the patriotic season that includes Memorial Day and Flag Day but is really all about the Fourth of July. However, this hasn't always been the case. This is my attempt at remembering what I can about the Friday before Memorial Day in the past.
2012. I went to my stupid history class in the morning and doodled patriotic things in the margins of my notes. Then that afternoon my parents came to town and picked me up. They wanted to try J-Dawgs, so they pulled into the parking lot. But I didn't warn them that the parking lot was really small, so my dad had to do some difficult maneuvering to back the Suburban into a parking spot. My dad ate his before we headed out. Allie was annoyed about turning the car off because it would make her start her movie over on her portable DVD player. Allie eventually said she didn't want to finish hers, so she gave it to my mom, but all that was left was the bun. My family had gone to Cabela's before picking me up and bought some Tootsie Rolls. I said that if they had bought patriotic-wrapped candies, I could have had them. I asked them if they remembered to bring the patriotic marshmallows. Allie was watching Matilda, and I didn't care for the language contained therein. I wanted to listen to Adele, and we eventually did. We drove out to see the lava tubes near Flowell; I think we saw a dust devil in a Flowell field. There was a cinder cone volcano that was half destroyed by some business. We drove on a road surrounded by basalt. There were lots of rocks in the road and I worried we would get a flat tire, which got Allie worrying as well. Then we got to the lava tubes. I went down into one. It was really cool! There were lots of grasshoppers and even some lizards. My dad told me about how he and some friends once set a fire in the open area of the lava tube, so he may have been responsible for the relative lack of vegetation down there. Then my dad took me and Allie into another lava tube, one that went far into the earth and out of the daylight. We had to use flashlights. My dad told me how he would go camping in the dark tube. I would be a little creeped out to sleep there. Then I hiked up nearby Tabernacle Hill while my mom and Allie waited in the car. I started on one side, but the path led to a steeper path on the other side. It was extraordinarily windy and I worried my glasses would blow off. My dad also climbed up. I tried to take pictures from the top, but my camera was out of battery. I wanted to walk over to a nearby alcove down in the lava tube, but it was so windy I decided not to. When we were driving back, my parents took a wrong turn (even though I told them it was wrong). We saw a sand dune with some cows on it; I said, "Look at that barchan sand dune!" My mom asked what barchan meant; she thought it was some slang expression. Then we drove up to Fillmore Canyon. I noticed all the arkose rocks. Then we met all of the Christensens, my dad's sister's family. We set up our tent, and then that night we roasted marshmallows for s'mores. I used red, white, and blue marshmallows so that I could have them. We talked about how good a man my Grandpa Boyd was. Sarena said that Judy was a good grandma, considering her circumstances.
2011. Before my 12:00 class, I downloaded "America the Beautiful," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "The Star Spangled Banner" from lds.org. When I came home from classes, I was talking to my roommate Chase, and I think we were looking at pictures of eight-legged creatures. I was people watching out the window and saw a barefoot guy with short shorts and a funny gait. (I can't remember if his shorts were salmon-colored or if his legs were.) Then our roommate Zach came home and we put our stuff in the car to carpool up to North Salt Lake. We had to stop at the Wilk to pick up Shannon Kelly. Zach made an illegal left turn to get out of the Wilk. As we were driving down University Parkway, there was a car in front of us with a peculiar accessory on the back--it looked like a TV screen. We wanted to figure out what it was, but the car got away from us. As we got on the freeway, Zach and Shannon talked about a time when they almost crashed getting on the freeway because of a crazy lady driver. Zach was a fairly aggressive driver and said why he wondered why some of the people were going slow. I said, "Maybe they believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Zach was listening to his music on his iPod and Chase started dancing to "Viva la Vida." When Zach pulled up to my house, he was surprised to see the green Taurus in the driveway--he had ridden in that car before, but he didn't know I had switched cars. My dad wasn't too happy about turning 60. My mom made him a cake with blue frosting and red, white, and blue sprinkles. The sprinkles were for my sake, so I could eat the cake. She sent me to the store for something. I went with Allie, and we looked to see if there was such a thing as Fourth of July ice cream, since my mom said she had seen some. There wasn't. As we left the store, we saw Devan Gubler. Zach texted me to see if I wanted to play card games with him and some friends, but I declined. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2010. My roommate Alex Vincent sent a mass text to all of his friends about his friend Nik Day who was performing at Sammy's restaurant in honor of his EP release. I asked Alex what an EP was, and he said it was a short CD. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I went to the EP release and met a girl from our ward, Joyce Porter. The first performer that night was one Amy Whitcomb. Next up was Jarrett Burns, who was quite enthusiastic, and I found his music fun. He didn't have live music; he just played the minus tracks from his laptop. Sammy's passed around a menu of their food, and Jarrett Burns's parents were in attendance. Then there was a girl who sang, accompanied by Aaron Edson. She was singing a song and she kept amending the lyrics. One of lyrics was "We could make out," and she added, "in a totally appropriate way." She mentioned something about talking to a bishop. In the middle of the song she apologized and said she was being too silly. My thought was, if you're going to have to clean up the lyrics, why don't you just choose another song? She also sang, "Or we could make love...after going to the temple!" Then Nik Day got on. Alex was his mandolin player. He said he was going to sing "People Will Be People," and there were some cheers. He pointed out that obviously his family members were there. Some people were watching from the parking balcony of the adjacent hotel; the MC thanked them for not complaining about the noise. That night I bought Jarrett Burns's CD, and then I bought Nik Day's EP out of sympathy. (Well, sympathy's not the right word; I bought it because I felt bad not buying it, since it was his concert.) Joyce Porter bought the deal that included some extra songs and a Sammy's pie shake, but she tried to give the shake away. I drove Joyce home while listening to my Michelle Tumes CD. When I got to the Stratford Court parking lot, I told her she could get out because I was embarrassed to back into a parking spot with someone in the car, since I'm not a very good backer.
2009. At combined district meeting, our zone leaders told us they weren't going to give us a training on how to contact people but instead would have us go out and contact people. We all paired up with other missionaries and drove someplace to contact people. Elder Cluff drove us to the Walmart parking lot; he and his "companion" claimed the people who were standing underneath a tree outside of the parking lot. I thought the parking lot was a terrible idea. But before I could tell my temporary companion that it was a bad idea to talk to people in the parking lot, he went up and started talking to people. I changed the approach and just offered to take people's carts back for them, since that seemed more legal. That afternoon we went to Lapwai, and then we came back for the Lewiston 2nd Ward party. I commented on the springlike colors of the table cloths. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today the zone leaders had us leave in district meeting to go talk to people, and the other missionaries foolishly had us go to the Wal-Mart parking lot. That was bad and I didn't think it was an appropriate place to contact people.
"Jeffrey's was really slow. Then we went out to Lapwai. A bunch of the Indians are unhappy because a policeman shot an Indian who wouldn't pull over.
"Then we went to the ward party. It was kind of boring and had a poor turnout.
"I'm feeling like the days here are unfulfilling. On Wednesday I'll take over the area on exchanges, and I'm excited. I want to do some good work that will help me learn the area. I am pretty annoyed that Elder Lamb didn't update anything of former investigators."
2008. This is what my journal entry says:
"Today Elder Condie decided to sleep in [which was nothing new for him]. Then Teddie cancelled but still wanted a map to church. We stopped by a few people around her, then we came home. We had to usher for the stake play--they started it early for some reason. There was no organization. Then Kristy wasn't home when we showed up. We tried to call her but she got a new cell phone."
I seem to remember thinking it was dumb to start the play early, since lots of people were still showing up. I think this was the time we were standing outside the room of the performance, and we heard silence on stage (it was written as part of the play). Sister Shaw said that it was bad to have silence on stage for so long, whether it was intentional or not.
2005. I remember that my dad picked me up from school and we had to stop at a gas station to buy special ice to go camping. I guess our freezer ice wasn't good enough. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2002. I was home sick from school. I was taking some medicine for the sickness. I told my mom I couldn't breathe, so she took me to Instacare. They examined me and told me that my throat was closed up; I had anaphylaxis from the medicine. They did what they could for me, but then it was time for them to close, so I was transported by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital. I think I could see my mom's car following the ambulance. I had to stay the night. They gave me an IV and I had to go to the bathroom all night, which annoyed my mom.
2001. We went up to Fillmore Canyon, where we were surprised to see a new outhouse near the gate of the parking area. It was nice and clean, but we didn't know how long it would stay that way. My mom had bought some twirly helicopter toys--you know, the ones that you spin with your hands and let go into the air. I thought about how the red and blue one could be a Fourth of July one, and the orange and purple one could be a Halloween one.
1994. If I am not mistaken, this was the last day of my preschool. They gave us pictures of our class and pencils that had pictures of the earth. They also gave us bags of clothes. These were clothes that our parents had given to the teachers in case we ever peed our pants, but a lot of us thought they were just giving us clothes. I can't remember whether or not I recognized the clothes as my own, but I do remember that I didn't recognize the Mario underwear as my own. (In fact, I think that underwear might have originally belonged to a friend named Keith, or else he had some that was the same. Underwear has a way of changing houses among children who are scared to use strangers' bathrooms.) One boy in my class was tearing off pieces from his plastic bag and eating them, saying, "I love plastic." I thought how I liked it too, but my mom and brother had told me it wasn't good to eat. (It's possible this last part was a dream; sometimes it's hard to distinguish old memories from dreams--but I always thought it really happened.) Then I think I played with my friend David Christensen while my parents were getting ready for camping. It was an overcast day. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2012. I went to my stupid history class in the morning and doodled patriotic things in the margins of my notes. Then that afternoon my parents came to town and picked me up. They wanted to try J-Dawgs, so they pulled into the parking lot. But I didn't warn them that the parking lot was really small, so my dad had to do some difficult maneuvering to back the Suburban into a parking spot. My dad ate his before we headed out. Allie was annoyed about turning the car off because it would make her start her movie over on her portable DVD player. Allie eventually said she didn't want to finish hers, so she gave it to my mom, but all that was left was the bun. My family had gone to Cabela's before picking me up and bought some Tootsie Rolls. I said that if they had bought patriotic-wrapped candies, I could have had them. I asked them if they remembered to bring the patriotic marshmallows. Allie was watching Matilda, and I didn't care for the language contained therein. I wanted to listen to Adele, and we eventually did. We drove out to see the lava tubes near Flowell; I think we saw a dust devil in a Flowell field. There was a cinder cone volcano that was half destroyed by some business. We drove on a road surrounded by basalt. There were lots of rocks in the road and I worried we would get a flat tire, which got Allie worrying as well. Then we got to the lava tubes. I went down into one. It was really cool! There were lots of grasshoppers and even some lizards. My dad told me about how he and some friends once set a fire in the open area of the lava tube, so he may have been responsible for the relative lack of vegetation down there. Then my dad took me and Allie into another lava tube, one that went far into the earth and out of the daylight. We had to use flashlights. My dad told me how he would go camping in the dark tube. I would be a little creeped out to sleep there. Then I hiked up nearby Tabernacle Hill while my mom and Allie waited in the car. I started on one side, but the path led to a steeper path on the other side. It was extraordinarily windy and I worried my glasses would blow off. My dad also climbed up. I tried to take pictures from the top, but my camera was out of battery. I wanted to walk over to a nearby alcove down in the lava tube, but it was so windy I decided not to. When we were driving back, my parents took a wrong turn (even though I told them it was wrong). We saw a sand dune with some cows on it; I said, "Look at that barchan sand dune!" My mom asked what barchan meant; she thought it was some slang expression. Then we drove up to Fillmore Canyon. I noticed all the arkose rocks. Then we met all of the Christensens, my dad's sister's family. We set up our tent, and then that night we roasted marshmallows for s'mores. I used red, white, and blue marshmallows so that I could have them. We talked about how good a man my Grandpa Boyd was. Sarena said that Judy was a good grandma, considering her circumstances.2011. Before my 12:00 class, I downloaded "America the Beautiful," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "The Star Spangled Banner" from lds.org. When I came home from classes, I was talking to my roommate Chase, and I think we were looking at pictures of eight-legged creatures. I was people watching out the window and saw a barefoot guy with short shorts and a funny gait. (I can't remember if his shorts were salmon-colored or if his legs were.) Then our roommate Zach came home and we put our stuff in the car to carpool up to North Salt Lake. We had to stop at the Wilk to pick up Shannon Kelly. Zach made an illegal left turn to get out of the Wilk. As we were driving down University Parkway, there was a car in front of us with a peculiar accessory on the back--it looked like a TV screen. We wanted to figure out what it was, but the car got away from us. As we got on the freeway, Zach and Shannon talked about a time when they almost crashed getting on the freeway because of a crazy lady driver. Zach was a fairly aggressive driver and said why he wondered why some of the people were going slow. I said, "Maybe they believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Zach was listening to his music on his iPod and Chase started dancing to "Viva la Vida." When Zach pulled up to my house, he was surprised to see the green Taurus in the driveway--he had ridden in that car before, but he didn't know I had switched cars. My dad wasn't too happy about turning 60. My mom made him a cake with blue frosting and red, white, and blue sprinkles. The sprinkles were for my sake, so I could eat the cake. She sent me to the store for something. I went with Allie, and we looked to see if there was such a thing as Fourth of July ice cream, since my mom said she had seen some. There wasn't. As we left the store, we saw Devan Gubler. Zach texted me to see if I wanted to play card games with him and some friends, but I declined. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2010. My roommate Alex Vincent sent a mass text to all of his friends about his friend Nik Day who was performing at Sammy's restaurant in honor of his EP release. I asked Alex what an EP was, and he said it was a short CD. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I went to the EP release and met a girl from our ward, Joyce Porter. The first performer that night was one Amy Whitcomb. Next up was Jarrett Burns, who was quite enthusiastic, and I found his music fun. He didn't have live music; he just played the minus tracks from his laptop. Sammy's passed around a menu of their food, and Jarrett Burns's parents were in attendance. Then there was a girl who sang, accompanied by Aaron Edson. She was singing a song and she kept amending the lyrics. One of lyrics was "We could make out," and she added, "in a totally appropriate way." She mentioned something about talking to a bishop. In the middle of the song she apologized and said she was being too silly. My thought was, if you're going to have to clean up the lyrics, why don't you just choose another song? She also sang, "Or we could make love...after going to the temple!" Then Nik Day got on. Alex was his mandolin player. He said he was going to sing "People Will Be People," and there were some cheers. He pointed out that obviously his family members were there. Some people were watching from the parking balcony of the adjacent hotel; the MC thanked them for not complaining about the noise. That night I bought Jarrett Burns's CD, and then I bought Nik Day's EP out of sympathy. (Well, sympathy's not the right word; I bought it because I felt bad not buying it, since it was his concert.) Joyce Porter bought the deal that included some extra songs and a Sammy's pie shake, but she tried to give the shake away. I drove Joyce home while listening to my Michelle Tumes CD. When I got to the Stratford Court parking lot, I told her she could get out because I was embarrassed to back into a parking spot with someone in the car, since I'm not a very good backer.
2009. At combined district meeting, our zone leaders told us they weren't going to give us a training on how to contact people but instead would have us go out and contact people. We all paired up with other missionaries and drove someplace to contact people. Elder Cluff drove us to the Walmart parking lot; he and his "companion" claimed the people who were standing underneath a tree outside of the parking lot. I thought the parking lot was a terrible idea. But before I could tell my temporary companion that it was a bad idea to talk to people in the parking lot, he went up and started talking to people. I changed the approach and just offered to take people's carts back for them, since that seemed more legal. That afternoon we went to Lapwai, and then we came back for the Lewiston 2nd Ward party. I commented on the springlike colors of the table cloths. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today the zone leaders had us leave in district meeting to go talk to people, and the other missionaries foolishly had us go to the Wal-Mart parking lot. That was bad and I didn't think it was an appropriate place to contact people.
"Jeffrey's was really slow. Then we went out to Lapwai. A bunch of the Indians are unhappy because a policeman shot an Indian who wouldn't pull over.
"Then we went to the ward party. It was kind of boring and had a poor turnout.
"I'm feeling like the days here are unfulfilling. On Wednesday I'll take over the area on exchanges, and I'm excited. I want to do some good work that will help me learn the area. I am pretty annoyed that Elder Lamb didn't update anything of former investigators."
2008. This is what my journal entry says:
"Today Elder Condie decided to sleep in [which was nothing new for him]. Then Teddie cancelled but still wanted a map to church. We stopped by a few people around her, then we came home. We had to usher for the stake play--they started it early for some reason. There was no organization. Then Kristy wasn't home when we showed up. We tried to call her but she got a new cell phone."
I seem to remember thinking it was dumb to start the play early, since lots of people were still showing up. I think this was the time we were standing outside the room of the performance, and we heard silence on stage (it was written as part of the play). Sister Shaw said that it was bad to have silence on stage for so long, whether it was intentional or not.
2005. I remember that my dad picked me up from school and we had to stop at a gas station to buy special ice to go camping. I guess our freezer ice wasn't good enough. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2002. I was home sick from school. I was taking some medicine for the sickness. I told my mom I couldn't breathe, so she took me to Instacare. They examined me and told me that my throat was closed up; I had anaphylaxis from the medicine. They did what they could for me, but then it was time for them to close, so I was transported by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital. I think I could see my mom's car following the ambulance. I had to stay the night. They gave me an IV and I had to go to the bathroom all night, which annoyed my mom.
2001. We went up to Fillmore Canyon, where we were surprised to see a new outhouse near the gate of the parking area. It was nice and clean, but we didn't know how long it would stay that way. My mom had bought some twirly helicopter toys--you know, the ones that you spin with your hands and let go into the air. I thought about how the red and blue one could be a Fourth of July one, and the orange and purple one could be a Halloween one.
1994. If I am not mistaken, this was the last day of my preschool. They gave us pictures of our class and pencils that had pictures of the earth. They also gave us bags of clothes. These were clothes that our parents had given to the teachers in case we ever peed our pants, but a lot of us thought they were just giving us clothes. I can't remember whether or not I recognized the clothes as my own, but I do remember that I didn't recognize the Mario underwear as my own. (In fact, I think that underwear might have originally belonged to a friend named Keith, or else he had some that was the same. Underwear has a way of changing houses among children who are scared to use strangers' bathrooms.) One boy in my class was tearing off pieces from his plastic bag and eating them, saying, "I love plastic." I thought how I liked it too, but my mom and brother had told me it wasn't good to eat. (It's possible this last part was a dream; sometimes it's hard to distinguish old memories from dreams--but I always thought it really happened.) Then I think I played with my friend David Christensen while my parents were getting ready for camping. It was an overcast day. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
Saturday, April 6, 2013
April General Conference
In the midst of watching conference sessions, I'm going to recall the past April conferences of my life. (Last fall I made a post of the October conferences I have experienced.) Some of these years are lifted from my Easter memories.
2012. Saturday was a really warm March day. I remember looking outside and seeing people running and wondering why they weren't watching conference, since most young people in Provo go to BYU. I was eating Easter Dots and grapes to stay awake. For the afternoon session, my roommate Cameron Eaton and his girlfriend came and watched; she had made cookies but they didn't offer any to me (which was fine by me because I didn't want to share my stuff, and the cookies weren't in season anyway). During the last song, she said, "That's David Archuleta!" And indeed it was. There were lots of Facebook statuses about him. I changed into a blue shirt and put on my Snoopy Easter tie and walked over early to the church on 900 East. There was a backyard adjoining the church parking lot; a guy with no shirt asked me if the Priesthood Session was being broadcast at the building. I was early, but the building was later filled to capacity and I wasn't alone on my bench for long. During the session, I doodled in the empty spaces in the calendar in the back of my planner to stay awake.
Sunday was April Fool's Day, so there were plenty of fake engagements and baby announcements on Facebook. One person even said something about a crime at Yellowstone, but that was fake too. I was amused by Google's jokes, like all the YouTube videos on DVD and the Google Maps video game theme. That night I wrote a blog post.
2011. My roommate Derek slept through all of the first session. And then he slept through all of the second session. I walked up to the Marriott Center for the Priesthood session, and when I walked home, I stopped in at South End Market to buy some grapes. The cashier told me she liked my Snoopy tie. I think I looked at the display of Easter candy, but I didn't get any.
On Sunday it had suddenly become snowy. I was quite amused by the guy at the end turning around and smiling; Lynsey Mitchell made a status about it.
It appears that I actually wrote in my journal that night: "Today was the second day of conference. Derek (Elder Warren) slept in for all of the first session. At least he didn't sleep through both of them like he did yesterday. One of the main themes of conference was dating and marriage. This week I went with Lori McKee to the play Persuasion. I'm glad that happened before conference.
"I didn't leave the apartment at all today. When Tristram came home about 7:00, the door was still locked. I had fun looking at the Corpus of LDS General Conference Talks, and playing Easter songs on my keyboard.
"I am nervous for tomorrow because I have to take a test and finish a CHum 250 project for Tuesday, and I don't know if I'll be able to figure out the project. I will be glad when the semester is over."
2010. In the morning on Saturday I saw my Easter basket that had my new shirts and blue plaid shorts in it. I was kind of disappointed that those were my only gifts, since I had got those the day before--there were no surprises. I think we did some grocery shopping and I got a haircut in the morning before the first session. And I think after the first session we had our Easter festivities. Allie didn't want to stay with us because of general conference; Matt said that she had been telling them all about it. We watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail before the second session, and I think that morning our home teacher Christian Ulmer brought us donuts. I think my dad and I went to the Eagleridge building for the Priesthood session.
On Sunday, my parents were going out of town since it was my mom's spring break. My mom wanted me to eat a quarter of the last donut, a glazed one. I didn't want to, since it didn't have any Easter frosting or sprinkles, but she insisted. I told her that I would have to do ten pushups for it. She told me I was a slave driver (against myself) and said that she wouldn't have made me eat it if she knew I would have to do pushups for it. I told her it was OK. They left, and I watched the afternoon session of conference. Elder Nelson spoke and showed pictures of his grandkids. I thought about how my parents wouldn't see those pictures, since they were listening on the car radio. Then I was texting my cousin Jesse about how I would be coming to their house. It took me a long time to get ready to go back to Provo, and before I left I played "That Easter Morn" on the piano. In the car I was listening to Messiah as performed by the MoTab. I think Jesse texted me while I was driving, asking when I'd be there. I got to the Thompsons' house and they had a banner across their door that said "Welcome Home Elder Mark" that they had taken when I came home. I had been home for four months at this point, and I had actually seen the banner on the floor in their house on a previous visit in December. When I told them this they seemed disappointed. When I went inside I was standing, waiting for them to invite me to sit down (as I had become accustomed to doing on my mission), but I could tell they weren't going to invite me, so I sat down anyway. They told me that Joey had objected to putting the banner across the door because it would make them look like white trash. He didn't mind it being in the window, but he didn't like it across the door. I said that I didn't know how having it across the door was worse than having it in the window, and Sue agreed with me. Sue talked about watching conference, and mentioned the speaker who showed pictures of his family. I said, "Wasn't that Elder Nelson?" They were watching a sports game of some sort. After some small talk, Jesse asked me if I wanted to play Nintendo. I told him that I preferred not to play video games or watch TV on Sunday. I didn't think about the fact that they were watching TV. I didn't mean for them to turn off the TV, but they started to. Sue told me she agreed with me. But Peter insisted on keeping the TV on. I remember Jesse eating his Easter candy and I was a little sad that I had eaten all of mine. Jesse and Peter talked about how they wanted to get a pet penguin, and I started talking about how puffins are better than penguins because they can swim and fly. Sue said, "Penguins can fly." Peter and Jesse said, "No they can't!" and Sue realized her folly. They talked about how they wanted to buy an island for exotic pets, and how our uncle Paul could probably finance such a purchase. We talked about an individual we don't care for. We talked about the mysterious, creepy phone calls my aunt Debbie had received many years previously. Sue said that Wayne had put someone up to it, but she wouldn't say who the caller was because it was someone Peter and Jesse liked. After some coaxing, Sue told them who the caller was, and they assured her they didn't like that person. Throughout all our conversations Joey was in and out of the room. He would say the initial of a swear word, forbearing saying the word itself. He said he hated his dad and anyone associated with him. Sue told him he couldn't hate his dad. After he had left, Jesse was talking about how people believed Obama was a Muslim and that Joey probably believed that too. Sue said that Jesse and Peter believed dumb things too, "like evolution." Jesse retorted about evolution being fact-based. I could have spoken up with my views on evolution, but I figured it wouldn't have done much good, and I didn't want to open a can of worms. Eventually I left. I parked in my parking lot by the storage sheds. Lots of people had Facebook links to the Church's YouTube clip adapted from Elder Holland's talk the previous year. I made a status that said "Handel's Messiah is awesome," but no one commented on it.
2009. We went to our church building to watch. I think after the second session we went to the Days', which was where the elders in the Hayden 3rd Ward lived, and there was a press conference with the newly called Elder Andersen. Then I think it was Elder Stafford and Elder Johnson who drove us back to the church for the Priesthood Session. I was reading funny Bible verses, and I was reading some from Proverbs 23 about how dumb alcohol is. I was reading it, and Elder Johnson was talking to Elder Stafford, and then Elder Stafford told him that he wasn't listening to him because he was listening to me. Before the session started, they showed clips of the Tabernacle Choir, and Elder Stafford made some crude comment about how women shouldn't be at the meeting.
On Sunday we went to the church building again. Elder Nixon had gotten a ride from a member in their area down to the church building. That member had brought food and shared it with us. Then Elder Nixon, in his typical overbearing fashion, insisted that he go help us blitz our area. I wasn't too keen on the idea, since it came out of the blue and because it was a burden on the member, but Elder Kitchen also went along with it. Elder Kitchen went with Elder Duncan and I went with Elder Nixon. We went to see a potential investigator and ended up talking with an old man in the yard. The potential wasn't interested. Then I think we went and saw a member to ask about her neighbors. Elder Nixon seemed annoyed that we weren't tracting, but I told him that tracting was one of the least effective things to do, so it only made sense that we do something more productive, especially since Elder Kitchen and Elder Duncan were tracting. Then we went back to the church for the last session. That evening we visited a less-active woman who rarely went to church, and she told us that that day she had actually gone to church with her son, only to discover that there was no church (because of conference; she must have arrived before conference started). Here is my journal entry for the day: "So I don't know how I didn't write yesterday. In between conference sessions Elder Nixon insisted on blitzing our area. That was all right. Then we saw some people, including Kristine Hart, a less-active. It was good to be back on the bikes after the week-long hiatus from the rain and Elder Kitchen's sickness."
2008. We left our house in the morning. It was a rule for a missionary to guide another missionary when he was backing up, but since we were just in our driveway (and we were backing up so that we could drive forwards out of the driveway), we didn't think it necessary. Elder Condie backed into a cement wall and scraped the back bumper. I worried I would get in trouble since it was my job to back him up, but he diabolically never told anyone. On one of the days, Sister Shinn offered us some of her jelly beans; we declined. Elder Condie later complained that she coughed the whole time, but I had not noticed. They sustained President Monson as the new prophet. There was a solemn assembly, and they had everyone stand up according to the organization they belonged to. I remember feeling a little weird standing up as part of an elders quorum, since missionaries function differently from most elders. After the first session Elder Condie wanted to watch the World Report; I was impressed by the counsel to share the gospel on the internet. During the Priesthood Session, President Monson wiggled his ears in a talk, and our zone leader, Elder Gammon, thought that was ridiculous. Then we had dinner with a couple who had a baby and a little girl. It was fun, and they told us that we should come to their house some P-day to play board games. But it was late, and they needed to get their kids to bed. This is my journal entry for the day: "I thought I'd add some color by adding some blue ink to this journal.
"Nevó esta mañana antés de la Conferencia. They had a solemn assembly where we all stood to sustain the prophet and apostles. It's been a good conference.
"It snowed today but it all melted. That was disappointing. Elder Condie backed into a cement wall and scraped a bit of paint off."
The next day (I think) I filmed our drive to the stake center and narrated about the day's happenings. We ate lunch with the sisters in the church building. While we were eating, our investigator Duane called us. I answered the phone and stepped out into a little courtyard-like area off from where we were eating. Duane and Vickie had driven to our church building, but no one was there. We had told them about conference, but we apparently hadn't explained it well enough. While I was on the phone, Elder Condie yelled at me to come in from the snow. Before the afternoon session, they were playing footage of The Restoration and playing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer." Elder Condie was annoyed because he thought the song and the clip were overplayed. Sister Shaw told him they played it because the event was so important. The Stumms from the Greenbluff Ward showed up with our investigators Heather and Matt. Here is my journal entry for the day: "We sat around the sisters again today at conference. Then we ate lunch at the church building. Heather and Matt showed up for the second session. I really liked the sessions, especially when Elder Bednar said missionaries are full-time teachers and members are full-time finders.
"We came home early because we were out of gas. The Welshes made us brownies." (Ah, the dark days of my mission.)
2007. We left early Saturday morning on our drive to Tennessee. My parents hoped we would be able to get conference on the radio, but we couldn't. My parents wanted to listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Later that evening I watched Bewitched on my portable DVD player. I watched the fourth-season episodes with the canine aliens and the Japanese client who was worried about losing face. We stopped at a hotel that night.
The next day my mom looked for conference again. We heard some religious choir on a station, so my mom stopped there. But then she changed the station when a narrator said, "Friends in Christ." I wondered why that was so bad--certainly not LDS parlance, but not something bad. So we listened to weird CDs. We listened to this one called Songs for a Mormon Child; I wondered why my mom liked it so much (even she commented about the girl who tried too hard), especially since there were no kids in the car. Then we listened to all five discs of the Children's Songbook CDs, which I thought were awful. (I actually grew to like them on my mission, but now I think they're terrible again.) Then we stopped at my cousin Tammy's in Iowa. I think we had missed all of conference. They told us about how they had set up a blanket fort tabernacle for the kids to watch conference in. When they began putting the kids to bed, I remember Tammy telling her oldest son, Adam, that two-year-old Ben, when saying prayers, had repeated "Uncle Ricky" as "Uncle Ribby." That night we talked with Tammy. We talked about the synesthesia blog post I had made before leaving. She talked about how she wanted to line me up with a girl from her ward who wanted to be an editor, "this girl Candice." I told Tammy I had actually met her. She said, surprised, "Candice Bellows?" I told her that I had met her at Y-Weekend the previous fall. She told me how she had called her mom, distraught, that she was at a play at BYU that seemed to laugh about a girl being pregnant and not married. I said I was a little surprised at some of the content in the play.
2006. I remember that my two-year-old niece Allie was playing with my mom's friend's niece Austin (what a weird name for a girl!), who was a little older. We were trying to concentrate on conference, but the girls were playing. Allie was getting annoyed with Austin, and Austin kept saying, "She's yelling at me!"
2005. I remember watching Allie during conference, and therefore I didn't get to focus much. I remember her pulling a toy paint set out of her mom's dresser. During the Priesthood Session, President Hinckley spoke about gambling. I wanted to use that as ammunition that my family shouldn't go to Vegas. We told my mom about what he said, and she said that she wouldn't gamble five dollars after all on our trip.
2004. I was with my mom and Nan and Allie out doing errands. I think we stopped at A&W for lunch; we had previously bought Starburst jellybeans from a store. We stopped at my mom's friend Jackie's. I wanted to listen to conference in the car, since I had a diabolical seminary teacher who made us do massive conference reports; my mom told Jackie's son Jake about how I had to do a report. When we got home, I put the jellybeans in the various plastic eggs all over the house. During the Priesthood session, they had an Aaronic Priesthood choir, and we were annoyed with the closeup they did on the one black kid, as if they were trying to prove that we're not racist. I didn't like the choir because of all the young boy voices. David said he liked boys choirs, but that he didn't like the song "True to the Faith," which they sang. He was astounded by the figures President Hinckley described about the revenue of the porn industry.
2002. We were at the Fillmore sand dunes, even though Easter was over. We had brought our trailer, but we couldn't use the water without a battery. We would have tried to listen to conference on the radio. On Sunday we were at my grandparents' house; my dad and grandpa slept for much of it. My aunt Michelle talked for a lot of it, even during the prayers. I remember my mom and Michelle being amused by one of the apostles singing "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof.
2001. On Saturday my mom and I were out in West Jordan and were at a grocery store. They had those permanent small mylar balloons, and one bunny balloon was identical to the one my cousins had got me a week or so earlier when I had seizures. Then we stopped at my cousins' house. Sue wasn't there, but Wayne was, and I was surprised he was out gardening, since most Mormon adults were watching conference.
The next day we were watching conference and I said to my mom, "There's a spider on you!" My dad actually seemed more surprised, maybe because he was sleeping. Then I told them, "April Fool's!"
2000. I remember using the Health Rider during one of the Saturday sessions. My brother told me it wasn't good to do a cardio workout during conference, but my mom reproved him and told him it was impressive that I was watching Saturday sessions. I think it was that day I put plastic Easter eggs on pieces of yarn and draped them around the rearview mirrors of all three of our cars.
The next day my brother's girlfriend Andrea was at our house. My brother was amused that she and my mom were crocheting or something and I was corking a rug. We went to my grandparents' house. My mom and brother were talking about how some of the Apostles had radio voices; I remember Sue talking about how her boys also had low voices. I remember saying, "I thought these were semi-annual conferences, not annual." Sue said, "They are." I said, "But they just said, 'This is the 170th--" Sue cut me off: "Yeah, 170th Semi-Annual General Conference," but my grandparents and I told her that it had in fact said "Annual" and not "Semi-Annual." (Now I know that the April conference is called annual and the October conference is semi-annual.) I think my mom drove David back to Provo from there and I went home with my dad.
1999. My cousin April was with us that morning for our Easter festivities. My mom had bought her a travel reading lamp. I got a VHS of It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. I went down and watched it. As the Easter morning scene started, April said that that was one of her favorite Beethoven pieces. She laughed when Woodstock laid on the egg he got. My brother said something about the line "Never trust a man with a blanket." I remember saying, "I didn't know that girl [Marcie] was dumb," and he told me she was actually smart. Then we drove down to Fillmore; we probably listened to conference in the car. I was wearing a pink Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, but I covered up the picture with a green sweater vest. I cared about the pink (for Easter), not the picture. While everyone must have been watching conference, I went in one of the side rooms and saw that Here Comes Peter Cottontail was on the Fox Family Channel. I remember getting annoyed with all the commercial breaks and thinking that they couldn't keep doing that, because they couldn't take much out. (Which was false; they actually could take a lot out.) The promos for the special had the scene where Peter skates the shape of a heart into the ice and makes it light up. That night I was playing the Game Boy and my grandparents' friends came over and my grandma said to her friend, "They sure love those games, don't they."
The next day uncle (or maybe my grandma) had thrown jelly beans all over the living room for my small cousins. They told me there were some hidden especially for me. They gave me a hint--it had to do with a piano. I kept looking around the piano. There was a shoe lying haphazardly on the floor near the piano, and there was a jelly bean behind it. I asked if it was the one behind the shoe, and my grandma said, "I'm not telling." Eventually I looked up and looked at the painting on the wall of a woman playing a piano. The jelly beans were stuck in the decorative holes on the frame. I pulled them out and ate them. My Christensen relatives came over. I remember that the kids had these weird candies that looked like colored Rice Krispies that I had received the previous year in my third grade class. Rachae and I were in the kitchen watching Here Comes Peter Cottontail on TV. At one point the adults asked us to turn it down. Later Michelle came in and said, "You must be deaf," and turned the TV down. Rachae said to me, "I can't hear it," and I couldn't hear it either. Then we went to my other grandparents' house. I remember talking with Jesse about a Peeps commercial. He liked it, but I wasn't sure what to make of it.
1998. I suspect this was the year Tammy had come to our house for conference. On Saturday night I went to Deseret Book with my mom. During one of the sessions, one of the people giving the prayers had a thick accent; Tammy admitted that she had opened her eyes to see who it was.
1996. My original Easter post has us going to church on Easter, but I just looked up the date of Easter in 1996, and I see that it was on conference weekend, therefore the original is in error. Having reconsidered what actually happened at Easter, I can remember being at the sand dunes and listening to conference on our little yellow radio.
2012. Saturday was a really warm March day. I remember looking outside and seeing people running and wondering why they weren't watching conference, since most young people in Provo go to BYU. I was eating Easter Dots and grapes to stay awake. For the afternoon session, my roommate Cameron Eaton and his girlfriend came and watched; she had made cookies but they didn't offer any to me (which was fine by me because I didn't want to share my stuff, and the cookies weren't in season anyway). During the last song, she said, "That's David Archuleta!" And indeed it was. There were lots of Facebook statuses about him. I changed into a blue shirt and put on my Snoopy Easter tie and walked over early to the church on 900 East. There was a backyard adjoining the church parking lot; a guy with no shirt asked me if the Priesthood Session was being broadcast at the building. I was early, but the building was later filled to capacity and I wasn't alone on my bench for long. During the session, I doodled in the empty spaces in the calendar in the back of my planner to stay awake.
Sunday was April Fool's Day, so there were plenty of fake engagements and baby announcements on Facebook. One person even said something about a crime at Yellowstone, but that was fake too. I was amused by Google's jokes, like all the YouTube videos on DVD and the Google Maps video game theme. That night I wrote a blog post.
2011. My roommate Derek slept through all of the first session. And then he slept through all of the second session. I walked up to the Marriott Center for the Priesthood session, and when I walked home, I stopped in at South End Market to buy some grapes. The cashier told me she liked my Snoopy tie. I think I looked at the display of Easter candy, but I didn't get any.
On Sunday it had suddenly become snowy. I was quite amused by the guy at the end turning around and smiling; Lynsey Mitchell made a status about it.
It appears that I actually wrote in my journal that night: "Today was the second day of conference. Derek (Elder Warren) slept in for all of the first session. At least he didn't sleep through both of them like he did yesterday. One of the main themes of conference was dating and marriage. This week I went with Lori McKee to the play Persuasion. I'm glad that happened before conference.
"I didn't leave the apartment at all today. When Tristram came home about 7:00, the door was still locked. I had fun looking at the Corpus of LDS General Conference Talks, and playing Easter songs on my keyboard.
"I am nervous for tomorrow because I have to take a test and finish a CHum 250 project for Tuesday, and I don't know if I'll be able to figure out the project. I will be glad when the semester is over."
2010. In the morning on Saturday I saw my Easter basket that had my new shirts and blue plaid shorts in it. I was kind of disappointed that those were my only gifts, since I had got those the day before--there were no surprises. I think we did some grocery shopping and I got a haircut in the morning before the first session. And I think after the first session we had our Easter festivities. Allie didn't want to stay with us because of general conference; Matt said that she had been telling them all about it. We watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail before the second session, and I think that morning our home teacher Christian Ulmer brought us donuts. I think my dad and I went to the Eagleridge building for the Priesthood session.
On Sunday, my parents were going out of town since it was my mom's spring break. My mom wanted me to eat a quarter of the last donut, a glazed one. I didn't want to, since it didn't have any Easter frosting or sprinkles, but she insisted. I told her that I would have to do ten pushups for it. She told me I was a slave driver (against myself) and said that she wouldn't have made me eat it if she knew I would have to do pushups for it. I told her it was OK. They left, and I watched the afternoon session of conference. Elder Nelson spoke and showed pictures of his grandkids. I thought about how my parents wouldn't see those pictures, since they were listening on the car radio. Then I was texting my cousin Jesse about how I would be coming to their house. It took me a long time to get ready to go back to Provo, and before I left I played "That Easter Morn" on the piano. In the car I was listening to Messiah as performed by the MoTab. I think Jesse texted me while I was driving, asking when I'd be there. I got to the Thompsons' house and they had a banner across their door that said "Welcome Home Elder Mark" that they had taken when I came home. I had been home for four months at this point, and I had actually seen the banner on the floor in their house on a previous visit in December. When I told them this they seemed disappointed. When I went inside I was standing, waiting for them to invite me to sit down (as I had become accustomed to doing on my mission), but I could tell they weren't going to invite me, so I sat down anyway. They told me that Joey had objected to putting the banner across the door because it would make them look like white trash. He didn't mind it being in the window, but he didn't like it across the door. I said that I didn't know how having it across the door was worse than having it in the window, and Sue agreed with me. Sue talked about watching conference, and mentioned the speaker who showed pictures of his family. I said, "Wasn't that Elder Nelson?" They were watching a sports game of some sort. After some small talk, Jesse asked me if I wanted to play Nintendo. I told him that I preferred not to play video games or watch TV on Sunday. I didn't think about the fact that they were watching TV. I didn't mean for them to turn off the TV, but they started to. Sue told me she agreed with me. But Peter insisted on keeping the TV on. I remember Jesse eating his Easter candy and I was a little sad that I had eaten all of mine. Jesse and Peter talked about how they wanted to get a pet penguin, and I started talking about how puffins are better than penguins because they can swim and fly. Sue said, "Penguins can fly." Peter and Jesse said, "No they can't!" and Sue realized her folly. They talked about how they wanted to buy an island for exotic pets, and how our uncle Paul could probably finance such a purchase. We talked about an individual we don't care for. We talked about the mysterious, creepy phone calls my aunt Debbie had received many years previously. Sue said that Wayne had put someone up to it, but she wouldn't say who the caller was because it was someone Peter and Jesse liked. After some coaxing, Sue told them who the caller was, and they assured her they didn't like that person. Throughout all our conversations Joey was in and out of the room. He would say the initial of a swear word, forbearing saying the word itself. He said he hated his dad and anyone associated with him. Sue told him he couldn't hate his dad. After he had left, Jesse was talking about how people believed Obama was a Muslim and that Joey probably believed that too. Sue said that Jesse and Peter believed dumb things too, "like evolution." Jesse retorted about evolution being fact-based. I could have spoken up with my views on evolution, but I figured it wouldn't have done much good, and I didn't want to open a can of worms. Eventually I left. I parked in my parking lot by the storage sheds. Lots of people had Facebook links to the Church's YouTube clip adapted from Elder Holland's talk the previous year. I made a status that said "Handel's Messiah is awesome," but no one commented on it.
2009. We went to our church building to watch. I think after the second session we went to the Days', which was where the elders in the Hayden 3rd Ward lived, and there was a press conference with the newly called Elder Andersen. Then I think it was Elder Stafford and Elder Johnson who drove us back to the church for the Priesthood Session. I was reading funny Bible verses, and I was reading some from Proverbs 23 about how dumb alcohol is. I was reading it, and Elder Johnson was talking to Elder Stafford, and then Elder Stafford told him that he wasn't listening to him because he was listening to me. Before the session started, they showed clips of the Tabernacle Choir, and Elder Stafford made some crude comment about how women shouldn't be at the meeting.
On Sunday we went to the church building again. Elder Nixon had gotten a ride from a member in their area down to the church building. That member had brought food and shared it with us. Then Elder Nixon, in his typical overbearing fashion, insisted that he go help us blitz our area. I wasn't too keen on the idea, since it came out of the blue and because it was a burden on the member, but Elder Kitchen also went along with it. Elder Kitchen went with Elder Duncan and I went with Elder Nixon. We went to see a potential investigator and ended up talking with an old man in the yard. The potential wasn't interested. Then I think we went and saw a member to ask about her neighbors. Elder Nixon seemed annoyed that we weren't tracting, but I told him that tracting was one of the least effective things to do, so it only made sense that we do something more productive, especially since Elder Kitchen and Elder Duncan were tracting. Then we went back to the church for the last session. That evening we visited a less-active woman who rarely went to church, and she told us that that day she had actually gone to church with her son, only to discover that there was no church (because of conference; she must have arrived before conference started). Here is my journal entry for the day: "So I don't know how I didn't write yesterday. In between conference sessions Elder Nixon insisted on blitzing our area. That was all right. Then we saw some people, including Kristine Hart, a less-active. It was good to be back on the bikes after the week-long hiatus from the rain and Elder Kitchen's sickness."
2008. We left our house in the morning. It was a rule for a missionary to guide another missionary when he was backing up, but since we were just in our driveway (and we were backing up so that we could drive forwards out of the driveway), we didn't think it necessary. Elder Condie backed into a cement wall and scraped the back bumper. I worried I would get in trouble since it was my job to back him up, but he diabolically never told anyone. On one of the days, Sister Shinn offered us some of her jelly beans; we declined. Elder Condie later complained that she coughed the whole time, but I had not noticed. They sustained President Monson as the new prophet. There was a solemn assembly, and they had everyone stand up according to the organization they belonged to. I remember feeling a little weird standing up as part of an elders quorum, since missionaries function differently from most elders. After the first session Elder Condie wanted to watch the World Report; I was impressed by the counsel to share the gospel on the internet. During the Priesthood Session, President Monson wiggled his ears in a talk, and our zone leader, Elder Gammon, thought that was ridiculous. Then we had dinner with a couple who had a baby and a little girl. It was fun, and they told us that we should come to their house some P-day to play board games. But it was late, and they needed to get their kids to bed. This is my journal entry for the day: "I thought I'd add some color by adding some blue ink to this journal.
"Nevó esta mañana antés de la Conferencia. They had a solemn assembly where we all stood to sustain the prophet and apostles. It's been a good conference.
"It snowed today but it all melted. That was disappointing. Elder Condie backed into a cement wall and scraped a bit of paint off."
The next day (I think) I filmed our drive to the stake center and narrated about the day's happenings. We ate lunch with the sisters in the church building. While we were eating, our investigator Duane called us. I answered the phone and stepped out into a little courtyard-like area off from where we were eating. Duane and Vickie had driven to our church building, but no one was there. We had told them about conference, but we apparently hadn't explained it well enough. While I was on the phone, Elder Condie yelled at me to come in from the snow. Before the afternoon session, they were playing footage of The Restoration and playing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer." Elder Condie was annoyed because he thought the song and the clip were overplayed. Sister Shaw told him they played it because the event was so important. The Stumms from the Greenbluff Ward showed up with our investigators Heather and Matt. Here is my journal entry for the day: "We sat around the sisters again today at conference. Then we ate lunch at the church building. Heather and Matt showed up for the second session. I really liked the sessions, especially when Elder Bednar said missionaries are full-time teachers and members are full-time finders.
"We came home early because we were out of gas. The Welshes made us brownies." (Ah, the dark days of my mission.)
2007. We left early Saturday morning on our drive to Tennessee. My parents hoped we would be able to get conference on the radio, but we couldn't. My parents wanted to listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Later that evening I watched Bewitched on my portable DVD player. I watched the fourth-season episodes with the canine aliens and the Japanese client who was worried about losing face. We stopped at a hotel that night.
The next day my mom looked for conference again. We heard some religious choir on a station, so my mom stopped there. But then she changed the station when a narrator said, "Friends in Christ." I wondered why that was so bad--certainly not LDS parlance, but not something bad. So we listened to weird CDs. We listened to this one called Songs for a Mormon Child; I wondered why my mom liked it so much (even she commented about the girl who tried too hard), especially since there were no kids in the car. Then we listened to all five discs of the Children's Songbook CDs, which I thought were awful. (I actually grew to like them on my mission, but now I think they're terrible again.) Then we stopped at my cousin Tammy's in Iowa. I think we had missed all of conference. They told us about how they had set up a blanket fort tabernacle for the kids to watch conference in. When they began putting the kids to bed, I remember Tammy telling her oldest son, Adam, that two-year-old Ben, when saying prayers, had repeated "Uncle Ricky" as "Uncle Ribby." That night we talked with Tammy. We talked about the synesthesia blog post I had made before leaving. She talked about how she wanted to line me up with a girl from her ward who wanted to be an editor, "this girl Candice." I told Tammy I had actually met her. She said, surprised, "Candice Bellows?" I told her that I had met her at Y-Weekend the previous fall. She told me how she had called her mom, distraught, that she was at a play at BYU that seemed to laugh about a girl being pregnant and not married. I said I was a little surprised at some of the content in the play.
2006. I remember that my two-year-old niece Allie was playing with my mom's friend's niece Austin (what a weird name for a girl!), who was a little older. We were trying to concentrate on conference, but the girls were playing. Allie was getting annoyed with Austin, and Austin kept saying, "She's yelling at me!"
2005. I remember watching Allie during conference, and therefore I didn't get to focus much. I remember her pulling a toy paint set out of her mom's dresser. During the Priesthood Session, President Hinckley spoke about gambling. I wanted to use that as ammunition that my family shouldn't go to Vegas. We told my mom about what he said, and she said that she wouldn't gamble five dollars after all on our trip.
2004. I was with my mom and Nan and Allie out doing errands. I think we stopped at A&W for lunch; we had previously bought Starburst jellybeans from a store. We stopped at my mom's friend Jackie's. I wanted to listen to conference in the car, since I had a diabolical seminary teacher who made us do massive conference reports; my mom told Jackie's son Jake about how I had to do a report. When we got home, I put the jellybeans in the various plastic eggs all over the house. During the Priesthood session, they had an Aaronic Priesthood choir, and we were annoyed with the closeup they did on the one black kid, as if they were trying to prove that we're not racist. I didn't like the choir because of all the young boy voices. David said he liked boys choirs, but that he didn't like the song "True to the Faith," which they sang. He was astounded by the figures President Hinckley described about the revenue of the porn industry.
2002. We were at the Fillmore sand dunes, even though Easter was over. We had brought our trailer, but we couldn't use the water without a battery. We would have tried to listen to conference on the radio. On Sunday we were at my grandparents' house; my dad and grandpa slept for much of it. My aunt Michelle talked for a lot of it, even during the prayers. I remember my mom and Michelle being amused by one of the apostles singing "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof.
2001. On Saturday my mom and I were out in West Jordan and were at a grocery store. They had those permanent small mylar balloons, and one bunny balloon was identical to the one my cousins had got me a week or so earlier when I had seizures. Then we stopped at my cousins' house. Sue wasn't there, but Wayne was, and I was surprised he was out gardening, since most Mormon adults were watching conference.
The next day we were watching conference and I said to my mom, "There's a spider on you!" My dad actually seemed more surprised, maybe because he was sleeping. Then I told them, "April Fool's!"
2000. I remember using the Health Rider during one of the Saturday sessions. My brother told me it wasn't good to do a cardio workout during conference, but my mom reproved him and told him it was impressive that I was watching Saturday sessions. I think it was that day I put plastic Easter eggs on pieces of yarn and draped them around the rearview mirrors of all three of our cars.
The next day my brother's girlfriend Andrea was at our house. My brother was amused that she and my mom were crocheting or something and I was corking a rug. We went to my grandparents' house. My mom and brother were talking about how some of the Apostles had radio voices; I remember Sue talking about how her boys also had low voices. I remember saying, "I thought these were semi-annual conferences, not annual." Sue said, "They are." I said, "But they just said, 'This is the 170th--" Sue cut me off: "Yeah, 170th Semi-Annual General Conference," but my grandparents and I told her that it had in fact said "Annual" and not "Semi-Annual." (Now I know that the April conference is called annual and the October conference is semi-annual.) I think my mom drove David back to Provo from there and I went home with my dad.
1999. My cousin April was with us that morning for our Easter festivities. My mom had bought her a travel reading lamp. I got a VHS of It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. I went down and watched it. As the Easter morning scene started, April said that that was one of her favorite Beethoven pieces. She laughed when Woodstock laid on the egg he got. My brother said something about the line "Never trust a man with a blanket." I remember saying, "I didn't know that girl [Marcie] was dumb," and he told me she was actually smart. Then we drove down to Fillmore; we probably listened to conference in the car. I was wearing a pink Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, but I covered up the picture with a green sweater vest. I cared about the pink (for Easter), not the picture. While everyone must have been watching conference, I went in one of the side rooms and saw that Here Comes Peter Cottontail was on the Fox Family Channel. I remember getting annoyed with all the commercial breaks and thinking that they couldn't keep doing that, because they couldn't take much out. (Which was false; they actually could take a lot out.) The promos for the special had the scene where Peter skates the shape of a heart into the ice and makes it light up. That night I was playing the Game Boy and my grandparents' friends came over and my grandma said to her friend, "They sure love those games, don't they."
The next day uncle (or maybe my grandma) had thrown jelly beans all over the living room for my small cousins. They told me there were some hidden especially for me. They gave me a hint--it had to do with a piano. I kept looking around the piano. There was a shoe lying haphazardly on the floor near the piano, and there was a jelly bean behind it. I asked if it was the one behind the shoe, and my grandma said, "I'm not telling." Eventually I looked up and looked at the painting on the wall of a woman playing a piano. The jelly beans were stuck in the decorative holes on the frame. I pulled them out and ate them. My Christensen relatives came over. I remember that the kids had these weird candies that looked like colored Rice Krispies that I had received the previous year in my third grade class. Rachae and I were in the kitchen watching Here Comes Peter Cottontail on TV. At one point the adults asked us to turn it down. Later Michelle came in and said, "You must be deaf," and turned the TV down. Rachae said to me, "I can't hear it," and I couldn't hear it either. Then we went to my other grandparents' house. I remember talking with Jesse about a Peeps commercial. He liked it, but I wasn't sure what to make of it.
1998. I suspect this was the year Tammy had come to our house for conference. On Saturday night I went to Deseret Book with my mom. During one of the sessions, one of the people giving the prayers had a thick accent; Tammy admitted that she had opened her eyes to see who it was.
1996. My original Easter post has us going to church on Easter, but I just looked up the date of Easter in 1996, and I see that it was on conference weekend, therefore the original is in error. Having reconsidered what actually happened at Easter, I can remember being at the sand dunes and listening to conference on our little yellow radio.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
The Day Before Easter
Easter is coming up, so I'm going to remember what I can about the day before the holiday. In my family, most of the secular celebrating occurs on Saturday rather than Easter Sunday itself.
2012. I went out to my car to head home. My mom called and let me know that they were getting home from southern Utah, and I hadn't even left yet. On my windshield was a wrinkled note from Morgan Crockett that said he had backed into my car. I looked and there was indeed a scratch on the back bumper. But my brother and I both put scratches on both sides of the front bumper, so the back scratch just matched the rest of it. I listened to the MoTab Praise to the Man album on my way home. When I got home, my niece Allie came up to me and said, completely shocked, "The Easter Bunny already came!" We searched for Easter eggs; there were lots. There were plastic candy-filled eggs and real confetti-filled eggs. I of course was interested in the candy eggs, but I was surprised that Allie liked the confetti eggs. We broke the confetti eggs on each other, and we were finding confetti for months after (and filled eggs as well). I think we colored eggs. At some point that day my dad lost a tooth. We ate tacos for dinner and made sugar cookies with blue frosting. That night, after everyone went to bed, I went downstairs and watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail, eating a bunch of candy. I finished my Easter Baby Bottle Pop. After the show was over, I decided to watch some of the DVD's special features that I hadn't seen. They were these cheesy kid stories set to partly animated pictures. I think I did situps as I watched them.
2011. I actually don't remember much about this day. We got our Easter baskets and Allie got some Disney Princess Squinkies. I suspect this was the time that my aunt and cousins came to our house. My mom gave my cousin Quin the toy sword he had asked her to buy at Disneyland; he began playing with it. We showed them all the Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia I got; Quin said, "Best deck of cards ever." This might be the year that when I was watching Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Susanne said that Grandma Judy always let them watch it on TV and she hated it.
2010. It was general conference. In the morning I saw my Easter basket that had my new shirts and blue plaid shorts in it. I was kind of disappointed that those were my only gifts, since I had got those the day before--there were no surprises. I think we did some grocery shopping and I got a haircut in the morning before the first session. And I think after the first session we had our Easter festivities. Allie didn't want to stay with us because of general conference; Matt said that she had been telling them all about it. We watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I think my dad and I went to the Eagleridge building for the Priesthood session.
2009. Elder Kitchen and I had dinner with a member--none of his family was home, so it was just three of us at dinner. We had a barbecue and strawberry shortcake. Elder Kitchen asked him if he could drive us over to our ward's Easter activity--for some reason they held it at another building in our stake than the one our ward attended. They had an egg gathering activity; we gathered some eggs, and Elder Kitchen got one of the "special" eggs, so he gave it to me. These "special" eggs were for a presentation. Each egg had a little prop and a scripture; collectively it told the Easter story. Mine was a nail to represent the Crucifixion. Someone got a dice to represent them casting lots for Jesus's garment; I thought the dice was a bit of a stretch. (I know that die is the singular form, but that just sounds weird.) Sister Tanner's scripture talked about Pilate, and she pronounced it "pih-LAH-tee," like the exercise program Pilates without the s, but she should have pronounced it "pilot." The Tanners drove us home; we crammed into their van with their three kids. I remember at some point that night Elder Kitchen commented about Sister Tanner's pronunciation of Pilate. I remember walking along Ramsey Road. I kind of wanted to go to the Hico gas station, since it would be my last chance to get some Easter treat, like maybe jelly beans or lavender-colored Sno-Balls, but we didn't end up going there. I can't remember what we did the rest of the night.
2008. In the morning Elder Condie and I helped out at the Greenbluff Ward Primary activity. They put us in charge of one game, and a a little girl who was 4 or 5 came up to me and said, "You're a handsome nice man." I later told Elder Condie about it; he said he noticed that I had been laughing after she talked to me. I asked Brother Mears if we could visit his family to teach his family the next installment of the Member Missionary Training Center. He said they were OK (he didn't like me). There was a nonmember there whose husband was an inactive member, and I think the husband was the brother of Brother Mears. The wife was Jewish, but she didn't mind her kids participating in our Easter party. In one of the places we talked about the Resurrection and one kid talked about how Jesus ate fish and honeycomb. After the activity we went to Subway; a member owned that store and gave us free Subway once a week. One of the girls working there said cheerfully to us, "Do Mormons celebrate Easter?" She said she was going to ask the owner but didn't. We told her we did. She said, "I was talking to some people and they said that Mormons don't celebrate Easter; I told them they do, they just don't celebrate with eggs and stuff." Elder Condie told her that we had in fact just come from an activity at our church involving eggs. That day we were supposed to be helping an inactive sister move stuff from her storage unit into her apartment. We had asked the Northpointe Ward to help us, but no one had said anything about helping us, so I threw a bit of a hissy fit in our bedroom. Then I called Brother Cummins, who was the ward clerk, and asked him if he knew of anyone who would be able to help us. He said he would. So we drove down to Spokane to the woman's storage unit. After we had finished up, we were backing up and I was thinking about how nice it was not to have to back him up (since missionaries always have to stand outside and guide people when they back up). Then he backed into a pickup truck. There was a big dent in it. Then he went back into the storage unit to find the owners of the truck. We were going with him, but he said forcefully, "Stay with the car." I told Elder Condie about what I had been thinking about backing. Brother Cummins came back with the truck owner, who was very nice and understanding. Brother Cummins said, "I'm really embarrassed about this," and the owner said it was OK. When Brother Cummins got back in the car, Elder Condie told him that we all had been thinking that if we had done something different, that wouldn't have happened. We got back home, and I think there was a little snowstorm. I shoveled the snow, but that was unnecessary, because it was warm enough that all the snow melted quickly. The Welshes (whom we lived with) made us an Easter dinner, including strawberry shortcake. That night we had a lesson with our investigators Duane and Vickie. Vickie had made us pink rabbit-shaped sugar cookies and sent them home with us in a large Ziploc bag. I think this was the night we brought our Hispanic ward missionary with us, and we talked about the degrees of glory. The ward missionary said that he thought there were infinite sublevels in the three kingdoms.
2007. My sister and niece and I got on a plane back to Salt Lake from Nashville. Since my ticket had been bought at a different time and it was a full flight, I had to sit near the back of the plane and Susanne and Allie sat toward the front. I was reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for my AP English class and eating Easter candy. Afterward Susanne told me that Allie didn't like the airplane and kept asking about me. We came home and were preparing to watch Here Comes Peter Cottontail. Susanne was on the phone with her boyfriend of the time, Darrin, and asking him if he knew that special. Then she started describing it in detail, and Darrin stopped caring when she got to the part about Irontail feeding gum to Peter's clock.
2006. It was our last day in Moab. I remember playing with Allie at the KOA's playground. She put her hands around a hanging bar. I was surprised that I could take my arms away and she was hanging by herself. Then she'd let go and I would catch her. Then we got in the car and drove. I think we took a side trip to Fillmore. Allie got a little restless in the car. When we got home, I got ready to take a shower. I weighed myself and wondered if I had lost any weight on the trip (due to the hiking), but instead I discovered that I had in fact gained weight. It was then that I vowed that I would only eat candies and desserts when they were in season (prior to that, I had allowed myself to eat nonseasonal things in limited quantities.) My new goal was put to the test that day because our home teacher Christian Ulmer brought us a chocolate pie from Marie Callendar's. I can't remember if I ended up succumbing to the temptation or not. We got our Easter presents; I got Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and a deck of Easter-egg-shaped playing cards. I think we watched my new movie and I complained about how it was inferior to Corpse Bride. Then I remember my mom talking to David on MSN chat and she told him that I was disappointed (I think because it wasn't a traditional Easter). He said "Poor Frankfurt." Then she told him they got me the Wallace and Gromit movie and he said "POOR Frankfurt" (because he knew my opinions on the Wallace and Gromit/Corpse Bride thing).
2005. We were in Fillmore. We went to Fillmore's Easter egg event. I remember seeing some kids with jack-o-lantern buckets to collect eggs. I thought that was a good idea to include in the Easter episode of my fictitious TV show. We were talking with my aunt Sarena and my cousin-in-law Kalia (and maybe some other cousins). My mom told Sarena about an awkward incident with Allie that I didn't think was funny. Kalia asked Susanne something about Allie, and Susanne told her, "I found out yesterday that she knows what sound a dog makes" (I had first heard her say "woof" the day before). Kalia talked about her son Damen (who was almost Allie's age) also knowing what dogs said. My aunt Sarena was talking about how they weren't going to go to the sand dunes. Suddenly there was a big wind that blew some snow from the trees onto us. My mom said it was Grandpa Boyd getting mad at us for not going to the sand dunes. Then we went back to Grandma Judy's house; my mom told her about the wind incident and I told her about the kids with the Halloween buckets. We went on a little drive in the Suburban while listening to a Carpenters CD; at the song "Solitaire" I said that Clay Aiken had sung that song on American Idol a few years earlier. We drove past a big sand dune where some people were playing but we didn't stop.
2004. We were at the sand dunes. I got my dragon kite to fly and I buried the base in the sand so that it could fly itself (it was quite windy). I remember driving my grandpa's four-wheeler really slow with Ya-ping on the back. I also had my first driving lesson. I drove for quite a while at probably less than five miles an hour and my grandpa kept telling me which way to steer. Eventually he told me to stop. Then he drove back and I felt dumb that it only took a few minutes to drive back when it had taken me so long because I was going so slow. I remember my aunt Terri liking my nickname for Allie, "Cute-iful." Grandpa hugged or danced or something with my cousin Krishelle and alluded to the fact that he wouldn't be around much longer (it was in fact his last Easter).
2003. This might have actually been on Friday, but it might have been Saturday. I remember coloring eggs in the kitchen and watching Gilligan's Island; it was one of the episodes with Wrongway Feldman.
2001. We took my cousin Joey, from my mom's side, down to Fillmore with us to be with my dad's family. We had donuts in our red Jeep for the ride down. When we got to Fillmore my grandma asked if he was Sue's son. I can't remember what else happened.
2000. I took a shower in the morning before we headed out in our red Jeep to pick up my cousins Peter and Jesse to go down to Fillmore. Before we picked them up, we stopped at a Ream's store near their house and bought some kite string. I also noticed a ball made out of a crystally, squishy plastic material. It didn't bounce well, so I didn't understand why they would make a ball out of it. We picked up Jesse and Peter. Then we drove down. I remember making some comment about smelling my deodorant. Jesse and Peter both seemed disgusted, but I said it wasn't smelly because it was meant to prevent me from smelling. We passed a "G" on a mountainside. I asked what it stood for; my mom said maybe it stood for Pleasant Grove. I said, "Then why doesn't it say PG?" She said that that could stand for pregnant, which I found quite funny. Then I said it could also stand for parental guidance, and Peter said that it could be PG like in movies, and I told him that's what parental guidance was. I had brought the "Official Snoopy Tosserino" (Frisbee) I had inherited from my maternal grandparents and played it with Peter. I kept snapping pictures. David buried Peter in the sand, and then I wanted to be buried. At one point my cousin Terrill talked about how he wanted to go over to the other sand dune. I told him it was cool. Then I asked him if he meant another sand dune or just the other side of that sand dune. I hadn't been to the other sand dune, just the other side of the one we were at. I thought I was so adventurous going to the other side of this tiny barchan sand dune. At one point there was a little rainstorm and the sand got wet and dark. Then Peter was jumping in the sand, and the dry light sand was intermixing with the dark wet sand. He said, "Yay! White skin is winning over black skin!" I told him that was an inappropriate thing to say, and he said that of course he would want white skin to win, since he was white. Then we left and made a stop at my paternal grandparents' house before the long trip back to Salt Lake. We probably listened to tapes of Abbey Road and that tape that had "One Tin Soldier" on it--I was obsessed with that song. I remember being cold, but my mom wouldn't let me turn the heat up because she needed it cold to stay awake.
1999. My cousin April was with us that morning for our Easter festivities. My mom had bought her a travel reading lamp. I got a VHS of It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. I went down and watched it. As the Easter morning scene started, April said that that was one of her favorite Beethoven pieces. She laughed when Woodstock laid on the egg he got. My brother said something about the line "Never trust a man with a blanket." I remember saying, "I didn't know that girl [Marcie] was dumb," and he told me she was actually smart. Then we drove down to Fillmore; we probably listened to conference in the car. I was wearing a pink Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, but I covered up the picture with a green sweater vest. I cared about the pink (for Easter), not the picture. While everyone must have been watching conference, I went in one of the side rooms and saw that Here Comes Peter Cottontail was on the Fox Family Channel. I remember getting annoyed with all the commercial breaks and thinking that they couldn't keep doing that, because they couldn't take much out. (Which was false; they actually could take a lot out.) The promos for the special had the scene where Peter skates the shape of a heart into the ice and makes it light up. That night I was playing the Game Boy and my grandparents' friends came over and my grandma said to her friend, "They sure love those games, don't they."
1998. Intuition tells me that this event occurred in 1998, but I'm actually not sure if it happened at this time. My cousin Rayce and I were hanging out at my family's trailer, which was parked in the backyard of my grandparents' house. He asked me if I believed in the Easter Bunny, because he didn't. I told him I didn't. I said, "I remember thinking, 'How can one man [Santa] deliver presents all over the world in one night?'" Rayce said, "He stops time. I believe in him."
1997. I had wanted my Easter basket hidden this year, instead of just the eggs. My basket was the only hidden one (it was hidden behind some plants). I got a St. Patrick's Day flag since the wind had torn mine. Our Easter grass was this green cottony stuff that was less messy than the typical plastic kind. Then we went to Fillmore; maybe this was the year when I saw my cousins' eggs that had plastic decorative bands around them. I think one egg cracked at the hard interdune (the ground behind a sand dune--I'm glad I know all these geological terms now).
1996. This might be the time I got my springy (as in, it was made of springs) bouncy ball.
1994. I was excited to get a crocodile-shaped bottle of bubbles. I also got a Sesame Street kite and my brother got a more mature kite. We went to Fillmore and I think we participated in the community egg hunt. I got a big marshmallow stick and it was said that I couldn't get it on the seat of my uncle Ken's car. I remember being at the sand dunes and holding my kite (I doubt I was the one who got it in the air) and my aunt Kim talking to me. I think I was a little embarrassed to have such a "babyish" kite.
1993. We got our baskets downstairs. All three of us kids got trolls--I got a worker troll, my brother got a doctor troll, and my sister got a BYU cheerleader troll. We had our egg hunt down there; we had these weird marshmallow-esque eggs to find. There was a blue one in the windowsill of my dad's workroom.
1991. I don't remember anything about this day--I was only two years old--but I do remember seeing a family video that depicted this day. We were at my maternal grandparents' house coloring eggs. We had these rabbit-shaped things that you would put in water and they would dissolve and make the dye. My mom says this was right when we moved into our new house.
I am quite certain that after posting this I will remember more details.
Related posts:
Those Easter Morns
A year of holiday memories
2012. I went out to my car to head home. My mom called and let me know that they were getting home from southern Utah, and I hadn't even left yet. On my windshield was a wrinkled note from Morgan Crockett that said he had backed into my car. I looked and there was indeed a scratch on the back bumper. But my brother and I both put scratches on both sides of the front bumper, so the back scratch just matched the rest of it. I listened to the MoTab Praise to the Man album on my way home. When I got home, my niece Allie came up to me and said, completely shocked, "The Easter Bunny already came!" We searched for Easter eggs; there were lots. There were plastic candy-filled eggs and real confetti-filled eggs. I of course was interested in the candy eggs, but I was surprised that Allie liked the confetti eggs. We broke the confetti eggs on each other, and we were finding confetti for months after (and filled eggs as well). I think we colored eggs. At some point that day my dad lost a tooth. We ate tacos for dinner and made sugar cookies with blue frosting. That night, after everyone went to bed, I went downstairs and watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail, eating a bunch of candy. I finished my Easter Baby Bottle Pop. After the show was over, I decided to watch some of the DVD's special features that I hadn't seen. They were these cheesy kid stories set to partly animated pictures. I think I did situps as I watched them.
2011. I actually don't remember much about this day. We got our Easter baskets and Allie got some Disney Princess Squinkies. I suspect this was the time that my aunt and cousins came to our house. My mom gave my cousin Quin the toy sword he had asked her to buy at Disneyland; he began playing with it. We showed them all the Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia I got; Quin said, "Best deck of cards ever." This might be the year that when I was watching Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Susanne said that Grandma Judy always let them watch it on TV and she hated it.
2010. It was general conference. In the morning I saw my Easter basket that had my new shirts and blue plaid shorts in it. I was kind of disappointed that those were my only gifts, since I had got those the day before--there were no surprises. I think we did some grocery shopping and I got a haircut in the morning before the first session. And I think after the first session we had our Easter festivities. Allie didn't want to stay with us because of general conference; Matt said that she had been telling them all about it. We watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I think my dad and I went to the Eagleridge building for the Priesthood session.
2009. Elder Kitchen and I had dinner with a member--none of his family was home, so it was just three of us at dinner. We had a barbecue and strawberry shortcake. Elder Kitchen asked him if he could drive us over to our ward's Easter activity--for some reason they held it at another building in our stake than the one our ward attended. They had an egg gathering activity; we gathered some eggs, and Elder Kitchen got one of the "special" eggs, so he gave it to me. These "special" eggs were for a presentation. Each egg had a little prop and a scripture; collectively it told the Easter story. Mine was a nail to represent the Crucifixion. Someone got a dice to represent them casting lots for Jesus's garment; I thought the dice was a bit of a stretch. (I know that die is the singular form, but that just sounds weird.) Sister Tanner's scripture talked about Pilate, and she pronounced it "pih-LAH-tee," like the exercise program Pilates without the s, but she should have pronounced it "pilot." The Tanners drove us home; we crammed into their van with their three kids. I remember at some point that night Elder Kitchen commented about Sister Tanner's pronunciation of Pilate. I remember walking along Ramsey Road. I kind of wanted to go to the Hico gas station, since it would be my last chance to get some Easter treat, like maybe jelly beans or lavender-colored Sno-Balls, but we didn't end up going there. I can't remember what we did the rest of the night.
2008. In the morning Elder Condie and I helped out at the Greenbluff Ward Primary activity. They put us in charge of one game, and a a little girl who was 4 or 5 came up to me and said, "You're a handsome nice man." I later told Elder Condie about it; he said he noticed that I had been laughing after she talked to me. I asked Brother Mears if we could visit his family to teach his family the next installment of the Member Missionary Training Center. He said they were OK (he didn't like me). There was a nonmember there whose husband was an inactive member, and I think the husband was the brother of Brother Mears. The wife was Jewish, but she didn't mind her kids participating in our Easter party. In one of the places we talked about the Resurrection and one kid talked about how Jesus ate fish and honeycomb. After the activity we went to Subway; a member owned that store and gave us free Subway once a week. One of the girls working there said cheerfully to us, "Do Mormons celebrate Easter?" She said she was going to ask the owner but didn't. We told her we did. She said, "I was talking to some people and they said that Mormons don't celebrate Easter; I told them they do, they just don't celebrate with eggs and stuff." Elder Condie told her that we had in fact just come from an activity at our church involving eggs. That day we were supposed to be helping an inactive sister move stuff from her storage unit into her apartment. We had asked the Northpointe Ward to help us, but no one had said anything about helping us, so I threw a bit of a hissy fit in our bedroom. Then I called Brother Cummins, who was the ward clerk, and asked him if he knew of anyone who would be able to help us. He said he would. So we drove down to Spokane to the woman's storage unit. After we had finished up, we were backing up and I was thinking about how nice it was not to have to back him up (since missionaries always have to stand outside and guide people when they back up). Then he backed into a pickup truck. There was a big dent in it. Then he went back into the storage unit to find the owners of the truck. We were going with him, but he said forcefully, "Stay with the car." I told Elder Condie about what I had been thinking about backing. Brother Cummins came back with the truck owner, who was very nice and understanding. Brother Cummins said, "I'm really embarrassed about this," and the owner said it was OK. When Brother Cummins got back in the car, Elder Condie told him that we all had been thinking that if we had done something different, that wouldn't have happened. We got back home, and I think there was a little snowstorm. I shoveled the snow, but that was unnecessary, because it was warm enough that all the snow melted quickly. The Welshes (whom we lived with) made us an Easter dinner, including strawberry shortcake. That night we had a lesson with our investigators Duane and Vickie. Vickie had made us pink rabbit-shaped sugar cookies and sent them home with us in a large Ziploc bag. I think this was the night we brought our Hispanic ward missionary with us, and we talked about the degrees of glory. The ward missionary said that he thought there were infinite sublevels in the three kingdoms.
2007. My sister and niece and I got on a plane back to Salt Lake from Nashville. Since my ticket had been bought at a different time and it was a full flight, I had to sit near the back of the plane and Susanne and Allie sat toward the front. I was reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for my AP English class and eating Easter candy. Afterward Susanne told me that Allie didn't like the airplane and kept asking about me. We came home and were preparing to watch Here Comes Peter Cottontail. Susanne was on the phone with her boyfriend of the time, Darrin, and asking him if he knew that special. Then she started describing it in detail, and Darrin stopped caring when she got to the part about Irontail feeding gum to Peter's clock.
2006. It was our last day in Moab. I remember playing with Allie at the KOA's playground. She put her hands around a hanging bar. I was surprised that I could take my arms away and she was hanging by herself. Then she'd let go and I would catch her. Then we got in the car and drove. I think we took a side trip to Fillmore. Allie got a little restless in the car. When we got home, I got ready to take a shower. I weighed myself and wondered if I had lost any weight on the trip (due to the hiking), but instead I discovered that I had in fact gained weight. It was then that I vowed that I would only eat candies and desserts when they were in season (prior to that, I had allowed myself to eat nonseasonal things in limited quantities.) My new goal was put to the test that day because our home teacher Christian Ulmer brought us a chocolate pie from Marie Callendar's. I can't remember if I ended up succumbing to the temptation or not. We got our Easter presents; I got Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and a deck of Easter-egg-shaped playing cards. I think we watched my new movie and I complained about how it was inferior to Corpse Bride. Then I remember my mom talking to David on MSN chat and she told him that I was disappointed (I think because it wasn't a traditional Easter). He said "Poor Frankfurt." Then she told him they got me the Wallace and Gromit movie and he said "POOR Frankfurt" (because he knew my opinions on the Wallace and Gromit/Corpse Bride thing).
2005. We were in Fillmore. We went to Fillmore's Easter egg event. I remember seeing some kids with jack-o-lantern buckets to collect eggs. I thought that was a good idea to include in the Easter episode of my fictitious TV show. We were talking with my aunt Sarena and my cousin-in-law Kalia (and maybe some other cousins). My mom told Sarena about an awkward incident with Allie that I didn't think was funny. Kalia asked Susanne something about Allie, and Susanne told her, "I found out yesterday that she knows what sound a dog makes" (I had first heard her say "woof" the day before). Kalia talked about her son Damen (who was almost Allie's age) also knowing what dogs said. My aunt Sarena was talking about how they weren't going to go to the sand dunes. Suddenly there was a big wind that blew some snow from the trees onto us. My mom said it was Grandpa Boyd getting mad at us for not going to the sand dunes. Then we went back to Grandma Judy's house; my mom told her about the wind incident and I told her about the kids with the Halloween buckets. We went on a little drive in the Suburban while listening to a Carpenters CD; at the song "Solitaire" I said that Clay Aiken had sung that song on American Idol a few years earlier. We drove past a big sand dune where some people were playing but we didn't stop.
2004. We were at the sand dunes. I got my dragon kite to fly and I buried the base in the sand so that it could fly itself (it was quite windy). I remember driving my grandpa's four-wheeler really slow with Ya-ping on the back. I also had my first driving lesson. I drove for quite a while at probably less than five miles an hour and my grandpa kept telling me which way to steer. Eventually he told me to stop. Then he drove back and I felt dumb that it only took a few minutes to drive back when it had taken me so long because I was going so slow. I remember my aunt Terri liking my nickname for Allie, "Cute-iful." Grandpa hugged or danced or something with my cousin Krishelle and alluded to the fact that he wouldn't be around much longer (it was in fact his last Easter).
2003. This might have actually been on Friday, but it might have been Saturday. I remember coloring eggs in the kitchen and watching Gilligan's Island; it was one of the episodes with Wrongway Feldman.
2001. We took my cousin Joey, from my mom's side, down to Fillmore with us to be with my dad's family. We had donuts in our red Jeep for the ride down. When we got to Fillmore my grandma asked if he was Sue's son. I can't remember what else happened.
2000. I took a shower in the morning before we headed out in our red Jeep to pick up my cousins Peter and Jesse to go down to Fillmore. Before we picked them up, we stopped at a Ream's store near their house and bought some kite string. I also noticed a ball made out of a crystally, squishy plastic material. It didn't bounce well, so I didn't understand why they would make a ball out of it. We picked up Jesse and Peter. Then we drove down. I remember making some comment about smelling my deodorant. Jesse and Peter both seemed disgusted, but I said it wasn't smelly because it was meant to prevent me from smelling. We passed a "G" on a mountainside. I asked what it stood for; my mom said maybe it stood for Pleasant Grove. I said, "Then why doesn't it say PG?" She said that that could stand for pregnant, which I found quite funny. Then I said it could also stand for parental guidance, and Peter said that it could be PG like in movies, and I told him that's what parental guidance was. I had brought the "Official Snoopy Tosserino" (Frisbee) I had inherited from my maternal grandparents and played it with Peter. I kept snapping pictures. David buried Peter in the sand, and then I wanted to be buried. At one point my cousin Terrill talked about how he wanted to go over to the other sand dune. I told him it was cool. Then I asked him if he meant another sand dune or just the other side of that sand dune. I hadn't been to the other sand dune, just the other side of the one we were at. I thought I was so adventurous going to the other side of this tiny barchan sand dune. At one point there was a little rainstorm and the sand got wet and dark. Then Peter was jumping in the sand, and the dry light sand was intermixing with the dark wet sand. He said, "Yay! White skin is winning over black skin!" I told him that was an inappropriate thing to say, and he said that of course he would want white skin to win, since he was white. Then we left and made a stop at my paternal grandparents' house before the long trip back to Salt Lake. We probably listened to tapes of Abbey Road and that tape that had "One Tin Soldier" on it--I was obsessed with that song. I remember being cold, but my mom wouldn't let me turn the heat up because she needed it cold to stay awake.
1999. My cousin April was with us that morning for our Easter festivities. My mom had bought her a travel reading lamp. I got a VHS of It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. I went down and watched it. As the Easter morning scene started, April said that that was one of her favorite Beethoven pieces. She laughed when Woodstock laid on the egg he got. My brother said something about the line "Never trust a man with a blanket." I remember saying, "I didn't know that girl [Marcie] was dumb," and he told me she was actually smart. Then we drove down to Fillmore; we probably listened to conference in the car. I was wearing a pink Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, but I covered up the picture with a green sweater vest. I cared about the pink (for Easter), not the picture. While everyone must have been watching conference, I went in one of the side rooms and saw that Here Comes Peter Cottontail was on the Fox Family Channel. I remember getting annoyed with all the commercial breaks and thinking that they couldn't keep doing that, because they couldn't take much out. (Which was false; they actually could take a lot out.) The promos for the special had the scene where Peter skates the shape of a heart into the ice and makes it light up. That night I was playing the Game Boy and my grandparents' friends came over and my grandma said to her friend, "They sure love those games, don't they."
1998. Intuition tells me that this event occurred in 1998, but I'm actually not sure if it happened at this time. My cousin Rayce and I were hanging out at my family's trailer, which was parked in the backyard of my grandparents' house. He asked me if I believed in the Easter Bunny, because he didn't. I told him I didn't. I said, "I remember thinking, 'How can one man [Santa] deliver presents all over the world in one night?'" Rayce said, "He stops time. I believe in him."
1997. I had wanted my Easter basket hidden this year, instead of just the eggs. My basket was the only hidden one (it was hidden behind some plants). I got a St. Patrick's Day flag since the wind had torn mine. Our Easter grass was this green cottony stuff that was less messy than the typical plastic kind. Then we went to Fillmore; maybe this was the year when I saw my cousins' eggs that had plastic decorative bands around them. I think one egg cracked at the hard interdune (the ground behind a sand dune--I'm glad I know all these geological terms now).
1996. This might be the time I got my springy (as in, it was made of springs) bouncy ball.
1994. I was excited to get a crocodile-shaped bottle of bubbles. I also got a Sesame Street kite and my brother got a more mature kite. We went to Fillmore and I think we participated in the community egg hunt. I got a big marshmallow stick and it was said that I couldn't get it on the seat of my uncle Ken's car. I remember being at the sand dunes and holding my kite (I doubt I was the one who got it in the air) and my aunt Kim talking to me. I think I was a little embarrassed to have such a "babyish" kite.
1993. We got our baskets downstairs. All three of us kids got trolls--I got a worker troll, my brother got a doctor troll, and my sister got a BYU cheerleader troll. We had our egg hunt down there; we had these weird marshmallow-esque eggs to find. There was a blue one in the windowsill of my dad's workroom.
1991. I don't remember anything about this day--I was only two years old--but I do remember seeing a family video that depicted this day. We were at my maternal grandparents' house coloring eggs. We had these rabbit-shaped things that you would put in water and they would dissolve and make the dye. My mom says this was right when we moved into our new house.
I am quite certain that after posting this I will remember more details.
Related posts:
Those Easter Morns
A year of holiday memories
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Martin Luther King Day
I'm going to remember as many details as I can about Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
2012. I remember going to Walmart with my mom. I think this might have been the time that we were talking about someone's marital status and as we got out of the car, I said, "The only good thing about her husband is the money," and I wondered what the man walking by thought. I said that I wanted to get some candy for my Jar of Hearts that I would take to Provo. I got some large conversation hearts. My mom wanted some gummy cinnamon hearts. She liked the color of the cherry ones better (a brighter red) but preferred the cinnamon flavor. I think we bought a printer, but I actually didn't take it to Provo. When we were driving home, KSL was having a recap of some awards show and they said they were pleased when Madonna called out Lady Gaga. (Incidentally, I don't think that "Born This Way" plagiarizes Madonna.) Then my mom started talking about the Celtic Woman CD my dad got her for Christmas, saying my dad is "so funny" because she had never expressed any interest in anything like that. We started listening to that CD, and I was telling my mom about how one of my mission companions had had it. Then I drove back to Provo.
2011.I think this was the day my windshield was replaced. I think this was also the day that my cousin Joey came over for some reason and he was hiding from Allie. I was paranoid about driving back to Provo in case it started snowing or I hit a pothole or something but I didn't know where the emergency light button was. Joey went out to the car to find it. When I expressed my worry about it snowing or something, he said I could take State Street all the way to Provo. We laughed at that idea.
2010. I went to Kohl's with my mom, sister, and niece. I found a clearance Christmas shirt with Oscar the Grouch. I got it, along with a St. Patrick's Day t-shirt. They found a red hooded jacket that they all really liked, but Nan worried that it was too small and Allie would soon outgrow it. Allie had a fit because she wanted it. But my mom said she would get it for her if she would calm down, because my mom liked the way it looked. At the checkout, my mom offered to get Allie a stuffed animal instead of the jacket, but she still wanted the jacket. On our way home, we went to the Atlantis Burger drive-thru. Allie was being kind of crazy. She was shrieking, so my mom and her mom told her she couldn't do that. She started giggling a lot, saying there was an owl on a car outside. I looked and I saw the bird. I said, "I don't think that's an owl, but it is a big bird!" It was a grouse or something. When the owners of the car came out, they just drove off, and the bird stayed on their hood. It might have finally flown off when they got on the road. Then I drove back to Provo. I think I went to dinner group and they had bought bagged Valentine cookies that had little messages on them. I was glad to have a dessert I could eat. They started talking about how conversation hearts are hard and unpleasant, but I said that they had changed and they were no longer hard.
2009. I suspect that Elder Wilson and I stayed with the elders in Airway Heights that evening because of zone conference the next morning, but I don't recall details.
2008. We went and played dodgeball at the church where the Franklin Park elders had church. Elder Ashton and Elder "Ech" had come down from Deer Park. I kept getting hit in the head with the ball; sometimes it knocked my glasses off. After the fourth time, I didn't want to play anymore. It was a full moon that night, so I was talking about how I couldn't stay outside too long or else I would turn into a wolf. We were in a car wash when Elder Chun asked me if I really thought I was a werewolf. I neither confirmed it or denied it but simply said, "What do you think?" We visited the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams were a family that shifted in and out of activity and they had been fellowshipping a woman named Debbie who was almost baptized but couldn't be because she was living with her boyfriend. They had just had dinner, and Sister Cunningham offered us some, but we declined. Sister Cunningham was cleaning (or maybe she was actually making dinner) and they stored their pans in their oven. Brother Cunningham started lambasting Elder Chun about the incident with Debbie, that we had not made it clear that she had to be married and that his wife was the one who had to tell her. (In fact, we had previously discussed it with Sister Cunningham, and she said she thought Debbie knew.) Then he started making an excuse that they weren't going to church to recover from the incident. It was kind of awkward, because I could tell he was addressing Elder Chun (since I was a greenie) and I had my back to him for a lot of the time, but then eventually I turned around. In retrospect, I think Elder Chun did do a lot of things wrong, but that was no excuse for the Cunninghams to go inactive. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"The preparation part of today was fun. We went and played dodgeball with the other elders. I got hit in the head several times, each by a different person, and after the fourth time I didn't want to play anymore. I did join in a little later, though.
"Then we went to the Marks's where Elder Johnson and Elder Spahr are. We played a game called Bang! and I got in an intense, long game with Sister Marks.
"After that we came home and cleaned our car since we are trading it in tomorrow for a new one.
"We had a dinner and then were supposed to see the Parrishes, a formerly less-active family, but then they cancelled. Then we went to another appointment but they weren't there. Then we stopped by the Cunninghams and Brother Cunningham chewed us out for setting a date with Debbie. That with the fact that it was a full moon made this not the best evening."
2007. There are two possibilities I can think of for this day. One is that my dad asked me to help him move the new elliptical machine from the Suburban. We had to wear gloves, since it was cold and it had been sitting in the car. The other possibility is that my mom's friend Jackie was over and Allie was sitting on one of the feet of the elliptical. I moved it to give her a ride, but she fell off. She got mad at me for going too fast, but Jackie said that maybe she wasn't holding on tight enough. [This entry was taken from my last blog post.]
2004. We were in Fillmore visiting my grandparents (my grandpa called the holiday "Black Monday") and I was wearing a Snoopy shirt. We went somewhere; my mom rode with my grandma in our car, and I rode with my dad and my grandpa in theirs. My grandpa sat in the backseat and let me sit in the front. I kept closing my eyes, and my dad kept asking if I was falling asleep, but I wasn't.
2003. This was a very eventful weekend, but I can't specifically remember what happened on the Monday.
1996. My cousins were all over at our house. They were playing some raucous game. I said I wanted to play a Martin Luther King game. My brother said that then we could play someone getting shot. Even at seven years old I recognized that as kind of insensitive. [I also took this one from my last post.]
2012. I remember going to Walmart with my mom. I think this might have been the time that we were talking about someone's marital status and as we got out of the car, I said, "The only good thing about her husband is the money," and I wondered what the man walking by thought. I said that I wanted to get some candy for my Jar of Hearts that I would take to Provo. I got some large conversation hearts. My mom wanted some gummy cinnamon hearts. She liked the color of the cherry ones better (a brighter red) but preferred the cinnamon flavor. I think we bought a printer, but I actually didn't take it to Provo. When we were driving home, KSL was having a recap of some awards show and they said they were pleased when Madonna called out Lady Gaga. (Incidentally, I don't think that "Born This Way" plagiarizes Madonna.) Then my mom started talking about the Celtic Woman CD my dad got her for Christmas, saying my dad is "so funny" because she had never expressed any interest in anything like that. We started listening to that CD, and I was telling my mom about how one of my mission companions had had it. Then I drove back to Provo.
2011.I think this was the day my windshield was replaced. I think this was also the day that my cousin Joey came over for some reason and he was hiding from Allie. I was paranoid about driving back to Provo in case it started snowing or I hit a pothole or something but I didn't know where the emergency light button was. Joey went out to the car to find it. When I expressed my worry about it snowing or something, he said I could take State Street all the way to Provo. We laughed at that idea.
2010. I went to Kohl's with my mom, sister, and niece. I found a clearance Christmas shirt with Oscar the Grouch. I got it, along with a St. Patrick's Day t-shirt. They found a red hooded jacket that they all really liked, but Nan worried that it was too small and Allie would soon outgrow it. Allie had a fit because she wanted it. But my mom said she would get it for her if she would calm down, because my mom liked the way it looked. At the checkout, my mom offered to get Allie a stuffed animal instead of the jacket, but she still wanted the jacket. On our way home, we went to the Atlantis Burger drive-thru. Allie was being kind of crazy. She was shrieking, so my mom and her mom told her she couldn't do that. She started giggling a lot, saying there was an owl on a car outside. I looked and I saw the bird. I said, "I don't think that's an owl, but it is a big bird!" It was a grouse or something. When the owners of the car came out, they just drove off, and the bird stayed on their hood. It might have finally flown off when they got on the road. Then I drove back to Provo. I think I went to dinner group and they had bought bagged Valentine cookies that had little messages on them. I was glad to have a dessert I could eat. They started talking about how conversation hearts are hard and unpleasant, but I said that they had changed and they were no longer hard.
2009. I suspect that Elder Wilson and I stayed with the elders in Airway Heights that evening because of zone conference the next morning, but I don't recall details.
2008. We went and played dodgeball at the church where the Franklin Park elders had church. Elder Ashton and Elder "Ech" had come down from Deer Park. I kept getting hit in the head with the ball; sometimes it knocked my glasses off. After the fourth time, I didn't want to play anymore. It was a full moon that night, so I was talking about how I couldn't stay outside too long or else I would turn into a wolf. We were in a car wash when Elder Chun asked me if I really thought I was a werewolf. I neither confirmed it or denied it but simply said, "What do you think?" We visited the Cunninghams. The Cunninghams were a family that shifted in and out of activity and they had been fellowshipping a woman named Debbie who was almost baptized but couldn't be because she was living with her boyfriend. They had just had dinner, and Sister Cunningham offered us some, but we declined. Sister Cunningham was cleaning (or maybe she was actually making dinner) and they stored their pans in their oven. Brother Cunningham started lambasting Elder Chun about the incident with Debbie, that we had not made it clear that she had to be married and that his wife was the one who had to tell her. (In fact, we had previously discussed it with Sister Cunningham, and she said she thought Debbie knew.) Then he started making an excuse that they weren't going to church to recover from the incident. It was kind of awkward, because I could tell he was addressing Elder Chun (since I was a greenie) and I had my back to him for a lot of the time, but then eventually I turned around. In retrospect, I think Elder Chun did do a lot of things wrong, but that was no excuse for the Cunninghams to go inactive. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"The preparation part of today was fun. We went and played dodgeball with the other elders. I got hit in the head several times, each by a different person, and after the fourth time I didn't want to play anymore. I did join in a little later, though.
"Then we went to the Marks's where Elder Johnson and Elder Spahr are. We played a game called Bang! and I got in an intense, long game with Sister Marks.
"After that we came home and cleaned our car since we are trading it in tomorrow for a new one.
"We had a dinner and then were supposed to see the Parrishes, a formerly less-active family, but then they cancelled. Then we went to another appointment but they weren't there. Then we stopped by the Cunninghams and Brother Cunningham chewed us out for setting a date with Debbie. That with the fact that it was a full moon made this not the best evening."
2007. There are two possibilities I can think of for this day. One is that my dad asked me to help him move the new elliptical machine from the Suburban. We had to wear gloves, since it was cold and it had been sitting in the car. The other possibility is that my mom's friend Jackie was over and Allie was sitting on one of the feet of the elliptical. I moved it to give her a ride, but she fell off. She got mad at me for going too fast, but Jackie said that maybe she wasn't holding on tight enough. [This entry was taken from my last blog post.]
2004. We were in Fillmore visiting my grandparents (my grandpa called the holiday "Black Monday") and I was wearing a Snoopy shirt. We went somewhere; my mom rode with my grandma in our car, and I rode with my dad and my grandpa in theirs. My grandpa sat in the backseat and let me sit in the front. I kept closing my eyes, and my dad kept asking if I was falling asleep, but I wasn't.
2003. This was a very eventful weekend, but I can't specifically remember what happened on the Monday.
1996. My cousins were all over at our house. They were playing some raucous game. I said I wanted to play a Martin Luther King game. My brother said that then we could play someone getting shot. Even at seven years old I recognized that as kind of insensitive. [I also took this one from my last post.]
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