Down With The Sickness: Disc One - Who Needs Daily Planning?

Pday got moved to Wednesday for going to the temple. So this is gonna be a chunky one. I'm gonna send two emails, becuase there's just so much that happened this week and it'll be way too long for one email

Double Album Time! 💿

(I also took a grand total of zero photos. Sorry)

MONDAY 

This was certainly one of the days of all time. We went to Costco to get stuff for the week. We spent about an hour in the shop just wandering around trying to find stuff. It's a freaking maze, and I'd only been in a Costco a few times. After we went to one of the church buildings for a thanksgiving dinner. It was cool. Even though we don't celebrate thanksgiving in the UK, I've had some of the food before, and been invited to thanksgiving dinners by American members in my home ward. It was great!

As I'm writing this section right now, Elder durrant has just spontaneously done a handstand, touching the ceiling and the floor at the same time. It's perhaps the most random thing I've saw all day. And I just came from capitol hill in downtown. There's some crazy stuff down there. 

TUESDAY 

District Council today. It was good. We basically give advice about our friends, and insights as to what worked with missionaries who had similar situations with people. It's a great place to get advice from fellow missionaries. Not much else happened today. We had two lessons cancel on us, made a friend out of an old friend and got properly drookit in the rain. We went down to capitol hill to contact one of our friends who was really progressing last month, and has since been ghosting us. We knocked on his door, full of hope that we might find him, but no dice. That was a shame. We try to contact him daily, but we tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter. But it does, I just wanted to put Linkin Park in my email. Mayhe someday down the line, he'll finally pick up the phone somewhere down the line, and remember us. Pray for Delvin, please.

TIMESKIP TO SATURDAY

We had a really interesting call today, which might go down in history as one of my favourite phone calls of all time (yes, I've got a list. If you want to know, feel free to ask!) It's on the other email, because much like Nephi in the Book of Mormon, he keeps two sets of records. One is the record of what happend to the people, the larger plates, and one is a record of spiritual moments, the smaller one. I'm not comparing my emails to the golden plates (which later became the Book of Mormon), becuase that would be slightly blasphemous, but it was an interesting similarity that I thought of while writing this. 

Anyway, today was weird, becuase all of our plans kinda went up in the air. We set up christmas stuff in the church, and had a table tennis tourney. It was a humbling experience. 

We were setting up Christmas stuff, when all of a sudden, the mission president shows up outta nowhere. They were in town for the UofW American Football game, and they just decided to stop by the church. 

Other than that, not much happened. Had a good lesson, bible study and game night. I let our friends beat me at pool, but only by a bit. I don't wanna absolutely skelp them so that they don't come to church, ya ken whit ah' mean?

SUNDAY

Church was cool. To be fair, church is always cool 😎 but church today was especially cool. Because the Christmas service is next week, they moved fast and testimony meeting to this Sunday. Fasting is going without food for a few meals, to humble yourself before the lord, and show your love for him. For church, they did something interesting for the testimony meeting. Usually, people from the congregation get up on the pulpit and talk about their experiences with christ, and testify of his divinity and their beliefs. It's a nice meeting. However, instead of that, the bishop instructed people to get up and share their favourite hymns, and what they mean to them. Then, we would sing a verse from that hymn. I feel sorry for the organist, who had to sightread most of them, and as someone who's been in a similar situation, I know how he felt. It was still a really nice meeting, and the organist did very well.

TIMESKIP TO TUESDAY

Chipotle sucks. We went after district council for district lunch, and it's still not any better. I've been three times, had three different things, and every time we leave I just feel like I've eaten ultra processed Mexican food made from powder and genetically modified meat. Wait a minuite...

Anyway, we had another dinner appointment and got hung up on by all of our friends! Yay! We also got invited to a frat party by one of our old friends, offering to invite twenty friends to church on Sunday if we showed up. Now, I like a party as much as the next person, but I'm a missionary. It would not be a good use of our time to go to a party. We would get so many contacts, though none of them would be elect. Ach well. The work goes on!

Side Note - I miss performing and practicing in a band. Every year, the church releases a new album for youth, centred around the youth theme for that year. Now, usually most of the songs aren't that good, but there are some that are good. Anyway, they also put on a gig for the new album, and I was watching that on Monday, when I was confined to the barracks (Disc 2), and it made me really miss the band environment. I went to uni for a year before I came out, and I did music at UHI Perth. I still consider it one of the best things I've done, and I worked in various band environments, and played a lot of songs. Like, a lot. Everything from Muse to Adele, to Bob Dylan, to Slipknot, to Steely Dan, to Taylor Swift (don't ask), to limp bizkit, to Coldplay, to chappell roan, to megadeth, to britney spears, and on and on. Just working with other musicians, writing and playing songs, getting annoyed at the bassist for not knowing the structure, and looking at the drummer's face when I tell him we're gonna do Foo Fighters (pricless) is so fun. Watching the church gig made me miss that, and we are only *supposed* to play instruments on pday, but I just miss it so much. I just wanna smash a keyboard to bits playing "Hail to the King," "Hysteria" or "Song for the Dead." But I've got that to look forward to, if Kathedral are still together, when I get back. Gotta focus on why I'm here, right? 

On Sunday, we had a really good lesson with a friend after church. We spoke about the Book of Mormon, since he asked what it was, and we spoke about the power of the Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit. One of the roles of the Holy Ghost, is to testify the truth to us of the things we read in the scriptures. We can find the truth by praying to God, in the name of Christ, and ask if the teachings of the church are true. If we ask with a sincere heart, with real intent to act on answers we receive, and faith in Christ, we will receive answers to our questions, through the Holy Ghost, for God gives knowledge to all men liberally, and will never choose to whom answers will not be given, for God loves us, our souls are of great worth to him, and all are alike unto God. Never forget that your Father in Heaven loves you, and cares about you.