Scott Chester

It was good to be back at church this week. I really missed being home last week. Many people told me I was at least a few shades darker. I guess that isn’t hard when you can serve as a white card. I don’t see it, but I’m sure I am. I did spend a lot of time out in the sun and didn’t wear much sunscreen.

We debunked myths regarding the atonement today. I really liked the style of the talk. It was so nice to have a homemade dinner at the Dowden’s tonight. I seriously need to come up with a plan for this week so I don’t have to go out to eat. Problem is there is nothing in my house to eat. I need some new food ideas for things that don’t cost me more than a meal at a nice restaurant. Maybe I just need someone to eat dinner with! I haven’t been over to the Rodriguez’s for a while, maybe its time I drop in there.

No one showed up for the CES Fireside tonight, which was fine with me. I just always want to make sure that people have the option. I’m sure most people who wanted to watch it watched it the night it aired or sometime in the past few weeks. But I guess you never know who could have been out there. I still have it if someone wants to come watch it. This is the only reason I have TV and a DVR in my house, so that I can watch these things on the BYU channel. I’m sure my roommates would love it if I canceled every channel but KBYU!

I spent some time talking with Sister Draper, one of Tara’s companions who has been released. That was kind of fun and got me thinking more about the one and only Tara of course. I guess she has really been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe some part of me knows that she is going through some harder times on her mission and wants to be there for her. Maybe it was just the Bosch trip which I’ve been dreading for a year since I knew she couldn’t come. Or I guess it could have been all the people that asked me about my wife on the trip!

Well, I think I’m going to toss in early tonight. I’m thinking about trying to get into the office early tomorrow to install some software updates before everyone else gets in, or at least to get some work done. I’m also thinking it will help me get ready for getting up early on Tuesday to be at the temple which I have missed dearly.

I must admit that I was too exhausted and lazy last night to write, so this will have to do. I spent most of the day traveling. It was about six by the time I got checked into the hotel and time for the first activity before I was even settled. P.S. I was starving! It took about an hour to get our luggage from the flight and then we had to wait for the bus and so forth, it was ridiculous! Next time I’ll ship my luggage and rent a car so I can skip some of the waiting.

The flight was actually pretty good. I scored an empty seat next to me which is second best to having a friend there. I really wish Tara had been in that empty seat. it was a long flight. I got to watch both Journey to the Center of the Earth and Wall-E. I also tried to do some soduku on the flight, but wasn’t having much luck. I hope it was because I was being distracted with the movie, but it may have been that my brain just wasn’t working.

I rented a car this morning to go to church. I first had to get my massage appointment rescheduled, but Carla was nice enough to handle that for me as always. She took my appointment and is getting me a new one later in the week. I was totally worried about lds.org having the wrong information in the meetinghouse locator, but I decided to go with it. I drove past the local meetinghouse which started at 9 to the one on the south side of the Island which was supposed to have the YSA meeting there at 10. Well, there was another ward finishing up fast and testimony meeting there when I got there. Another couple asked me if I knew what was going on. A local member told me the next ward started at 1. The sister missionaries found out for me that the YSA meets at the stake center (back by the airport) and that the next ward was a Tongan ward. I decided to try out the stake center. I got there just after a ward had started and just missed sacrament. I stayed through their testimony meeting and Sunday school when I found out that the YSA ward did meet there at 10 and was going on simultaneously. I then stayed for another sacrament meeting so I could take the sacrament.

In that final meeting, I met another couple from Northern California who is vacationing in Hawaii. They told me their GPS had directed them wrong and they finally found the stake center two blocks from their hotel or ship (I’m not quite sure). I realized that clearly the adversary didn’t want me to take the sacrament today. It all started with the spa, then Enterprise didn’t have cars, i showed up at the wrong building (at the right time), and then just missed it when I showed up at the other building. I knew I needed to stay and take it. I was going to just take the sacrament and leave after, but I felt that I needed to stay for my third fast and testimony meeting today. I almost got up to bear my testimony even, but people seemed to be rushing the stand, so I didn’t go.

I think this was one of the most powerful meetings I’ve ever been in. It was definitely worth it and I was so grateful to have been there and to have finally been able to take the sacrament. How wonderful it is that we can travel to the corners of the earth and yet come Home every Sunday in worship. I did really feel at home in that stake center of our Lord’s Church today. There was something special and I don’t mean the people saying aloha. The congregation would say aloha back to anyone who said it from the pulpit. That was strange! We don’t do that anywhere else that I know of. Normally it is only a one way communication.

After church I saw a fire just after it got started on the side of the highway. I called it in and then started taking pictures after I realized it was growing. I got quite a few and some good ones I feel. I came back to the resort and posted the pictures and was reminded again that I need to backup and cleanup iPhoto.

We had our welcome dinner tonight. I got to see Jim & Susan and meet their son. I had dinner with them and I think we are going to hang out again throughout the week. I haven’t seen the couple from SLC that we had last year. Unfortunately I can’t remember their names to check the guest list. I guess we’ll just have to see if I can find them. Where’s Tara when I need her?

The Luau was pretty cool. The Samoan fire knife dance was amazing. I don’t know how that guy was able to do what he did, but I’m sure he doesn’t have any hair left on his body. There is probably/definitely more to say, but I’m so tired, I need to get to sleep!

I can’t remember the last time that I had so much time in the morning before church. We set our clocks back an hour today, so I got an extra hour of sleep kind of and then didn’t have any meetings before church. I spent some time working on church things and also was blessed to be able to spend some time just pondering. I felt impressed to review my patriarcharcal blessing this morning and spent some time reminiscing the trip to Punta Cana last year with Tara. I remember how excited I was and how we totally had the time of our lives there. I leave for Maui this week and I am not looking forward to it. I can’t believe that I’m going to go to Hawaii for my first time all alone. I’m sure I will still be able to enjoy myself somewhat, but there is just no way of it comparing to the week that Tara and I had last year.

I’ve found myself really missing Tara this week actually. I’ve been pondering on her a lot. I think Cynthia reminds me a lot of her. They have a similar physical appearance and share many great qualities. I’ve also been feeling guilty about not writing her since before general conference. I did send her the postcard not from Minneapolis, but that doesn’t count much. I was planning on sending her a gift a few weeks ago and haven’t done that yet either, so I’m getting myself down and frustrated with that. Hopefully I can call this week and schedule something for Friday morning. I did write to her this morning which was great. I need to do that more for myself than I think I do for her. There is just something about writing a letter - or even a card - that I can’t seem to capture any other way.

I hadn’t looked at those pictures from the DR for some time now and am so happy that I took the time to make the book. I really need to do that more often. It also made me think of all the great pictures of friends that I need to print and hang.

I cried today when Andrea spoke during fast and testimony meeting and am doing it again now. She said that she had lost friendships over this prop 8 thing, but that she had learned so much and her love for the Lord had grown because of it, at least in my paraphrased version. What a fight this has been. I still can’t get over that 9% of our population is causing so much turmoil for the other 91%. A heavy price has been paid for this - our freedoms - just as it has been done so many times before. Was the war in Heaven something like this? I don’t think I’ve lost any friends over this matter, but that just makes me think that I have been too coward to act. I’ve been too afraid to really stand up for what is needed and need to learn from her. She also shared that her two best friends were her mom and dad and that touched me so much.

I had been thinking this weekend about sharing my testimony. Much like Andrea, I had kind of secretly been wanting to be called up in the last few weeks when people have been called to the stand. I had been thinking about what to say and trying to come up with something to share that could help someone else. I’d even rehearsed things in my head, but when I got to church it was all gone and while I felt that I could get up, I didn’t feel the need to. Maybe I’ll have the opportunity soon. This week really has been very spiritual for me. I feel like I was on the right track a lot of the time and I learned so much. Maybe it was the lack of sleep that brought me closer to my Heavenly Father, maybe it is the election drawing near, I don’t know. What I do know, now especially more than I did before, is that Proposition 8 needs to be passed or this fight is only going to get worse. What I don’t know is what the agenda is from the other side. I discovered last night that all the married rights they say they are getting from being married versus a civil union don’t transfer to other states and aren’t acknowledged by the federal government. They won’t say that they want to teach this in school and many people say that they don’t want anything about marriage taught in schools. So what is their agenda? I don’t know. I know that we can’t let 9% of America take away the rights of the remaining 91%. I know that temple marriage is ordained of God. Families can be sealed there together forever, not just for their mortal time on this earth. If prop 8 fails, this right to marry in God’s temple could be challenged. I know that the gospel is true, that Jesus Christ did atone for our sins, that he does live and reign today. His church is run by His prophet on the earth today, Thomas S. Monson. President Monson is supported by his counselors in the first presidency and the twelve apostles of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. These men have spoken as the mouthpiece of the Lord that we need to do all we can to make sure this measure passes. We may not know what is to come if it doesn’t, but I can assure you that they are aware of the dark and dreary place that we will be in if we continue down the slippery slope we are already falling down.

I really wanted to watch the CES fireside tonight. I was ready for the spiritual uplifting from it and was ready to learn even though I knew we were supposed to cancel all activities until after the election. I was fine with watching it by myself and then doing a public performance later. Clearly, my thinking was wrong because for whatever reason I was called in to the Dowden’s for tech support before even leaving the stake center today. They were having problems with their wireless and I was stuck there the entire time supporting people in making calls and getting computers running to do so. I’m sure now that is where I needed to be today; I just had to conform my will to that of the Father’s.

I just turned off about an hour ago in branch prayer. Megan even asked me if I was about to fall asleep and I had to say yes. I am so exhausted. This fight is starting to take it’s toll on me in the final hours and I need to stay strong. I’m anxious to see what this week will bring and looking forward to hopefully being victorious on Tuesday. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!

I’ve just been so exhausted lately I haven’t had a chance to write. Thursday went well with class and so forth. I tried the Twin Cities Grill Thursday night. It was really good and well worth the wait. I’ll definitely going back there. It wasn’t cheap, but it was good. I had a delicious steak for a little less than one would pay at Ruth’s Chris. I managed to miss the first few minutes of CSI back at the hotel and then kept getting interrupted during it. I also watched whatever weird show was on after CSI and then just about fell asleep on the couch.

Friday morning went well as we tried to wrap things up with the class. I passed the written exam and now just need to complete my project. I made it to my flight ontime and it was another full one. I was kind of hoping it would be oversold and they would be looking for people to bump, but of course it never happens when I could actually take a later flight. I sat next to a woman who was coming in on vacation for a week with her daughter and we talked for a while. I eventually decided to try and get some work done, but it was just too hard with the laptop. I then started watching Amazing Grace, but only got about 30 minutes into it before I was asked to cease and desist for landing.

LA Traffic actually wasn’t that bad coming back home as it only took me about two hours once I got to my car. It did take me an hour to get from the gate to my car which is a joke. Nonetheless, I’m sure in this case it was better to take the direct flight than having a layover somewhere else along the line.

It turned out that something was wrong with the recording of the Price is Right, so we didn’t get to see Krystal. One of her other friends apparently has it recorded and is going to transfer it to DVD for her though. I was really looking forward to getting home to see it, and was quite bummed that we couldn’t watch it.

I woke up super early Saturday morning and couldn’t sleep. After playing on the computer for an hour or so I decided to go back to sleep. When I got up the second time I enjoyed a bowl of Crispix and then watched a few things off the DVR before I got started with cleaning the house. I was thinking about going to the temple to makeup for Tuesday, but realized I just had too much to do. I did make it down for the baptisms though. We were way short on people, so I’m glad I went and am very thankful for the help we had from others last night as well.

After the temple, the group that wanted to come straight home decided they wanted to stop at In-N-Out to grab something quickly. I mentioned that if we were going to do that, we should go to Fuddruckers and I got everyone on board. That probably happened because when we got there two people ordered something other than a hamburger which they clearly couldn’t have gotten at In-N-Out! It was apparently homecoming for Mira Mesa or some other area schools and they thought we were there for Homecoming since we were somewhat dressed up. Brother Clark asked me if I was class of ‘08 and I just laughed and said yep! I just want to know what the two of us guys were doing wit the three girls.

My counselors finally got called and set apart today. It will be huge having their help and I’m hoping we can figure out who our secretary is supposed to be and then we can really get this home teaching thing whipped into shape. It sounds like we aren’t going to be swapping the hours, so we will be stuck without the guys from mission prep. It sure would be nice to have them, but I guess we will just deal with another challenge.

President and Sister Clegg spoke today. Other than President going way over, it was good. He spoke about sexual morality, coming clean using the atonement and damaged goods. He relayed a story that hit me about a missionary who was planning on marrying his girlfriend after he returned. Shortly after he left she got into some trouble. After she left the other guy and went through the repentance process with her bishop she was pronounced clean again. This elder though didn’t see it so clearly. He had saved himself for her and he thought she was damaged goods. President Kimball (?) told him that he just didn’t get it. She has been made clean through the atonement, her sins have been forgiven. Yet, this elder struggled with that as I expect many do.

I went over to the Dowden’s tonight to post Mandi’s video of us trying to swallow cinnamon. Maegan also challenged me to a game of Blockus. I had never played before and didn’t do so well. I tried to get Cynthia to help me, but Maegan kept coming up with reasons she couldn’t. Eventually, Maegan gave up and everyone worked to finish off my pieces as best we could.

We had the concluding session of stake conference this morning. I got there about 45 minutes early and the chapel was already full. I knew I should have kept sleeping this morning! I can’t think of anything major that I learned from conference today, but I was thinking about the testimonies that people kept bearing. I totally kept thinking last night I was going to get called up, so maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking about it so much lately. I probably don’t give mine often enough, which is also probably why it isn’t very eloquent. I did enjoy conference even if I was a bit squirmy in the hard seats. I think I’m going to bring my own recliner next time!

I high tailed it out of there to get things finished up for the trip. I really didn’t like having the business trip on my mind during conference or really having to deal with it today, but sometimes things have to be done. I think I learned some patience though and that things will work out on the Lord’s timeline, mine isn’t important. It did seem like I kept hitting things talking about keeping the Sabbath day holy and such and I felt like I was really letting the Lord down today. There are probably bigger things I should be worrying about, but I guess it’s a start.

In any event, I had a good drive to LAX and made it there with plenty of time to go. I had thoughts about calling people about home teaching, but I didn’t feel the airport was a good place to be doing it so after a few calls I stopped. I also remembered I needed to send out the branch weekly email which sidetracked me too. The flight ended up being overbooked and they were looking for people to bump. I guess since we had a full flight, we were able to get going early and there was practically no wait for takeoff at LAX. We ended up arriving almost half an hour early which is great since it’s after midnight here now. I sat next to a doctor and we talked for a good portion of the flight. We talked about prop 8 and what is already happening. We really agreed on a lot of things which was pretty cool.

The hotel here has improved since last time. I guess the remodel did them good. They’ve got new suites with 32″ LCDs, granite countertops in the bathrooms, a good size work area and more. I’m impressed. Let’s just hope breakfast has improved as well. If not, I’ll be hitting up the IHOP again. Well, I should get to sleep as I need to be up in less than 6 hours, I think. Maybe I should find the itinerary again and double check.

I got started this morning getting new lappy (darkpeanut) setup for next week. I ended up going with Vista Ultimate as it seemed like the easiest path to take. I had to spend some time re-downloading and installing drivers, and I think I still need to fix some minor issues. I’m a bit worried that the DC-One software won’t work, so i don’t know if that means I have other problems or their software just isn’t happy. I was going to try and install XP on a partition, I just haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve heard mixed reports on if it will work or not.

I had to run by the church to turn in some home teaching things, then it was off to the bank to get things going for next week and home to keep working on lappy, get ready for the trip and stake conference this evening.

We had a discussion for most of priesthood which I always like better than the lecture format. Four wards ended up with 100% home teaching which I thought was pretty impressive and all wards improved. We were at 63% which isn’t great, but I think is an improvement from normal. A method of checking on the districts week by week was suggested. At weekly PEC meetings, one should be getting (or giving) a report on about 1/4 of the membership based on their perfect home teaching district. So week 1 would be districts/groups 1 & 3. Week 2 would be 2 & 5, then 4 & 7 followed by 6 & 8. This doesn’t mean members wouldn’t be taught until those weeks, but it would be expected that it would be done by then.

I had been thinking about a similar plan and am ready to get something like that implemented. The problem I see is letting people know what district those people they home teach are in. I don’t think most members know about the ranking system and it may take work to educate them in something they don’t really need to worry about. I’m thinking maybe we could just reach out and ask each home teaching companionship to make sure certain people are reached by each week. I think there are still some more changes we need to make to the perfect districts and also to our districts in EQ. I want to get more of a hierarchy going so each supervisor is only responsible for 4 companionships or so and we have more of a tree than we have now. I’ll probably have some time to work on that next week while I’m traveling and I think I will be able to make some calls to checkup on how things are going this month. I certainly don’t want to let things falter with the few off weeks we’ve had to start off this month.

We also learned that the percentage of endowed members in the stake has gone up to I think it was 80% from 60-something 6 or 12 months ago. The focus now is to get members going to our assigned week in the temple (which of course this month is the week that I will be out of town). I think they are going to change the focus during the offering in righteousness from as many sessions as possible to as many members as possible serving at least once during the week in the temple. I think both are good.

All I remember from the adult session tonight was President Smith talking about his future son-in-law calling him on the phone to ask for his daughters hand in marriage. I thought that was funny. He said that he then flew up to BYUI and the guy asked if they could go to the temple. I guess this one President Smith’s favor and he suggested always interviewing future in-laws in the celestial room.

I was thinking about trying to watch Made of Honor tonight, but I forgot about the tradition of going to Claim Jumper. Krystal came over briefly and I showed her the setup so she could come watch The Price is Right on Thursday. I’m so bummed that I am going to miss it. I hope I’ll get to watch it when I get back next weekend. We then went to join the group at Claim Jumper, but they made us sit at our own table. It actually worked out for the best probably as we got our dessert first and were able to checkout before everyone else and get home at a reasonable time. Oh wait, it’s still going to be 1 in the morning before I get to sleep. Bad plan.

We had our broadcast tonight from Salt Lake City regarding Proposition 8. We were encouraged and given more counsel regarding voting yes and doing all that we can to support Proposition 8 in order to protect the sanctity of marriage. We need to do this as a moral issue and in fact to support tolerance. The worry is that our freedoms will be taken away by the minority that are always looking to press the envelope further. We’ve been asked to continue spreading the word to educate and now to persuade voters to vote Yes on 8.

PreservingMarriage.com - an official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
ProtectMarriage.com - the coalition of churches and other organizations working to protect marriage in California with a Yes on 8 campaign.
Church Readies Members on Proposition 8 - article from the LDS Newsroom

I just saw that Google is openly opposing Prop 8 (not sure if I should link or not). I think this just goes to show how much work in education we need to do. They say they don’t want us taking away rights, well we aren’t taking away any rights. In fact, the argument is that by allowing Prop 8 to fail, we will be taking away the rights of those that believe in traditional marriage. Shame on you Google. All that information at your fingertips and you can’t figure out what is really going on.

In other news, things were crazy at the office today. I tried to get through things to clean some things up before I leave next week, but it just wasn’t happening. I think I’m going to be spending some more extra time at work the next few days to get things ready. And stupid Dell isn’t sure if they can deliver on their promise to get me my new laptop by the weekend. I don’t think they understand that if I don’t have it by the weekend, I just don’t want it as I will have no use for it. Maybe I can twitter to get some results tomorrow.

It’s a bit later than I would like it to be, but I want to put down a few thoughts before I drift off to sleep. The weather this weekend has been beautiful and I must express my thanks for that. I have loved having the windows open and getting some fresh air.

I really enjoyed conference this weekend. Elder Oak’s talk on the sacrament really touched me and I hope as I study it, I will be better prepared each week and will be a better instrument in serving the sacrament to others. We had another talk on this in priesthood I believe. I love Elder (President) Bednar. He spoke about prayer, and I especially liked his suggestion (borrowed) to only give thanks in an occasional prayer. I also liked when he explained that all of our prayers are like one ongoing prayer.

There were a couple today that stood out as well, but my mind is blanking unfortunately.

I was getting a little stir crazy last night, both in priesthood and then again while watching a movie at home. I had just spent too much time sitting and needed to get up and do something. I could tell it was starting to get to me today as well. I ended up baking cookies during the second session today as I couldn’t just sit on the couch any longer.

We had a good discussion about the branch tonight at the Dowden’s. It was just Greg, Diana, Michelle and me. We were really trying to brainstorm ways to improve the branch. It seems that things have gotten maybe a bit too casual. Maybe we have all gotten too comfortable and we need to shake things up a bit more. It seems that we have been focused on having fun lately instead of improving our relationship with the Savior. I hope we can all work on bringing that back and work on our unity.

I came home at 9 o’clock tonight with one goal before going to bed, to write to Tara. It is now almost 11 and I think that is all I did tonight. I guess I turned on the TV to setup recording of General Conference next weekend and I must admit to watching the first two minutes of Knight Rider on InDemand as well as setting up a recording for that. Other than that, I think I was writing to Tara for about an hour which seems crazy. I didn’t write her a novel or anything. I think it was just going through the pictures and commenting on each of them which took the time.

It seemed like we had a really good fast and testimony meeting today. Tara (Tata) got up and spoke, giving her thanks to the branch and expressing her appreciation to have the priesthood in her home now. I’m really glad that her and Tim having been coming back and hope that they can remain strong. Krystal’s was good too along with many others.
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We had a great institute lesson tonight, as we always do. We talked about the red heifer in Numbers 19 for the most part. I really liked how we compared ourselves to the Jews and exploring how much we really are Jews with just a bit more truth and authority.

I had this massive headache this afternoon at the office and had to just come home and take a nap. I was going to go shopping with the girls tonight, but by the time I got to the point where I felt like I could go out again there wasn’t enough time to make it worthwhile. And, I’m not sure that I was ready for all that energy with my head still hurting. I’m sure it has had something to do with my weird sleep schedule this week and I think I’ve been getting a cold or fighting one off.
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I’m not exactly thrilled with how hot it was today. We were only one degree away from hitting 100! I guess I was just enjoying the cooler weather too much. Fortunately, I spent most of the day in the office and didn’t even know how hot it was until I was coming home.

I spent my evening making phone calls for prop 8. I called a bunch of houses in Murrieta to find out how they were planning on voting. Unfortunately, most of the calls went to voicemail Hopefully the messages I left will be well received. It seemed like there was more that expressed a strong vote for Proposition 8 and defending traditional marriage as between a man and a woman. There were some that told me it was none of my business and there were some that we totally for gay marriage. It is probably going to be a close race which is why we need to push so hard on this.

I was talking with Scott tonight about the proposition and other things in general. Again it hit me at how the division in the church over this issue is not good. I completely believe that we need to keep our mind in these things. While we don’t need to blindly follow our prophet, we do need to think if we are sustaining him and if we truly believe he is a Prophet of God. If we can’t follow his counsel on a simple thing like this, how are we going to follow it down the road. Isn’t it possible that he can see where this is going and how major of an impact this “little” definition is going to have on our society? I was talking with one lady tonight on the phone and I wanted to tell her about our Church. I chose to respect the request that we don’t proselyte while working on this. She was on the fence of how to vote and it seemed she didn’t know what could be coming or the direction we have in this matter.

I also see the argument for separation of church and state. This simply isn’t an issue of that though. Marriage has always been defined as between a man and a woman. Yes, it was defined as such in Genesis, long before our country was formed. Our country was formed with the bible in mind and also with freedom of religion. While we have freedom to practice what we please, we don’t have the authority to choose who God will choose to marry. If we want to go down the separation road, it becomes so clear as Sister Dowden pointed out how important this matter is that the Church is willing to stake the Church in this battle.

This has been an interesting week with working Monday, being off on Tuesday and now working two more days before being off again. I think I could get used to it, but I probably shouldn’t. I’m glad things have been so busy in the office, it has helped keep me out of trouble and I certainly haven’t had any time this week to cause any at home.

Wow. Four o’clock came way too early this morning and it was not exactly what I would call fun getting up that early. Nevertheless, I did it and I would have been on time for the six o’clock session if I had recalled that Murrieta is about 15 minutes farther away than Fallbrook is from the San Diego Temple! It worked out though cause I got to hang with Bro Kowallis for the first two sessions, did one by myself and then caught up with the group after lunch and the chapel session.

The five sessions have totally wiped me out though. Or maybe it was getting up at four after going to bed around ten. Either way, I’m barely awake enough and really don’t have the energy enough to type this now.

I did get set apart tonight as the Elders Quorum President, in the temple of all places. That was kind of cool (literally, the room was freezing!) I also get set apart for another calling minutes later. I’ll be serving as an ordinance worker every Tuesday morning now. Looks like I’d better get used to getting up at four - or even earlier! What did I get myself into?

Actually, we had talked about this a long time ago and never got it started for some reason. I’m looking forward to it; I just need to figure out the logistical end of it and break the news to the office folks. I know they’re going to love me!

I was craving a strawberry lemonade as I was leaving the temple. Actually, I was craving one about 10 o’clock this morning. My throat was so dry I could barely stand to be there. I hit up Cheesecake Factory and had some amazing Orange Chicken. I think it was still hot as I devoured the last piece I ate it so fast. I was totally starving. Although, I must admit that the $3 I spent for chicken fried steak at the temple cafeteria today was totally worth it.

More to write, but I need to sleep…

It was weird not having meetings this morning before church. I enjoyed some leisurely time at home and even made pancakes for breakfast this morning. I did go to church and put in close to two hours on home teaching. It is so nice now that we have the shepards in MLS so I can actually assign them to companionships instead of having to remember who goes where and hand writing them in. Now I just need to work on fixing the half-companinoships we have now and then figure out who else isn’t being home taught. Oh yeah, I need to call and see who is actually doing home teaching as well. I think we need to revamp this district thing and get some more people involved so we all have a smaller number of people to call, which would hopefully allow us to check in on them more frequently.

Church went well and so did Mehgan’s baptism. Both the talk from the high councilman and our lesson in elders quorum were about the plan of salvation. I wonder if that was planned on our part or just seemed to happen. In any event, it was pretty good and I enjoyed it. I never made it to Sunday School, i was too busy being pulled in different directions and getting things ready for the next hour. Maybe if we switched the hours I could actually attend Sunday School as well. It was great to see President & Sister Mattson at the baptism; I really miss them!
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Today was pretty good. I didn’t get all that I was hoping to with home teaching assignments done this morning, but I did clear up a lot of loose ends and worked on finding those that could home teach that have been overlooked. I’ll probably go in and spend some time this week getting some things fixed and hopefully completing many of the companionships. I’m going to try and call everyone individually this week as well to see how they are doing with the challenge.

We talked about switching 2nd and 3rd hours and I don’t think I heard anything against making the switch. I think as people have thought more about it they are liking the idea more as well. I think it would just be good to get everyone to the priesthood and relief society classes in addition to mission prep. Heck, I’d love to check out mission prep, but have never had the opportunity with callings in elders quorum.

I didn’t notice an influx of visitors today and never heard how many we had. I did enjoy the talks by Brooke and Brother Kowallis. I was almost totally sure I was going to get called up to bear my testimony and was overly concerned with thinking of something to say. Somehow I got out of it - I guess because I was preparing for it. That just goes to show that preparation is a good thing.

I went to the Dowden’s after getting things situated with the weekly email and such. After I got home I kept getting calls about home teaching and other things, so I’m thinking this is going to be a busy week. Surprisingly I don’t have much planned so this will hopefully be a mostly quiet week at home or in other people’s homes visiting them. I guess I’d better brush up on the lesson.

I finally got my letters written to the girls tonight. It seems like I was long overdue, although I think it was just a week overdue. Heck, I haven’t even check my mail essentially all week - I could have more letters, although I highly doubt it. I guess that’s why I haven’t checked the mail as that’s about the only thing I ever look forward to receiving! The rest is just junk and bills.

Let’s see if I can pick this up where I left off last night. Cheesecake. The Beverly Hills Cheesecake is quite smaller than your typical Cheesecake Factory and you almost walk through the kitchen to get through the restaurant. The surprising part was that there was no wait when we came in even though it was about 5:30. I’ll spare you the details of dinner, you can just know that Krystal felt that her chocolate raspberry cheesecake was better than mine. I actually did try something new: the 30th anniversary cheesecake which is layers of the original cheesecake with Linda’s Fudge Cake. It was pretty good in my opinion and pretty rich. We actually had to call it quits about half way through the cheesecakes and saved them for after the show.

Wicked was amazing. I had been telling Krystal not to expect much from the seats because we got them at the last minute and so forth. I was trying to build her up to expect the last row of the balcony or something. Well, I think my story got blown when they told us what door to go to - door number three, which is downstairs. Oh, maybe it’s just the back row of orchestra. As we were walking she almost nervously said “we keep walking.” I should have said something like we’re just going to check out the orchestra pit when she asked what row we were going to. She was thrilled when we stopped at row F and then slid to almost dead center.

The cast was almost entirely different from what I had seen any other time. The only main character that was the same was Madame Morrible, played by Carol Kane. We had the understudy for Galinda/Glinda. She did a good job. Fiero was pretty good as well, I’d say second best to the actor on the tour, although I wasn’t as critical of his role the first time I saw it. I still thought the sound was a bit off. Maybe the crew is just tired of the production or maybe they don’t have good fill speakers for the front. Everything considered, I’d say that everyone seemed to do a great job in the show. I enjoyed it so much that I quite literally would have come back the next night to see it again. Krystal “is in love with Wicked and wants a remote that can rewind her back to the beginning of WICKED!!!!”

So, the short of it is that I don’t know exactly what made this trip to Wicked so great. I don’t think I could put my finger on one thing in particular. I think overall though this trip tops the chart and has raised the bar for a great evening out. I enjoyed the show and appreciated the company greatly. I would totally do it again this week.

Now, on to today. As usual, I spent most of the day cleaning. As I was vacuuming downstairs near the entry I found these black spots that I hadn’t seen before. When I ran the vacuum over them, they only got bigger and bolder. The best way I can think to describe them is something like dry toner. I don’t know why I would have something like that on my floor, or what it was in reality. Since the vacuum was only making it worse, I got out the carpet cleaner and decided that pretty much everything downstairs needed a good cleaning. Well, hours later the family room, dining room and hallways had been done. The spots came out along with a lot of other dirt as I had to make many a trip to the sink to empty and refill. This was of course in addition to the other cleaning chores I did, so it took most of the day.

Lauren called me about going to some work thin with her. I told her I’d try and be there, but had to figure out some timing things. I got sidetracked with some work things that didn’t work out as they should have, so i wasn’t able to be there right on time. I could never get a hold of her to figure out where I was supposed to be going or what to wear, so it never happened. I was really sad about it as I haven’t seen her for a few weeks now.

I ended up helping out with the movie in the park or drive in movie as they like to call it. They needed some more power cables and other things to make it all work, so that got me out of the house this evening. I got things going, waited for people to show up and then took off. I called Sister Dowden on my way home to check in and ended up going over there to see the new look for her site. Of course that turned into a longer thing and it was about midnight before I got home.

I’ve got lots to do for church tomorrow, so I should probably get to sleep now that I am wound down. Good night and I hope you will join me tomorrow for church. We meet at 1 off the 215 at Los Alamos.