Week Six

Poor Eric. No animals, no laughing, no beautiful weather, and his mother lets him down again. Sigh. AND, I guess I never taught him to share.
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Last week you told me you would tell me why Becca was getting acupuncture in a letter, only to get a list of fiber cereals.  Then I thought it would be in this e-mail, nope just another list of fiber cereals.  Oh well thanks for doing the research for me.

I chose Raisin Bran because after studying several of the cereal boxes mentioned in this list I decided that Raisin Bran was the perfect balance of price, fiber, taste, and size.  FiberOne cereals are ridiculously expensive and their boxes are like half the size of Raisin Bran so I just don't think it's worth it in the long run.

I got the package two days before Valentine's Day and was pretty surprised.  I haven't even finished eating the Skittles you gave me from January.  I have to eat in secret which is kind of hard but if I eat candy and my roomates see me they get really beggy and annoying.  And when I firmly tell them no they sass me all day about how rude and selfish I am.  It's pretty annoying.

I'm really jealous of Hawaii (yes I'm jealous of the state) because the only things I get to see anymore are crusty black month old snow and a roommate chewing with his mouth open.  I haven't seen an animal in forever let alone the ones you are seeing.  When walking home from a fireside at the JSMB chapel I saw a fluffy black kitten that looked exactly like Shadow as a kitten running around Temple Square but he wouldn't let me get near him.  I hope he's okay or has an owner or something.

Even though I'm not far from home Salt Lake City is still a very diverse city and I'm not used to it.  Last Sunday when I was walking to church there was a guy standing by the church door smoking.  It really confused me and I thought about alerting the Branch Presidency in case we needed to ask him to leave or something.  About 5 minutes later when I was sitting in the chapel the man came him, kneeled and crossed himself in the aisle, and then sat right next to me.  He said a short little prayer, got up and crossed himself in the aisle again, and left.  I then turned to the Elder sitting next to me and said "Well I guess no one can say that he didn't come to church today."  And he didn't laugh because still no one has a sense of humor over here.

The other night when "How Firm a Foundation" started playing I started singing "How Found a Firmdation!" and everyone looked at me weird and corrected me.  I said "I know...it's a joke...MY FAMILY WOULD HAVE LAUGHED!" 

I'm still only about 1/4 of my way through the training in British Services but I'm nearly done with the England & Wales portion of it.  Once I complete that I'll be able to help patrons out on the floor, I'll still have to continue my training of Ireland, Scotland, and Australia though when I'm not scheduled to help patrons.  I should start doing that sometime this week.  People still occasionally ask me for help (because like I said, they usually want someone young and computer savy to help them) and I'm able to help them with simple problems but I usually just have to say "I can try to help but let me get someone that knows what they're doing as well."  And then we both help.  Then I find out that the someone I grabbed knows just about as much as me even though they supposedly went through all the training.  So as far as I'm concerned I'm ready as I'll ever be to help.

Going back to the fireside I mentioned earlier, it was a fireside by Brother and Sister Klopfer.  Brother Klopfer is the head music director of the church, and both of them were the ones that wrote the Hymn "Home Can Be a Heaven on Earth."  And when the 80's Hymn book was being compiled Brother Klopfer was one of the ones working on that.  He told a story about how Called to Serve got in the Hymn book.  He said at a fireside with the presidency addressing all the mission president that at the end of the fireside many missionaries both Elders and Sisters came into the Assembly Hall singing Called to Serve.  At that time it was a relativity unknown song from the old Primary Song Book.  They said that the spirit was so strong that Elder Packer just demanded that song be a Hymn.  The Hymn book was completed and was ready to be put into circulation that year when they were all told that they needed to add another Hymn.  It all turned out to be okay though because can you imagine what our Church would be like if we didn't all know Called To Serve?

Speaking of the Assembly Hall, I had another fireside their too.  There are four famous and historical pipe organs in Temple Square.  One in the JSMB chapel, one in the Assembly Hall, one in the Conference Center, and the biggest one in the Tabernacle.  Once I go to conference I will have heard them all.  Pretty cool.

My stomach and bum are back to their relative health but I still have a painful bathroom visit every now and again.  I would have said that earlier but this seems like a pretty funny way to end an e-mail.