Sunday, November 26, 2006

Although Thursday was technically Thanksgiving, it didn’t feel like it at all then, and although today technically was not Thanksgiving it felt like it all the way. Before church I got ready and had some time on the computer, which I mostly used for apartment searching and blogging. Melissa and Jessica went early for choir, Megan just plain went early and because Shannon stayed up til four last night cooking for our Thanksgiving dinner, she just didn’t go to Sacrament meeting. The day was foggy and gorgeous, so along the way to church I just stopped and took pictures whenever I liked. Foggy days are quite possibly my favorite. In Sacrament meeting, Bri and the Messenger gave talks. Bri struggled a lot because she was reading it in Romanian and didn’t know how to pronounce things and was crying (I don’t think she was crying because of that, but because she was feeling the spirit maybe). There was a new guy who I’d never seen before passing the sacrament and I could tell it had to have been his first time, because he wasn’t sure what to do a lot of the time. It was really endearing actually. Also during sacrament meeting I did the worst job conducting that I have done this entire semester. The song started with a pick up note and a half, so I was off from the beginning. Usually that’s ok though, because I get off at the beginning all the time J. The problem was that the song had kind of a weird beet and so I kept trying to get back on beat, but even if I was doing it right it would sound wrong and so I’d think I was off again and I’d get off beat and then yeah, I went all over the place the whole song and was soooo confused and just like at a complete loss as to how to conduct it so I just smiled really big at all my friends who were laughing and conducted however I felt like conducting! That includes 2/4, ¾ and 4/4 times at different points throughout the incredibly slow 4 verse song. Classic. At the end of Sacrament meeting, Elder Sorensen passed his manuscript over to me. He’s apparently started writing a fantasy book and wants me to read it and tell him what I think because I’m an English major. Sunday school was taught by Sora Maria and was on like strengthening your marriage or something. So, basically the Romanian women told us how marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but that you should still do it because it’s still a good thing to do and they don’t regret it. They did add, however, that maybe it would be for us because we are going into it with the Lord and they were all converts. Either way, I have high hopes, especially since I know that I deeefinitely won’t have a fabulous marriage if I dooon’t hope and I don’t think the hope is going to hurt anything. Besides, I tend to be a dreamer. After church, Shannon and I were walking together (how we always end up together I do not know) behind the palat and this man came up to us and started spouting off a sad story in Romanian and fake crying at us (very common). We honestly didn’t have money with us because we just had church stuff, so I was like, “Nu am, uite” and showed him my purse. He still didn’t seem to believe me for some reason, so I pulled my Book of Mormon out to say “look, see, this is all I have,” when I realized, “hey, hey can have that.” So I handed it to him and was like, “there, you can have that if you’d like!” He seemed really happy and almost didn’t believe that I’d actually given it to him and I was just like, “no really, it’s yours!” Then we walked away. I figure, hey, even if he just sells it, it only has the possibility for good! When we got home from church I had called computer time, so I did a number of things on there. At one point Shannon and I looked up the lyrics to Rigoletto and sang them all (good memories). I also blogged and looked for apartments for myself and Shannon. I easily used all the time I had (never enough time) and then it was time for dinner! We all grabbed our dishes and walked over to the Villa (once again, everyone staring). Not too surprisingly, along the way we had a little gypsy girl try to get us to give some of it to her. When we got there, the missionaries were there, because they’d just finished setting up the ping pong table for us, so we invited them to stay and convinced them by telling Elder Hackett that he needed to cut the turkey for us. It took forever, it seemed, to get everything set up, partly because a lot of people needed to finish cooking things and heat things up. We took a bunch of pictures of the group and of Hackett cutting the turkey. Then, finally, we ate! Oh wow, what a fabulous experience. It was all so festive and exciting and I think it made us all a little home sick. It didn’t help that we all went around and told things we were grateful for and then later told about family holiday traditions. I got some good ideas for things I want to do with my family when I have one of my own. We all feel pretty trunky. The food was great too and I think my favorite dishes were Shannon’s candied sweet potatoes, the turkey of course, and the biscuits that Jenna made. Happy day. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the dinner didn’t start until Bri recited her hilarious Thanksgiving poem. After the dinner was over and we were all absolutely fat, we started cleaning up. I washed all the dishes and would give them to either Bri or Jessica to dry. Melissa and Megan went home early and Marina, Holly and Shannon were in another room talking, so Bri, Jessica, Abbi, Jenna and I had a great little chat in the kitchen. We talked about all kinds of things, from food and traditions to the usual, dating. Abbi has a pretty serious boyfriend who she’s absolutely in love with and will probably get engaged to. I approved because Abbi’s great and they seem like a great couple. Jessica’s missionary comes home in the summer, so though she’s open to dating, she’s not really particularly looking forward to it. Bri and Jenna pretty much want to get married, though Jenna has like never dated in her life. I’d have to say that the whole day had quite the marriage and dating theme. I mean, our lesson in Relief Society was on marriage, we had that conversation about dating and marriage in the kitchen and on the way home and we talked a lot about families and traditions and our future families during the dinner! Well, once I got home I cleaned my room and read a little of the manuscript and now am writing in my journal!