Mission farewell PARTY!

 

Jennifer will keep TeddyPuppy for me until I get back. I didn't want to take him with me to El Salvador. I thought about it- he is a nice little piece of home- but concluded it would be a childish thing to do. Missionaries are supposed to rely on the Lord, not stuffed animals from their childhoods. And besides... he could get lost.

Lots of people came in support of Graig and I: family, friends and neighbors. We were happy to see them all!

 Anderson relatives group shot

 Graig and I with our Grandma and Grandpa Anderson

 Henrie relatives group shot

 My friend Zach returned from an LDS mission in Paraguay just in time to tell me goodbye

 Friends who came to the Sunday brunch at our house:(back row) Joseph, Jennifer, Mary, Jill, Mara, Josh, Amanda, (front row) Sara, Ashley and me!

 Literally supported by my aunts and cousins :)

 Graig and I with Sister and Brother Southard- best home teachers in the Church!

 I will miss my friend Jill a lot. She's a great strength to me. We'll write each other, though!

 More friends: Tyler, Katelyn, me, Carron

I'll miss Katelyn lots, too.

 I love this family! We've been neighbors for close to 20 years- pretty much my whole life. Graig and I grew up with their kids. Tina (in the pink) was also our preschool teacher.

 Great family friends, the Browns

 Representatives from more family friends, the Caprios

 Jennifer is such a good friend that she's practically been adopted into my family. :)

 Whitney wasn't able to see our farewell talks, but she came Monday night especially to say goodbye. I've also known her for most of my life.

 

Somebody must have told me a joke! 

My mom's friend Sarah Brown is a freelance graphic designer. She designed these business cards for Graig and I. Lots of people exclaimed about how cute they were, so I thought I'd include her information here. Her email address is sarahbrowndesigns (at) gmail.com; just send her an email for quotes and design samples. She's designed logos and shirts among other things, and as you can see, she's good at what she does.

The story behind the story

Tomorrow, I will write a story about a family reunion with 3,000 attendees: the descendants of Henry Grow, who built the roof of the Salt Lake Tabernacle, several bridges, and some other buildings as part of the Public Works program in the mid-1800s after the Mormon pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley.

The reunion stretched over two days: Friday and Saturday. I interviewed two of the four main organizers of the reunion Thursday morning, and they were kind enough to invite me to come to some events during the Grow reunion. They set it up so I could join the family on a special tour of the Salt Lake Tabernacle at 10 Saturday morning. I was really excited!

I intended to drive the car up to Sandy and ride TRAX in to Salt Lake City, but when I woke up in the morning it was to an empty house (my parents and siblings had left to go to our family reunion at Snowbird) and no car keys. Mom and Dad left me Skip (the name of our car) as planned, but after calling them on the phone about the key problem we realized I'd inadvertently locked the spare key in the car. Roadside Assistance came to the rescue, unlocking the car for me at about 8:55 a.m. There was no longer time to ride TRAX; I sped all the way to Salt Lake. Luckily, I found parking right off (and it was free!) and walked quickly to Temple Square, where I made it just in time for the tabernacle tour.

The rest of the day was busy. I stayed with the Grows (who were all very gracious and friendly) until 12:30 or so, then sped home to prepare for a bridal shower my friend Sara and I threw for our friend Mara. We ended up leaving for the park later than we meant to, but still had enough time to get everything going. Jennifer was a lifesaver- she drove to the park to meet us at 6, the time we'd wanted to get there, and lay on top of one of the picnic tables so nobody would take it. Good thing, too- that park was busy last night! We saw a wedding, a baby shower, and a birthday all at the same time at the same park.

Holly and Kelly came to the shower too. We had a blast doing Mad Libs (Sara, Jennifer and I made them up specially about Mara and Josh), grilling spiedies (chicken shishkebobs), making homemade ice cream and feeding Mara more and more sticks of gum for every question she answered wrong about Josh. (Sara and I wrote a list of 40 questions and sent them to Josh to answer beforehand. Mara answered 14 of 40 incorrectly. It was very amusing for those of us watching.)

---

Note the important edit made August 1: Mara answered 14 of 40 questions INcorrectly, as pointed out in the comments.

The ransom note from Mara

JESS

TEXT MARA OR

JOSH IF

YOU WANT

TO SEE YOUR

CAKE

AGAIN

P.S.

YOUR MOM

HAS CAKE

This is the story: Sara had made a cream cheese jello cake for Jennifer's birthday (which was actually the second week of March, but we believe in the phrase "better late than never"). It was Monday night and a ward Emergency Preparedness activity. Mara and Josh slipped out a little early and wrote this note on the sidewalk for me. When I saw it, I went and got another popsicle from the refreshments table at the ward activity and texted Mara: "I am willing to exchange a root beer popsicle for the cake."

Then I waited for Jennifer and Sara to leave the ward activity. I wanted them to see the note and get in on the joke, but when they finally came, they didn't even look at the ground- they were too confused by me, standing in the middle of the sidewalk with an uneaten popsicle in my hand. I ended up having to point the note out to them and then we walked into our apartment together, where I confronted the cake thieves and made the goodie exchange. The cake had not been harmed. We let them have a couple pieces after they'd finished their popsicle.

The Mara Nightmare

It was 3 A.M. Mara, who moonlights as an insomniac these days planning the details of her August 11 wedding, was coming into our room to go to bed. I was deeply asleep, but for some reason at that exact moment I opened my eyes a little and saw a dark figure walking towards me. All of a sudden, I was wide awake. I sucked in a breath and sort of bounced back on my bed, hitting the wall.

The next thing I heard was laughter. Uncontrollable Mara-giggling. All the air went out of me.

"Mara!"

"Tee-hee hee, tee-hee hee..."

"It wasn't that funny!"

"Tee-hee. Tee-hee hee..."

According to Mara, I spoke in a groggy zombie-voice (which makes sense because I had been sound asleep about 30 seconds before). She just started laughing harder.

(p.s.- about the part about a wedding... Mara and Josh are engaged. As of last Wednesday.)

The Ward Dance- pictures

I had a great time with Jeremy last Saturday at the ward date dance. He's a great dancer and taught me a few steps of waltz, swing(?) and cha cha. Photos taken by K.T.

Me- kudos to Kelly and Holly for doing my hair and makeup. Kudos to Sara for forbidding me to wear my black boots. Kudos to Jennifer and Mara for not making fun of me while they watched fascinatedly as Holly painted my face with what she called "hardly any makeup- it looks totally natural."

Me and Jeremy

My beautiful roommates- Fun fact: all of us went with roommates. Jeremy is Josh's roommate; James and Eric are roommates, and John and Bible are roommates.

James and Holly

Eric and Jennifer

John and Kelly

"Bible" Jon and Sara

Not Pictured: Mara and Josh

Immortalizing my roommates as dogs

Sara: hyperactive as usual
Holly and Kelly: best buds, telling one another stuff about their lives
Jen: off in her own little world (probably thinking about Lee Min Ho :) )
Jess: "Play with me!"
Mara: "Zzzzzzzz..."
Josh (the honorary roommate): sort of in his own world (because Mara's asleep), sort of looking for attention (because Mara's asleep)

A weekend of parties

It started with a French toast party on Friday night. Mara and Josh started planning it two weeks ago. (Mara is pretty much the only truly spontaneous person in the entire ward, so she had to plan in advance.) "I thought if I invited thirty people, fifteen would show up," Mara said afterward, but that ratio is only true with her usual 'Hey, want to have a party tonight?' routine.

At least forty people came. We went through a lot of French toast, whipped cream, and syrup.

There was a ward activity Saturday afternoon. Unfortunately, it was not as well attended as French Toast with Mara. Part of that was confusion about what time the thing really started and part of it was nobody wanted to drive to the church. Saturday afternoons are notorious for being lazy.

The weekend culminated in a giant birthday celebration for Heather, the Relief Society president. She invited the entire ward to a 1920s party in the lounge Saturday night. The place was really decked out to look like a club, jazz music and all. A lot of people came dressed up; Kelly and Holly spent a long time perfecting their looks. :) Sara spent some time teaching me basic swing dance steps, I spent some time devouring the homemade root beer, and Jennifer and I spent a lot of time playing Crack the Case. (A thinking game that's very similar to our Mind-whatever-it's-called game that Graig has memorized at home.) We liked it so much I even begged Heather to let us borrow it so we could play it again last night.

Stories

Hmm, which story to tell today... I can't decide, so I guess I'll summarize the most interesting ones.

Our garbage disposal broke on Sunday. We got Josh to try to fix it, but the poor thing was beyond his help. While he was poking around, he discovered the other side of the sink was also draining incorrectly. We are currently banned from using the sink. Then our dishwasher broke- it's not draining either! Kelly (I think it was Kelly) duct taped a sheet to the ceiling, forming a makeshift wall between our living room and kitchen so we can invite people over without fear of judgment. The sheet will remain until we are able to tackle Mount Dirty Dishes and clean our counters.

I jammed the middle and ring fingers of my left hand in basketball class yesterday morning. I've never experienced a jam that lasted more than a few minutes, and by two o'clock they were hurting so bad I ended up getting x rays to make sure they weren't broken. Mom and Dad really took care of me there. The official verdict was, not broken. I'm hoping they'll be unjammed by basketball class tomorrow.

After I jammed my fingers, I was a little worried about how much it would hurt to play my saxophone. I soaked my fingers in Epsom salt prior to practicing last night and they were fine. I played for the whole half hour (I know seven scales now!), enjoyed myself thoroughly, and decided it was time to go back inside. (I practice outside so I can blow hard.) I got out my keys and started walking to my stairwell, where lo and behold there was a make out session going on about three feet from my door. The couple didn't see me at first because I hightailed it back to my spot on Alta's front lawn and plunked out some more songs, hoping they would be gone by the time I went back. Five minutes later, I tried again. They were still there. I left again and played some more. Five minutes after that, I decided to jingle my keys a little to announce my presence and then march right up to my door and ignore the couple as I went in.

It almost worked. I was scraping the key in the lock when they awkwardly broke apart. True to my plan, I ignored them. I didn't recognize the guy and I didn't care to find out if I knew the girl. As I was crossing the threshold, the guy said something I didn't register until I was all the way in.

"Sounded good."

"Thanks," I mumbled and shut the door behind me. Apparently I should be more careful about who is in earshot of my dazzlingly romantic sax scales in the future.

The long-anticipated day has come

Friday.

Oh blessed September 23, Day of Free Food. Today we had una fiesta en la clase de español with frijoles, queso, arroz, lechuga, chips, galletas and doughnuts. I had two helpings. The food was delicious each time. I'm still not sure why el profe decided to have a fiesta, but you won't hear me- or anyone else- complaining. Ahh, it was good.

Later today, tengo una otra fiesta para español- this time with the entire Spanish and Portuguese Department. Before that, there's an ice cream social at 4 which I can't attend; but Mara and Sara can, and Sara promised to save me some helado. La comida continues tonight with shaved ice and a movie (or the game, we haven't decided which) with Mara and Josh at Josh's apartment, and tomorrow for lunch with David, el hermano de Sara, followed by una cena antes de the Relief Society broadcast. And then, to cap it all off, vamos a tener "break the fast" el domingo (we're fasting this week since Conference is next week).

Estoy feliz.

Chain of ignorance

Last night Mara and I and three boys from our ward went to the BYU hockey game. Our presence was a tribute to how much Mara loves hockey; the Cougars got killed by the Aggies, 2-12.

We started talking about the big rivalry football game today against Utah and how none of us had tickets, but we'd probably be able to hear it from our "backyards," considering the stadium is right across the street from Alta.

"A bunch of people in the lounge usually watch games together," Josh said.

"We could watch it on TV and hear it live at the same time," I quipped.

"We should do it," Mara said. She turned to me and asked, "what time is the game?"

I turned to Josh and asked, "What time is the game?"

Josh turned to Tanner and asked, "What time is the game?"

Tanner looked at him and said, "I don't know."

Josh looked at me and said, "I don't know."

I looked at Mara and answered, "I don't know."

On the other side of Mara, Chris started laughing. But he didn't know the answer either.