Working Backwards

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I miss missions. But people have been distracting me often enough that sometimes I forget and I almost feel like a real person. (I still talk to myself in French and type like I'm using a French keyboard, but it's gonna take me a while to kick those habits.) This weekend was the best. I just got back from a Christmas Concert performed by the Boston Mission. I almost cried when they played Angels We Have Heard On High. Almost. Even more amazing was the fact that most of those songs didn't rhyme at all, but they sounded so good that the lack of rhymes didn't even bother me! And my boss, Chris was there. And they had frosted animal cracker cups (although they tried to hide regular animal crackers inside. Don't worry- I carefully separated the impostors).
Boston Mission President Packard and his family hung out at our house all day (in between going on visits with my dad and the Groton missionaries). So we got to eat with them and I just talked to Sister Packard about my mission. For a long time. And also re-learned how to play the guitar at the same time. 'Twas awesome. At church, the third hour was a combined meeting where the Packards just answered a bunch of questions people had. I heard some complaints about the "Chaperone Rule," which quickly changed when a woman shared a story about how she used that as an excuse to share the gospel with a male friend of hers. Cheers to you, my friend.

Fight Club poster boys

Saturday night was the umpteenth installment of Fight Club. At this point, we've gotten to designating all future Saturdays to this activity, in addition to any random time throughout the week. T Sizzle and I cleared out a decent area in our Family Room so we've got some room to work. Trevor's moves consisted of calf-slapping. Every now and again he says, They call me Rocky or Yo, they don't call me Swipah fah nothin'. I would punch him and then tickle the underside of his chin as humiliation (just to show I could hit him there if I wanted). Fight Club is fun because we don't actually try to hurt each other. We get a decent number of bruises from it, but it's all whimsical. Sometimes Kevin wants to start up a session (always in inappropriate circumstances, i.e. at church) and actually tries to punch hard, which doesn't hurt too bad, but makes him really annoying to play with. Stupid boy.
Saturday morning my dad actually drove up to the temple with me! Meaning free garments, lunch, annnnndddd temple cookies. I worked all day en espanol, en plus. Our stake had 7 own-endowments in one session (temple record!) and they were ALL spanish speaking. Then I was invited to a Christmas party at the Thompsons' house. They live in back of the temple in the Presidents' house, so I used the secret spy walkway to get there. So I got free dinner too. AND I could sleep on the way home.
In other news, this week I had all my medical appointments. I got my Tb test and I think it looks positive, but they didn't look too closely and said I was fine. So if I die, blame it on tuberculosis. I finally had a dentist appointment and got my teeth cleaned and got my favorite children's dentist to help a brotha out.  Turns out my tooth has a reverse cavity, otherwise known as a tumor, otherwise known as a 'rough patch'. It's all very technical, but I have to go back to get it smoothed out. And I went to the chiropractor. That was disappointing because I figured it'd be like a couple back cracks and we're good to go. He wanted me to come back twice a week forever. Which, at $30 a visit, I didn't agree with. But he did give me some good advice.

Fishing for Kindness. Classic. 

I missed Institute this week because my sweet potato fries took too long to cook. But I did see a hobo with a fishing pole and a sign that said Fishing for Kindness, which I thought was hilarious. So I bought him a bunch of fishy food (Goldfish, Swedish fish, tuna, cape cod chips, etc). I hope he gets the joke. My boss' wife was out of town this week and I think he was lonely and/or trying to make up work, so he kept asking me to work crazy hours and do weird things. Like find some courthouse in the middle of New London, which has NO parking spots nearby, in the pouring rain. But he's still working on not swearing. And his Christmas gift to me was "an hour of his time". What did I do with it? I invited him to the missionary Christmas concert, of course! #missionarywork And I took a nap in my bed today (remember the concave fold-out couch?) and woke up with Xander, Isabelle, and Lavinia in here with me and a computer with Hannah on Skype on my lap. Happy Holidays to me.