Day 63

 Am I still rereading old books? Yes, and they are still good but I am thirsty for stories. Am I still doing 75 hard? Yes, and I am thirsty for sleep. And to stop peeing so much. And my knee to stop hurting (both of them). But I did some hill sprints and boxing and basketball this week and I could still walk down the stairs today (barely). I also found out my boxing coach is a pretty big deal at the Associated Press. 

Paint Night

Our YW are doing better at teaching lessons, but the activities are still a struggle. At least the 'planning ahead' part. And sometimes the 'being involved' part, but that's on us to handle too. Anyhow, our original planned activity was nixed this week in favor of a paint night. It was a good time and we had all of our leaders there so we actually got to have a meeting for the first (and last) time ever and it's nice to be on the same page. 

The drama of the week is that I still didn't have my tax forms from the month I worked at Carter Rehab last year. So I visited Joe and then I visited the financial office he was using and called them and visited them again. Finally, Friday I got an email with a 1099 that literally has one number on it. How hard can it be?? But the taxes are filed and we're getting a pretty good refund back. (Also had lots of side gigs last year that made it wayyy harder to do the taxes, but TurboTax is still in for now). 

AZ Trail.

My Oly class was cancelled on Saturday so I did some yoga and we made waffles and then we went on a run that turned into a hike on the AZ trail and then we went birdwatching. The sun is shining and it is usually warm, albeit windy. Until Tuesday, according to the news. 

Rog's bff's parents invited us to a banquet for AZ Wildlife Conservation, which occur regularly throughout the state to raise money to bring in water, improve fish populations, etc. This was basically a group of really wealthy rednecks. There were games and silent auctions and raffles and actual auctions and the prizes were nearly all weapons or camping gear. The actual auction had different hunting trips and booze - most of which sold for over $5K a piece. If you bought 10 tickets, you also got a gun with your table. 

Anyways, we got the tickets for free and the food for free. Then we spent 60$ on hats that came with varying amounts of raffle tickets inside (totalling over $200 for us). And we played one game. Otherwise we hung out and ate food and had a good time. Then Roger prayed that I would win myself a good birthday present. And I told the Big Guy, he knows the drill and imagine how much missionary work I can do with a new toy. And then I won a compound bow. And a shirt and a few other things. Which was pretty impressive, seeing as I had a handful of tickets placed into a few 5 gallon buckets that were overflowing with tickets by the end. 

The Lord loves me. And missionary work. 

Speaking of the Lord. I went to ward council today. I keep hearing that there are lots of people that feel like they don't fit into the ward, so that was kind of the topic. It is hard because we have a smaller ward, most of our investigators are fully Spanish-speaking (and the members not), and we have a wide range of ages and activity interests. While I do agree that this is a problem and can think of several tangible solutions to help, the problem is that there is a lot of talk and no action on things we've discussed previously. So the new solution is for the YW to be the ushers and invite people to sit closer to the front of the chapel - the thinking being that maybe people will be forced to talk to each other more. 

I disagree. The YW hate it. And I think there are a lot better ways this could be handled, but it would take some solid effort, which it seems people aren't willing to put in. So I told the YW we'll try it for a month and next ward council we'll reevaluate.

On a related note, if you aren't motivated by love, rage and duty seem to work well enough in the meantime to get shiz done.