Let the Good Times Roll

Today I saw a new Mormon movie, The Errand of Angels, with my friend Joni. The movie is about a sister missionary (who wears blue and pink tights) serving in Austria. Since I served in Germany (over two and a half years ago!) the movie made me especially sentimental and reflective. So I wanted to share a few of the funny stories from my mission.

First Street Preach

We met up with other missionaries from the Frankfurt area to hold a street preach on the corner of one of the shopping districts. I sang and preached on the Kiste (a box) but didn't really get a chance to contact. When I did, I tried to talk to an older Muslim lady whom I really couldn't understand, but she made a machine gun motion and sound, and I took the hint that she wasn't interested. 

The Poopy Leaf

My companion was walking in front of me talking to an elder. I noticed a leaf stuck to my shoe and bent down to remove it, coming up with brown, mushy stuff of my hand. Poop! So I attempted to get it off thanks to an obliging bush -- a thorn bush. So I was bleeding and poopy and my companion and the elder kept walking, oblivious. His companions noticed my dilemma and awkwardly offered me so water from his bottle. My companion never noticed.

Dating

I felt good that morning. The birds were singing, the weather was perfect, and I was in a good mood. As we left out apartment a short, Arab man in a suit was ringing doorbells, selling stuff for Deutsche Telecom (aka T-mobile). Being nice I said to him, "You look good." When we came home that evening and checked our mail we found two Deutsche Telecom brochures in our box. One read, "Interested in a date with a man who always looks good?" And the second read, "Oh, I almost forgot my number 555-5555 Ahmet." There are so many reasons why it wouldn't have worked.

I loved and hated my mission. I remember the stress, the frustration, the futility, the doubting. And I also remember the special times, the good times, the moments when things worked out, and the sweet friends I have because of it. 

Beijing Olympics

I looked forward to the Opening Ceremonies on 8/8/08 all day. I got some lettuce wraps and sat down to watch. They were amazing. I mean the ceremonies (although the wraps were great too.) Indescribable. Astounding. I freaked out. I was "trippin'." The drummers. The boxes. The boxes! And the people running in air literally all over the world. Then when the torch bearer flew up and ran around the length of the arena. For those of you who did not see it, you will be very confused by my words.

Most people find the march of countries boring. I enjoyed it. Especially watching the smaller countries. Some of those Olympians had no chance of winning, represented  thousands, if not millions of people at home per athlete (as compared to USA's nearly 700 athletes), or came from a country in turmoil. Like Iraq or like Georgia. That was the night that Russia invaded Georgia. 

The Olympics are such a positive experience. We can cheer for all countries. It is when the worlds puts aside economics and diplomacy and suits and missiles and oil. We concentrate on people who are trying to be their best, who are real role models, and who are accomplishing tasks we all dream of.

I've enjoyed watching swimming (who cannot enjoy watching Michael Phelps) and the women's gymnastics team. It's the one time I really enjoy sports because it's about hard core athletics and now about what the athletes do when they aren't sporting. Go Team USA!

Sausage comes from...

I was listening to Radio Disney, as I tend to do, as the DJ interviewed the Cheetah Girls, who just completed a movie India. Kids were calling in to ask questions. One question posed was, "What did you miss most when you were in India?" One of the Cheetahs said that she had really missed beef. She had eaten lots of chicken and pork, but no beef. She missed beef so much that as soon as she got of the plane in America she "headed right of McDonald's and ordered a sausage, egg, and cheese McGriddle."

I wish her all the best in her studies with meat.

John Mayer

Last night I attended an event that I wanted to attend. Because you should do things you want to do now -- you might not have a lot of time left.

I saw John Mayer at the Usana Amphitheater. John Mayer is a fantastic guitarist, which thing I should not have known from his albums. It was relaxed yet fun. We danced, we laid down, we judged the people around us. 

My favorite song of the evening was actually not one that John Mayer wrote. He did a cover of Tom Petty's Free Fallin'. Click here to see a music video of it. The one that made me smile most was Good Love is on the Way -- and it has a wicked guitar solo. As for the songs that are John's, he did a sweet version of Daughters. I also liked No Such Thing, Waiting on the World to Change, Belief, Gravity -- basically everything he played from the new album. Some songs had sweet guitar solos making the song, like, ten minutes long. He messed up the lyrics on Say (not in this link), which was an interesting thing to do on that particular song. 

I would recommend this concerts to friends and family.

Sting Rays and Monet

To celebrate our birthdays in July, Kathy and I took a Saturday in SLC. 

First we went to The Living Planet, our local aquarium, made from what seems to be an ex-grocery store. It costs $8 and provides about an hour's worth of entertainment. Mostly it was coral reefs, which were pretty cool, and the jelly fish were sweet, but the highlight was the sting rays. You can pet them!

It took me a little while to not trip out. (Their stingers are cut off and if you are nice, they'll be nice back.) Once I got the hang of it I couldn't get enough of it. 

Then we headed to Gourmandise, a delectable European cafe.  I had the julienne salad and the best mousse cake this side of the Great Salt Lake. 

With a change of shoes (high heels on hard wood -- awesome!) we attended UMFAs exhibition Monet to Picasso. The exhibit is on tour from the Cleveland Museum of Art. It costs $15 and you get a little cell phone looking thing explaining the artwork. The exhibit features not only impressionists, but post-impressionists, symbolists, Rodin's scarily real sculptures (including the Thinker), and cubists like Picasso, and then there were a couple by Matisse and lastly that trippy stuff from Dali. 

I adore the impressionists, especially Degas. I was disappointed that the exhibit only had a sculpture from him -- not a ballerina or bassoonist or women at her toilette in sight. However I really enjoyed two specific pieces -- one from Monet and one from Van Gogh. 

This painting, The Red Kerchief, is modeled by Monet's wife, Camille. Camille died at age 32 from complications of child birth. This piece was never for sale -- Monet kept it in his private collection. I love the color scheme, with the bright red as a focal point. (I originally thought it was from Manet, who usually does dark colors with one striking color.) I also love the subtly -- it's not a portrait, set up and perfectly staged. This is like something I've seen before. The old masters are harder to relate to. I aint never seen nothin' close to the holy family in Renaissance clothing.

This is The Poplars at Saint Remy. A Van Gogh up close is indescribable. The paint was so thick. I'm mean centimeters! You look at the piece from the front, then the side, then the front again. His style is uniquely his. The painting leapt off the page. I felt like I was right there, watching him paint. 

The exhibit is well worth the trip. It was a great day.

Anecdotes

One of my boys told me that he had "literally manipulated" his probation officer. Gee, what must that have looked like? Pretzel-y, I'd guess.

I haven't been to Walmart in over a year. I don't like the store on principle and looks. But I had to go because it's the only place I knew of that made keys. Maybe Lowes would have had it too. The first disappointment was the I couldn't get a cool specialty key for a car. The second was that the didn't have the right type of key for my car. They recommended I go to Lowes.

I decided to make my "cardboard pizza" in the oven, the long way. I don't use my oven often so I had to get to know the buttons. I was most inspired by the button labeled, "Stop time." 

Swedish Meatballs

Enrichment's promise of "summer salads" ended up being more of a "taste experience" than dinner, which I expected. So I scrambled at home to keep myself from making tapioca pudding into dinner and ended up preparing my Lean Cuisine Swedish Meatball dish. This dish kept me alive last summer. But there was an accident. In moving the plastic container closer to my body, I lost about a fourth of the small meal... into my lap. it brings "On top of old Smokey" (the meatball version) a little closer to home. 

Suomi & Sverige (Finland and Sweden)

Here are my photos from my recent trip to Finland for my dear Anni's wedding and also our time in Sweden. I have tons of photos so the slide show goes quickly. Even still, to see them all you might want to pull up a chair 'cause it's gonna be a while. Or see them all quickly by clicking the thingy on the bottom of the screen. Enjoy!

Michelle Obama

I like the Obamas. And I really like Michelle Obama's style. It echoes Jackie Kennedy. The key is the dress (vs. the horrible pant suit). Check out these photos.

The Alfred Nobel Museum

I recently returned from Finland and Sweden traveling with Crolace. We went over for a mutual friend's wedding. Many things from our trip were fun, interesting, enlightening, and meaningful. One of those things was the Alfred Nobel Museum.

It is a small, modern looking museum in the heart of Gamla Stan, the old city. The building was formerly the stock exchange! Our tour guide told us the story of Alfred Nobel. He domesticated nitroglycerin, inventing dynamite. He built factories world wide and the invention was a major contributor to construction projects undertaken worldwide. He collected 

great wealth and sadly had no family of his own to share it with. However, Nobel is more famous for his will, establishing the Nobel prizes, than dynamite. His will instructed that the interest on his fortune (which has now been proportionally added to) be given yearly as five substantial monetary prizes which "shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." The categories for the prizes are physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature, and peace. (A sixth category for economics was established in 1969.) 

The museum celebrated prize winners, around 800 in all! We heard and saw some of the winners' stories. I was so impressed with them. They are passionate for their field. They are good. It is so refreshing and uplifting to hear about 800 people who have really, really made our world better. From Marie Curie to the inventor of x-ray to Jane Addams (the mother of social work) to Elie Wiesel. 

The winners are also great examples to me of taking time to meditate into creativity. Our guide told us of a scientist who was working on light or something who was observing the river in a quiet moment. He saw the water move in waves and it gave him the idea that perhaps light also might move in waves. Also, the cafe in the museum, is designed to replicate the cafes where the Nobel laureates gathered to discuss ideas and form ideas and become inspired. This is something that I sometimes feel is missing from my life -- using my time to be creative in anything. 

So when people have asked me about my trip, among the story about sauna and Drottningholm Palace, is the story of the very small Nobel museum, with it's inspiring message. There stands a neon sign in the museum which reads, "What is now proven, was once imagined."