"There is no world in which there should be DEW on your phone when you wake up!"

Quote of the week explanation

We went on exchanges this week with our fearless district leader, who came to our area with me. The heater in our apartment is broken; so at nighttime it can get a wee bit chilly inside. I've never really been bothered by it, in actuality I prefer it to be cold at night, but he was not amused. There was a small amount of liquid—not enough, even, to be called droplets that had condensed on his phone during the night, and he just flew into a tirade about how our apartment is too cold and then did his morning exercises while still wrapped in his blanket, on top of his bed. It was kind of amusing.

Hello all!

(I think I just vomited a little inside my mouth; I hate that term and have no idea why I just used it)

Another week has flown by, partly due to the fact that Thanksgiving interrupted the flow of things. I have quite the tale to tell about that day. 

We had two Thanksgiving dinners. First off, that was a mistake. We had physical difficulty walking out to our car after the second.

The first dinner was at the home of some Polynesian members of the other English ward. We walk in at noon, when the meal is supposed to start, and we see that the meal is not quite prepared. That didn't take us entirely by surprise (honestly, I probably would have been more shocked if it had all been ready right when we showed up). So we waited, talking to the family, watching the two youngest kids beat each other up, listening to the APs get made fun of by one of the kids... All the classic stuff. Around 2:00, everything is ready so we commence the meal. All this time, the man of the house, the “Big Poppa” if you will, is not yet present. He was going to San Francisco to bring his mother to the meal. Well we were eating, and while there were a lot of people there, there was definitely no shortage on food. Two turkeys, a massive ham, a whole pig... And I haven't even started on the sides. The meal was going swimmingly, and everybody was starting to get full. My companion and I were leaning back in our chairs with empty plates and content stomachs, both knowing that we should save a little room for our next dinner. And then, we heard the front door open. We looked around the corner, and who did we see standing in the door but Big Poppa Masaniai himself.

Allow me to go back a little in order to set the stage for what happened next. This family, the Masaniai's, are frequently visited by the elders in their ward, because they are significant contributors to the ward's member missionary effort. Last week the elders made the mistake of going over... right as they were sitting down to dinner. Brother Masaniai yelled that the elders had to eat with them, and when he says something you must do it for fear of your life. He told them that they were having enchiladas, but according to our district leader (who was one of the elders present), it was definitely not enchiladas, but lasagna. Well, keeping in mind that member meals are only allowed on weekends, but at the same time not wanting to kindle the wrath of this man, they tried to keep their portions meager, and focus mainly on the purpose of their visit; which in the beginning did, in fact, have a missionary purpose. Then, one of the elders made the mistake of saying that he didn't want seconds... And the grapes of wrath were plucked from the vine. The elders told us that Brother Masaniai yelled for a solid five minutes, and their visit was ruined.

Now, keeping that story in mind, I'm sure it won't surprise you that the moment we saw him walk in we immediately filled our plates with generous portions. And then did it again. And again. By the end of the meal, we had been thoroughly filled, and they sent us on our way with heaping plates of food.

We immediately had to drive to our next meal.

It was, I'm sure, much closer to what most of you think of as a 'normal' Thanksgiving dinner, which we ate at the home of an elderly couple in our ward. By the end of that one, though, I had trouble standing up.

Those were the main events which transpired this week, although I suppose I can, as a sort of closing remark, give a brief report on Jing.

He is doing very well. He's been to church twice and was actually a major participant in reading scriptures and making comments in Sunday School. He is on to 2 Nephi in his Book of Mormon reading, and he committed to obey the word of wisdom. He's been taught almost everything; he even already knows the basics of the law of chastity and had no problems with it. We'll be meeting with him again a few times this week, and we'll see what happens from there. Right now we have his official baptismal date scheduled for the 15th, and it's really looking, at this point in time, like he's going to make it. Pretty exciting.

I suppose that'll be all in this installment.

Bye.

Benny

P.S. I ran across a very interesting article about how the promised land was undoubtedly populated with other groups upon the arrival of Lehi's party. It's pretty cool.

P.P.S. A guy in our ward bore his testimony about how he can give himself priesthood blessings. The bishop looked very uncomfortable, probably because he was sitting right next to the Stake President, who had a look on his face that I will never forget.

P.P.P.S. It's pretty weird to think that the Christmas season is now upon us.