8-3-09 "Texas Lingo"

Greetings from Aggieland, otherwise known as the cities built around Texas A&M University. I really should be saying "Howdy," since apparently that is one of the official greetings/cheers for the Aggies. At least my Nancy Drew powers of observation tell me that's so. Maybe you could look it up and find out for sure. Other lingo I have picked up this week includes a new euphemism for what has sometimes been called a "protein spill." No, I have not been sick, but one of our zone leaders was, and then Sister Davis was. Everytime she would eat, she would have a protein spill, or, as she and the zone leader were calling it, "express yourself." That works okay, but sounds altogether too positive for such a disgusting function. A few nights ago I had all the lingo planned out, but right now my memory is failing me. Maybe more will come to me later. And before I forget, yes I did get mail. I can't remember if it came on Monday or Tuesday (I want to say Tuesday), but I received, as Donny Stevens would say, a cornucopia of mail this week. One letter from the Peanut Gallery, two from Mom, two from Grandmother, one from Cody, and one from Eli's primary class. Someone in his class forgot to sign his or her name, but that letter had the greatest spelling errors I have ever encountered, and YOU KNOW I'm on the lookout for those all the time. It read something like this: "Dear sister sorensen, how is texus? I hope it isint TO hot. I bet it's not. (Something I can't remember, followed by the best part:) BUY!" I tried to imitate the unknown writer's capitalization and punctuation exactly, but I can't say that I've heeded the command to "BUY!" We did go grocery shopping this morning, when I accidentally (Is that spelled correctly? It looks wrong, and I can't remember what's wrong! That's what I get for making fun of someone else's spelling.) used my home debit card instead of my mission card. Be not alarmed when a charge of $46.16 or so comes through. I totally authorized it.
This week we also had zone conference. President and Sister Hansen came up with Elder "Vieriel." (I KNOW that's wrong, but I had to spell it phonetically.) I played the piano for the opening hymn and the musical number, everyone's favorite, "O My Father." Luckily only three verses. The opening hymn was "All Creatures of Our God and King." I don't know; it probably sounded fine to most ears in the audience, and I had practiced it to perfection the night before, but then I got flustered when we were trying to practice the musical number. The elder who was arranging it all is very talented at the piano, and I think I told you he wanted some of the verses sung to the tunes of other hymns. I was thinking all along that that would be cool except all the hymns are in different keys. So, with only twenty minutes before the meeting starts, we're deciding which tunes to use, and then he says, "Would it be possible for you to transistion between those songs?" I was straight up with him: I said I couldn't, which of course brings a comment from someone else, "Why don't you play?" The arranging elder is nice and says, "Because I'm letting Sister Sorensen have the opportunity." But, you know me, I take it too personally, and suddenly I feel like nothing. So I didn't feel like I hit my stride on the opening hymn until the last verse. The poor sister conducting; the song has strange counting anyway. I felt so bad. I played the musical number just fine, but I still had the nagging thought that I was just playing the regular hymn as it was written, and that several people in the singing wanted/expected something more.
Wow. I feel terrible that I always write so much about negative experiences. I guess I just want y'all to know both the high points and the low points. I should probably spend more time on the hight points then. Here goes. We've been having a lot of appointments fall through, but Sister Davis and I just keep going, looking for new people to meet with. When our appointment fell through on Wednesday evening, we decided to knock on the door of a previous investigator. No answer. Knock again. The blinds open a crack. But no answer. We leave a card and begin walking away, but the door opens. Mabel, in her twenties with two small girls (incidentally, Phoebe and Chloe) lets us in to teach her about the Restoration. That was great. Unfortunately, our return appointment with her fell through, but we'll keep trying. After meeting with Mabel, we were walking home and noticed we'd missed quite a few calls from some elders in Bryan (Bryan: College Station :: Ammon: Idaho Falls). They think we are supposed to be doing exchanges with the sisters in the Bryan A&M University Ward that night. We thought it was Thursday night, but we decide to just do it now because they're already on their way. They arrive at our apartment just as we do, I rush inside and pack for five minutes, heading off to Bryan with Sister Lieber. We spent Thursday morning on the Texas A&M campus, talking to a lot of people. Most people would at least take a pass-along card. Some were blunt and honest: "I'm not interested" or even "I'm Pagan." A few told us about previous experience with missionaries and how they didn't believe in prophets/open canon/etc. Some people would mention having Mormon friends. A few would give us numbers, still others would let us walk with them for twenty minutes or so and have a discussion. That was a great experience. I couldn't believe I wasn't that afraid.
Our first actual appointment was that afternoon with a student named Thomas. We met with him with their ward mission leader, a married student named Brett. (Here, a university ward includes both single and married students, as long as they don't have children yet.) Thomas has been meeting with missionaries for a while, but usually does what Sister Lieber calls "soft Bible-bashing." Brett is the secret tool against Bible-bashing, since he'll answer questions that the missionaries don't know how to answer or the like. We taught Thomas a lot about the organization of the church, and why the church todays needs priesthood authority and revelation. Eventually, Thomas kept bringing up the subject of homosexuality. You'll see this coming a mile away, but I didn't. He eventually revealed that his fiance is a man. And I thought I was thinking about Uncle Randy only because I'd been teaching so many Chinese investigators. Long story short, we actually showed him how our church views are different. Yes, we know that God has condemned that type of relationship, but we told him he wasn't going to hell (at least not the hell he imagines and has been told he's going to by many other Christian religions) and that God still loves him. It was sad; as he was describing his experiences, I could discern exactly how the devil had lied to him by overwhelming him before he accepted "being" gay, and relieving him of some of that afterwards. At the end of that lesson, Brett got a call from his wife: they were evacuating campus becasue of a chemical fire. As we left the appointment, Sister Lieber had 12 or 13 messages from her district leader. Eventually, we walked to the Institute building and met up with other missionaries who drove us to the College Station stake center. We stayed there for a while, unsure where we would be spending the night. Some of my stuff was in Bryan, but since the city was being evacuated, we couldn't go back. Poor Sister Lieber: she had nothing. In the end, they let us sleep at our apartment with the other two sisters, and all the elders had to cram into the elders' apartment in College Station. Room for four became room for nine. We were kept in for the night, so we ordered a pizza and had a little fun taking pictures in these crazy, old, leftover nightgowns. My first exciting, unexpected event. Thanks for the pictures. And the Jonas brother references. Expect more in the mail, although it'll probably be quick this week. I'm planning on writing back to Cody, Sister Driscoll, and possibly Kira.
Love,Sister Whitney Sorensen
PS I've seen a few lizards. Tiny, but not unlike the yellow-spotted variety native to Camp Green Lake. Have no fear; it rains here. One of the lizards was even sitting right next to a doorbell. Well, not really sitting. Standing vertically, tail pointing up and nose pointing down. Dead actually. Possibly from heat exhaustion and being a reptile. The other one was crawling on our front steps before we went in one night. That's the one that reminded me of Camp Green Lake. PPS We have a temple trip on Thursday. That should be wonderful.