Repetition

Two weeks ago I taught primary for the first time in probably 10 years--so probably before the 9-10 year olds I was teaching were born. But it was fun. I don't know if I had enough material for the time, or if I didn't prepare well enough, but it turned out okay. They were pretty good kids.

The lesson was interesting--included some stories I didn't remember or may not have heard before. It was about the Saints moving to Ohio because of the prayers of Brother Whitney. This story was familiar--when Joseph arrived in Kirtland, he went into Brother Newel Whitney's story and said to him: "Newel K. Whitney! Thou art the man! . . . I am Joseph the Prophet. . . . You've prayed me here; now what do you want of me?"

So why did the Lord choose to answer Bro. Whitney's prayers by bringing the prophet to him? Well, as the lesson went on, it was because the saints in Ohio, mostly recent converts from missionary efforts, needed some training in the running and operations of the Church, so they needed the prophet to teach them. One of the object lessons that I chose to use for this was to bring some yarn and needles to the class, hand it to a child and tell them to knit something for me. So I handed it to the poor 9-year-old boy and told him to knit me a scarf. He looked at the yarn and needles a little dumbstruck, as expected. So I took it back. Yes, even though you know that yarn and needles can knit a scarf, doesn't mean you know how to do it. So the Saints, though converted, didn't necessarily know how to make everything work.

King of cool story, and neat object lesson. The boys weren't actually too interested in learning to knit, but in the spare time we had after the lesson materials were covered, I showed the four girls how to knit, and they generally really enjoyed it.

Then, last week, I taught Relief Society, as it was my Sunday to do so. This lesson was about a different migration of the Saints, from Missouri to Illinois, because of persecution. The title of it was "Responding to Persecution with Faith and Courage." The last lesson I taught in R.S., the month previous was, "Valiant in the Cause of Christ" and the lesson the previous week, when I was in primary, had been, ""God Shall Be with You Forever and Ever": The Prophet in Liberty Jail." Basically, slightly different approaches, but all three lessons about handling persecution.

I do appreciate lessons about that. It's always helpful to remember, and it did come at an interesting time in my life, as well. I also think, in general, I have some fears about missionary work because of some slight persecution I've felt when trying before--nothing as serious as the early saints in this dispensation experienced, but some negativity and verbal abuse anyway. So, being reminded that it's not my fault--that I'm not doing something wrong and even will be blessed for my righteous efforts to promote the truth, does help give me faith and courage and help me to be valiant.

Still, although it's a good topic, I was still struggling with how to make this lesson unique from the previous two. Sure, the historical pieces were different and the quotes were different, but I wasn't sure how to extract the significant points from the quotes in such a way as to make the lesson feel different. And particulary when it came to class participation, I was having a hard time coming up with questions for discussion that would yield fresh comments from those already shared last month.

Well, I gave the lesson, and we had some participation, and some of it was indeed the same stories from class members that they shared last month. Fortunately, they didn't seem to mind. And there were some new ones too, which was nice.

So moving on. Yesterday was a stake activity, a picnic with some outdoor games, mostly for kids, though there was a "Pace N Race"--walking race, for everyone. I didn't do that, mostly hung out with the other families from my ward who came. One of those families was a family that I'd babysat for back in December, and from which one of their little girls had been in my primary class. She had seemed particularly interested in learning to knit because she was into other yarn crafts. So I asked if she'd done any more knitting. She said she'd tried to do it again, but it was hard to remember everything so it came apart. That was actually really understandable because, since there were four girls and not a lot of time, none of them got a lot of one-on-one time to engrain the lessons, and I explained that to her, understanding.

While I was in the temple later yesterday afternoon, watching the same video I've seen hundreds of times, since I've been endowed since 1995 and, with the exception of my mission, been to the temple pretty much monthly at least since then. Of course, sometimes I don't do an endowment when I go, but anyway--I've still seen it a lot. Other people have seen it more, however, and yet for them as for me (most of the time), I still feel the Spirit and am glad to do it again and again. I even learn new things a lot of the time. But as I was sitting there yesterday, remembering what I'd told my little would-be-knitter and the lesson that prompted my teaching her to knit in the first place, and my frustration about teaching a similar lesson in R.S., things started to come together. We're preparing to be gods. We know it can be done because God has told us so, but we don't know how to do it, so we need lessons, and yes, we need the same lesson over and over, hundreds of times, particularly with a bit of one-on-one time. And sometimes, it's even better if those lessons are close together because they sink in a little better that way. So, yes, I'm glad I had a little of that one-on-one time as I feel when preparing a lesson, as well as some group time, with the class.

Thesis Complete!

Let's see, after how many years? It's kind of an interesting story, so I'll tell it to you, even if I have before. I mean, some of it is interesting, and some might bore you, but I'll write it anyway for history's sake:

Having had wonderful experiences at Monticello apartments just off BYU campus, during my undergraduate years, I had some "meeting scenarios" in my head--some romantic, some more humorous and some even awkward, I guess, for many years--probably since I lived there. Some of these were scenarios that I hoped would work for me, to be "my story." Some were real, some imaginary and would make good stories. But obviously, none of the real ones ever amounted to anything, they just stuck in my head as beginnings only.

Well, driving home from work one fall evening in 2005, after my first summer at Hollins, I was thinking about what I could write about, knowing that I needed to start whetting my whistle to creative writing again, I had an internal conversation that went something like this: "No! I will not write a romance novel. I have not had any success in romance. I don't think I have enough experience to capture romance successfully." I think things like that were repeated to myself several times, for effect. But as I pulled up in front of my house, I finally told myself, "Maybe I'm having these thoughts because the Spirit is prompting me. I don't know, but fine, I'll try writing a romance novel." So I wrote a few pages. Then stopped.

Those few pages sat in my computer untouched after that night --until the following summer. In my first creative writing class at Hollins, the professor, Hillary Homzie, assigned us to bring 10 pages to class every week. Well, I was going to write picture books, so I brought a few attempts of that type. But it just wasn't flowing like I'd hoped. So on the third or fourth week, I think, of the 6 weeks, I was scouring my computer for ideas and things I could work on and happened upon those few pages. What the heck, I told myself, what can it hurt? I flushed those few out into 10 pages, thinking that would be that, and I'd try something else for the rest of the time.

Well, lo and behold, my peers and my professor actually liked it. I mean, it needed a lot of work. I'm not sure anything remains of those first few pages, actually--which I think I have written about before. But anyway, the concept was interesting to them--even though none of them were members of the Church and this was a story clearly about members in the height and depth of our own culture.

So I wrote ten more for the next week, and ten more for the following week. And before I knew it, I had motivated myself to keep writing during the normal year, away from Hollins, so that by the time I returned the following summer, I had over 100 pages of working text. I'm not remembering well all of the sequences of events, but it had some work in the motivation of my choosing to switch from the MA to the MFA, although I didn't know for sure that this would be my thesis. I wasn't sure it was "young" enough for children's literature, nor that I could successfully finish it.

Well, I had the same professor again for my creative writing seminar that summer, and this time, because it was a more advanced class, we had to write 20 pages per week. I was kind of set, with those 100 pages. Actually, of course, what I'd written required reworking, and although we didn't bring in rewrites through the term, the suggestions for changes based on class discussions did translate into changes into the following pages as well as the pages discussed. And for six weeks, I needed also the last 20 pages, which might have come in the middle. In short, I made progress.

At the same time, however, I had an idea for a much younger book, about a duck with some magic, and a little boy. It flowed out pretty well and I submitted it piece by piece for my other class that term. One of my fellow students was in both classes and she much preferred Dave the Duck. I liked it too. But I also knew it would be shorter, so I'd have to come up with additional stories to get it to thesis length. But it was definitely under the rubric of "children's" literature. So, I talked to Hillary about it, showing her that manuscript, and her opinion was very firm that my BYU story was the better fit for the thesis. Wow. So there you have it! I registered it with her as my advisor shortly after that.

Then continued working at it for the next several months and finally mailed a complete ms to her in the late winter/early spring of 08. She had it back to me with lots of revision suggestions just in time for me to work on it at Hollins last summer, then I mailed it back to her again by September, a deadline she'd given me, which was actually really good for me, to push me. She had a few more suggestions, but otherwise said she trusted me to make the changes and said it was good to go!

And that was the easy part. Well, not entirely. But to some extent. It was definitely not over though.

When I started at Hollins, students in their last term had to take a comprehensive exam, so you had to buy all of these books in case there might be questions involving them, covering the major critical approaches and significant books in the history of children's literature. So I had bought many of them, but then last year they got rid of the comps and replaced it with an essay. Those who had been in the program for a couple years, like myself, were given the option of still doing the comps. But having time to look over what I write and with it only being 10-15 pages, I thought it not a huge deal to write a paper comparing my book to others in the field.

Still, it was a little tricky, particularly since I was not all that familiar with other LDS works. I mean, I knew some, and I regretted knowing more than those that I liked. But it was a good opportunity for me to familiarize myself with the genre, so over the past year I bought a few books (I think I read up to 10? t's still not a huge genre--somewhere around there) and eventually pumped out a first draft and emailed it to my second reader by November 30.

I didn't get it back until February, which was a little disheartening, and discouraging, particularly since the comments weren't making a whole lot of sense to me. I discussed them a bit with the reader and eventually found that an entirely LDS approach would probably work better than what I had done, so almost completely re-wrote and submitted near the end of March.

Well, he liked this version much better, though he still had a few reservations, but he finally said if my director accepted it, he'd be fine. Well, Hillary said it was fine with her, so by mid-April, just a month before "graduation" I'm officially good to go! What a relief.

April Birthdays

I have been very negligent about acknowledging my siblings with April birthdays. David's was the 5th and Susie Q (no longer Q, actually) had hers the 16th.

I'll start with David, since he's older and his birthday was first. David is my one and only big brother. At only a few years older than me, when we were growing up, we had an interesting love-hate relationship. Sometimes I idolized him, and sometimes I fought with him. Maybe I fought with him because he didn't (and who could?) live up to my idol standards. But time and prayers have worn away the scars and now I think he's a great man. Some of my favorite memories with David include some nice gifts he made for me at Christmas exchanges. One was a little wagon that I kept on my dresser until it fell into complete direpair, and the other was a doll's bed for a baby doll I coveted and got for Christmas maybe the same year, maybe the year before. I still have that bed, though it might be at my parents' house. Another fond memory would be driving to Greeley for some youth leadership meeting in his dinged up, old yellow truck. Greeley being about 20-30 miles away, across mostly bare open highway at that time (though there's been a lot built there since that time), we probably had the road pretty much to ourselves so he showed off for me by taking the truck faster than the speedometer could record. Probably not the best thing to be doing on our way to a Church thing, but I enjoyed laughing with him.

Now, he's a mature father of two baby girls and fathering two of his wife's children--all of them adorable. He loves hunting and fishing and pampering his dog, and weren't we surprised when he first told us about Sariah, shortly after they met, that she loves hunting too! It was a match made in heaven.

Now for Susie Q. She's kind of my middle child. I mean, not really, but since I'm third and she's 6th, she's in the middle of the five children younger than me. While I was growing up, she was just a kid, so I had fun babysitting her and passing on my hand-me-downs to her. But before too long, she seemed to catch up to me and we even worked at the same place for awhile, her just after high school, and me just after college. She was actually the one who got me the job, even, at Kids' Harbor. After that, she moved to Provo to go to college and a year or so after that, I returned to Provo, too, for a graduate program that I didn't finish, so we were adults there and hung out sometimes. We had some good memories there, making sock monkeys Mom gave us kits for so we could do something together, and she was good about remembering the holidays and giving me cute gifts.

After awhile there together, I moved out East, but she stayed there and got to know Mike, got married and now they're the proud parents of three cute little girls with a fourth on the way. But not only do they have children to tend, they're also now helping Mike's parents with some sheep farming! I love hearing about their adventures with the sheep and little girls on the farm on our myfamily site.

So, although I'm a little bit late, I hope you both had wonderful birthdays!
(Pictures coming soon)

Spring Pics

I finally used my camera for the purposes for which I had it kept in my car....
Tuesday and Wednesday I took walks around Old Town Alexandria during my lunch hour and was able to take some spring pics. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday to the Relief Society!

So I'm a little off as far as the date goes, but it's pretty good of me to recognize this birthday all together on here, I think, especially since it's not a sibling. But the truth be known, I happened to have my camera in my car because it's spring and I've been contemplating spring shots. So when I saw it on my seat on my way out of the car to this birthday celebration, I thought that sounded like a good idea to bring it. The pictures didn't turn out terrifically, but at least it made me think to post them here.

So, a little history. The Relief Society's birthday date, which we were reminded of in a trivia game we played, is March 17, 1842. It was organized because the men working on the Nauvoo temple needed shirts to wear for their work, so the women organized themselves and got Joseph Smith, Jr., the prophet, to thinking and praying on the subject, and from that came an organization with far broader purposes than its origination imagined. Currently, it's the largest women's organization in the world, and it's been around for quite awhile too. Every female member of the Church who is 18 years or older, or who is married, if younger, is a member. If a younger woman has a child, she is invited to join, but she does not have to.

The motto of the Relief Society is "Charity Never Faileth," taken from the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moroni. As the words indicate, the purpose of the Relief Society is to bless lives. The way this is done is manifold. The party indicated in the pictures above is from an Enrichment night. Every quarter (four times a year), each ward unit's Relief Society has an Enrichment night and in March, it is to be in celebration of the R.S. birthday. Enrichment activities are typically a night for women to get away from the daily grind and socialize with each other. Often, they involve dinner, a craft, and a little lesson. Sometimes they might involve a broader service project. Sometimes, particularly around Christmas time, it's predominantly crafts. (These are often, too, in the morning, rather, so the meal is breakfast.) In addition to these quarterly activities, there are also "groups" or "clubs" of special interests for the sisters to attend. Some common ones are book clubs, play group for mothers to bring their kids together, excursion groups, dinner groups. All women are invited to all of these, but usually because they're focused on special interests, attendance is pretty small--it's just nice to get together with a few women, get to know them better, learn more, be enriched, you know.

Another thing the Relief Society does is Visiting Teaching. Every woman is assigned a visiting teacher from her ward unit. Ideally, she has at least two, and sometimes even three--but at least one. Most women are visiting teachers, too, though if someone doesn't want to be one, they don't have to. As a visiting teacher, a woman has at least one sister, typically around 3, but depending on the size of the ward or branch, she may have more sisters, whom she is assigned to visit and teach a lesson. (The general presidency and committee in Salt Lake put the lessons together in each month's Ensign, the Church magazine.) If she's not able to visit, she can also write a letter or call the sister(s) just to see how she's doing and kind of be a friend. It's a neat program and blesses a lot of people when it works well.

The Relief Society also has a Compassionate Service committee in each unit, a group that helps provide meals, most commonly, to new mothers and others with health needs. They are often also in charge of making sure each sister's birthday is recognized. Other things might fall under this category depending on the imaginations and inspirations of the particular members.

Each ward/branch unit also meets every Sunday and has a lesson and sings together.

So you're wondering, if everything is done at the ward/branch level, how is it the largest organization? Isn't it more like thousands of small organizations? Well, no. It really is organized and run from Church headquarters. The general presidency speaks to the entire Relief Society once a year, a week before the general conference of the Church in October. They also prepare training materials and give training sessions for the unit leaders. Then, in addition to the general level, there is also the stake level--the umbrella over a group of wards/branches, between 5 and 12. Prior to the general Relief Society session at the end of September, the stake leaders usually organize a dinner and activity and a service project. Also, they visit each ward once or twice a year, as well as the leaders meet with the ward level leaders on a semi-regular basis, for trickle down training as well as for area-specific counsel.

Anyway, most of my readers are probably familiar with all of that and might not have read this far, but I think a few people who aren't members of the Church might visit, so what the heck. In any case, it's a great organization, and I'm glad to be a part of it. Happy Birthday Relief Society!

Gratitude for digitization and search engines

When I first was hearing about Google's big scheme to digitize every book ever written, I was on the publisher's side--not in favor. Working in a job that required me to understand copyright laws to a certain extent, it seemed their goal was clearly in breach.

On the other side of the coin, though, I can't say that I would be entirely opposed to having every book available digitally. I don't think Google should take it upon themselves to do this without publishers' permission. Nor do I think they should have a monopoly. And this is not because I want to read whatever books I can for free, or have easy access to hack into them. I don't even want to read books digitally. I'd much rather read a book away from my computer.

However, there are great advantages to digital versions. For one, I've long wondered why there are never commercials on television for books. It seems such a shame, doesn't it? We get ads for all kinds of nonsense, but not for this. As I was contemplating this last night while watching a TV movie, it occurred to me that ads for movies include attention-grabbing snippets from the movie. This might be a little difficult to do with books. Sure, you could create mini visual scenes from the book, but the joy in the book for many people is the ability to imagine those things without having the media create the image for you. So it would seem more beneficial to advertise with readable snippets. How could this be done? Well, perhaps not so easily on television, but with a few digitized pages available on internet ads, it could be done.

Another reason I would love to have digitized books would be when it comes to writing a paper in which I have to quote books. I must say I would love to have searchable copies of all books available. The search engine is a fabulous invention.

Today, I am working on my thesis essay and have read a few of the books I'm using at least twice and flipped through trying to find the place where something happened on several occasions. I did this kind of thing quite a bit as an undergraduate, but not quite to the extent I have to now, I think--I mean for the same books, time after time. It does get kind of tiresome.

So today I am expressing my gratitude for Amazon because they have acquired rights to copy many books, including at least one that I have to use (found a second after the original post. Yea!). I searched Amazon for the book, then searched the book for some significant key words, and then opened my paper copy and read until I found what I needed. Ta da!

So, maybe now I'm a little torn about the Google thing. There are a number of books I'd like to quote from that aren't Amazon searchable. Could the publishers maybe possibly hurry up with digitizing everything?

Professionally Speaking

For the past five weeks I've been temping at a medical facility, doctor's office type of thing--in the medical records department. It's customer service, but not entirely on the telephone, so a little better than some jobs I've had. My first day, I confess, I was really irritated with the situation having been burned from the last job I had, but it hasn't turned out to be too terrible.

I even had some interesting things to think about the last few days I was working there. See, one of the doctors in the Gastro-Intestinal department had dumped a large pile of old paperwork that needed to be prepared for scanning, which meant removing staples and taping xrays down against paper, and assuring the patients' id numbers were there as well as his signature. That part wasn't terribly interesting. I didn't particularly care to look at all of the xrays much either. Seeing people's innerds doesn't strongly appeal to me. Thinking that someone else found that fascinating, however, was interesting.

What intrigued and got me to thinking that this doctor really enjoyed what he did was seeing that not only did he have xrays, but he also drew little diagrams for his patients of the organs in a way people are a little more accustomed to seeing them, like in a health book. Of course, like his patients, I've seen the organ lay out a few times before, so it's not that that intrigued me, but that he drew these diagrams over and over. If it had bored him, he might have just found some picture from a health book to point things out to his patients.

So I got to wondering, what kind of a person thinks to himself as a child, "Oh boy, I can't wait to study more about people's bowels. Making sure people can poop less painfully is the most important thing I can see myself doing with my life." Maybe a small child, but after a certain point, some people might wonder if the child was stuck in the anal stage of growth a little bit too long. Yet obviously, seeing that he's a successful gastro-intestinal doctor now, obviously he wasn't. And many, many people are grateful he has a fascination with intestines.

Of course, maybe he wasn't like that as a child. Perhaps the specific interest didn't come until he was in medical school, or at some other point. Who knows. But still, to think that at some point, he chose that specific field. But then it extends beyond that. To think that so many women and men like him are needed around the country and around the world. And not only these gastro-intestinal people, but so many other specific fields of interest. The lungs, the feet, the liver, etc. Things that aren't as high profile as the heart or the brain, yet so very important. Isn't the diversity of interests in the world a testimony of God in itself?

I remember a cute Sesame Street sketch from when I was a kid where the monsters were going to have a potluck picnic, but they didn't assign anyone what they would bring, and so everyone brought potato salad. I'm sure it followed with two or three more trip-ups, as comedy sketches go, but I remember it was funny, and a good lesson about organization, communication and cooperation. Sometimes that is needed. So when it works out without everyone convening to decide who's going to do what, you kind of have to think, Someone else's hand must be in this.

What Might Have Been

With recent old friend findings on Facebook (ooh, like that alliteration!), as mentioned recently below, my mind has reflected to ye old college days wondering what would have happened if... I'd married so and so, if I'd realized so and so was more interested earlier, I had lived in this apartment instead of that one, I'd moved out of the complex all together where I lived most of my college years...in short, if I had gotten married while I was in college.

The results of this line of thinking can be interesting to ponder. They can lead to gratitude for things one has been able to do instead. But since I never had much ambition about getting a fancy job or great travels, etc. (still haven't even travelled all that much)--I instead tend toward the line of thinking--maybe I wouldn't have this huge debt I have now, or maybe I'd have my own kids, maybe I'd have someone to cuddle with... in short, maybe my life wouldn't be so hard.

But, as a friend once told me, (not directly to me--it was a testimony, but I felt it was to me) life is actually fair. He was quoting some general authority, dont' remember the specifics, except that it made sense. If life weren't fair then God would not be just and merciful and loving and perfect, to make life easier on some than on others. Knowing of the disasterous circumstances some people live in, the shortness of some lives compared to some, it's an odd thing to consider. But we really don't know all of the facts about these lives, particularly their pre-mortal and post mortal lives or what gifts and blessings the Lord has given them to help them endure. Certainly people don't "deserve" hard lives, but at the same time, I think they will be blessed above what we are able to understand. There's another quote about God's filling our voids with blessings equal or greater to the size of the pain. Sorry, no specifics again.

But I do have one specific. I had actually been on the above line of thinking yesterday or the day before when this memory came into my head to help alleviate the downward spiral. In 1993, I was hit by a minivan while crossing the street on my way to work. I did suffer some, broke my first bone of record--the orbital bone in my right eye. I might have broken a toe or two before, but never had it verified because the doctor wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.

Anyway, I had felt particularly nervous about going to work that day, with no pinpointable reason, but I do remember feeling anxious about it, and feeling like I should get a ride or something. It was raining, but I had walked to work in the rain before. I even asked my roommate for a ride, knowing she didn't like to be the apartment cab company, and she, of course, said no. I think she had a good excuse, but I don't remember.

I even thought about not going. I don't remember the specifics of that time period, but I might have just been obligated to certain number of hours per week, rather than a daily schedule, but it was easier to go x number of hours per day. Anyway, I went anyway. And the rest is history.

After it happened, my mind had a tendency into the what might have been thinking, particularly given some comments one or two people made. Most people were sympathetic and compassionate, but there were a few who didn't understand some things, accusing me of not looking where I was going, and such like.

A new guy had moved into the ward, a nice guy, a cute guy, and I'd even talked to him a few times, and some friends had decided to do this girls-ask-guys thing, so I'd even gotten up the courage and asked him, which is really, really rare for me. Anyway, so with my little accident, that was, of course, cancelled. And before I was really well enough, he had found a girlfriend. So, how could I not help but wonder what might have happened if I hadn't left for work that day?

Well, fortunately for me, one of my professors, my grammar professor of all people, had encouraged us to read D&C 93. And these are the verses that stood out, 24 and 25: "And ^atruth is ^bknowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come; And whatsoever is ^amore or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a ^bliar from the beginning."

Where does "what might have been?" fall into this definition of truth? It isn't what is, what was or what is to come, so it must be more or less than that, and therefore a lie. Isn't that interesting?

I have brought this up to some people before and there is some argument that there are scriptures that talk about how life would have been better if so and so hadn't sinned. And that is truth. It is also true that President Monson likes to remind us of the whole picture of our lives, saying to learn from the past, live in the present and prepare for the future. So if we can learn from our sins, that life would be better if we didn't, then we can progress. But when no sin is involved, and even to a certain extent when it is, doesn't it make sense that we not dwell on what might have been but rather take those lessons and live in the present and prepare for the future? After all, we can't change the past, so it's a fruitless endeavor, and Satan is the master of fruitlessness.

Another Story about Conversation

I think I'm doing a little trip on Memory Lane because of the recent finding of many of my college friends. But I have another story about conversation that's actually kind of funny and more critical of myself.

After my mission, so five years after the last story, I was still interested in conversation, not too surprisingly. But this time I did get someone to play along with me. A few people, actually. I had this funny idea, maybe it was a group effort with my roommate--she played along in any case and helped come up with the list--to see if we could get some people to answer some rather obscure questions in the course of a conversation. I don't remember all the rules, but it seemed like you got more points for more of the questions you got out. Mostly it was just for curiosity sake and not competition since we were usually together for the conversations.

Most of the people we got into these conversations with--yes I say "people," in a non-gender specific way, but the truth is they were all men--recognized it was a little odd but played a long for a little while. But Dale Caswell, my good buddy, let us play through to the end. He never even commented on how odd it was. What a good sport he was! He liked to talk and we liked to listen to his Connecticut accent anyway. Fun times!

So, if you want to play this game, I dare you! Think of a list of like 10 questions and have some fun. Or include something like this with characters in your book--it's a very young adult kind of thing to do.

Our questions I don't think I have any more, but they were something like this:

1. What's your middle name
2. Where was your third missionary companion from?
3. What was the name of your fifth grade teacher?
4. What did you do last Valentine's Day?

My mind is really blank, but we had about 10 or more questions. Have fun!

Conversation

When I came back from a family vacation the summer after my freshman year, (I was still living in the same complex, Monticello in Provo) my roommate from the school year who had moved to a different apartment for the summer, told me she'd met someone she wanted to set me up with. She didn't say what it was about him that made her think of me, but I was intrigued and interested to get to know him when I did eventually meet him. She hadn't gotten around to setting us up, and I'm not sure I was too keen on being set up with someone who lived in my ward since it seemed I would more likely naturally meet him.

Anyway, so I did eventually meet him, playing games over at someone else's apartment--#1 in White Brick, I think. At first, he seemed pretty nice, and kind of cute. I thought I might not mind going out with him. Then, as we were talking, in a split-off conversation from the bigger group, but still with three or four people, he asked me what my game was. (I thought was kind of an odd question, I'll confess.) I told him conversation was my game. I think he thought that was pretty weird, and I can understand that. It does seem rather a weird thing to say, even to a weird question.

But it actually was true. I had a fascination with conversation. I payed attention to how people conversed and judged how well I liked a guy based on how he could talk to me, looking for certain things. I'm not sure what incited my interest--perhaps that too many people were telling me I was too quiet, and so I was trying to shift the blame, or find out why I was quiet, or figure out if they were really any better than me for not being quiet.

Well, to cut that story short, I'll just say this--our conversation was not successful. Within a few shifts of topic, it came out that he'd like to have 20 kids. I told him good luck finding a wife.

I don't know if he ever achieved it. I saw him a few years later at a concert, with a girl. She might have been his wife, or maybe just a girlfriend. In any case, he appeared to be making some progress toward his goal at that time. I was on a date that night, too, I think, but he was not my boyfriend. I think I didn't even like my date very much, but I don't remember who it was. In any case, I haven't yet found my perfect conversationalist. But this weekend/week (for reasons I'll refrain from discussing), I've been wondering how much progress I've actually made with the subject in general. Am I a better conversationalist than I was then? Have I improved in my ability to detect a good conversationalist or refined my demands?

See, both things are kind of hard to have as do or die goals--I mean, I don't know how long it took him to get married, or how old his wife was, nor how fertile or able to adopt they were, or if he's actually married! I have heard of families of 22 or more, but it is pretty rare and really hard to come by. That was obvious to me then. But I guess I wasn't quite as convinced at the young age of 19 of the difficulty of my own goal--finding a good conversationalist...

...Particularly as my ideas about what makes a good conversationalist were still in a lot of flux at that point. I don't think I expected perfection at that game. I was savvy enough to know that like any nebulous attribute, conversation is very near impossible to perfect in this lifetime. But it seems like there are enough people who have good friends, get married and seem to find that right balance of conversation between them that it wouldn't be absolutely impossible. But I'm also thinking that a lot of people find good matches for them because they don't care quite as much about conversational abilities. I mean, I've met a good number of people who have either been married, are married, or have had long term relationships and yet they have serious lackings in what seem to me as normal conversational abilities.

That probably sounds kind of critical, and it probably is, but I guess what I really want to know is two things--why is it hard to find someone with good conversational abilities and what's the best way to handle it when you're stuck talking to or listening to someone who has a lot of difficulty with basic conversation, such as someone who talks your ear off or who's never interested in anything you have to say, or who cuts down everything you have to say. What do you do? I want to be a charitable person, but I'm really struggling here.