the one about slowing down

Ah, the temperature finally seems to have changed for good. I so much enjoy these cooler days with gray skies rather than the scalding hot days that make you feel like you're a grape on it's way to becoming a raisin. It seems to have a slowing down effect on people. They're less frantic and more willing to slow down and talk to you. I like it.

Speaking of slowing down, we realized Fatjon isn't going to rocket to baptism like we'd hoped. I was afraid of it, but we won't be able to baptize him on the original date. He's been having some problems that make it hard for him to read the Book of Mormon every day. We're trying our hardest to help him out in that aspect. I guess when you only have a few investigators it's easy to expect too much out of them. We just have to take it at his speed.

Also about changes, we had a member of the branch pass away Saturday night. Sister Çeli (chel-ee) had been battling cancer for some time, and my companion and I had given her two blessings. It's sometimes surprising how fast things change. Less than a week after we had given the second blessing, she left this mortal sphere to go on to better things. We had a small service in church on Sunday, where people were open to share their memories about Sister Çeli. The one common thread that tied everyone's words together was their testimony that Jesus lives, and that He opened the way to eternal life. The spirit was definitely there to comfort all who attended. We made the sacrament programs before we heard the news, and I find it appropriate we chose as the closing hymn, "God be with you 'till we meet again" It was a bittersweet thing to experience.

Speaking of bittersweet experiences, today we were going to take a free bus to this shopping-mall place to go ice skating, but we missed the bus twice and the landlord was going to come with a plumber later on to replace our water heater (it had been leaking slowly) so we decided to just go bowling. It was fun... but I didn't even break 100 on either game. It's times like these that I take solace in the fact that we aren't judged before God by our bowling scores.

Speaking of... dang, I give up. I can't tie this into bowling. Anyway, I decided to make some cookies. Just plain cookies; we didn't have any chocolate chips. Then I discovered that I get frustrated when I'm trying to make equal sized cookies without a scooper with a scrape-off action handle. Cookie batter just sticks really well to spoons and measuring cups. So I made one cookie. Then when I cut it in half to split it between us, I discovered another very important fact: our oven is lame. Apparently it doesn't get as hot as it says it does. The sides were cooked fine, but the center was pretty soft.

Kind of looks like I just commenced surgery on a shaved bear, huh.

We decided to eat it anyways. It was pretty good, but it kind of burned as it went down. Maybe we used one pinch too many of pure vanilla crystals.

Or maybe it was the root beer extract.

Elder Weaver