Man, I wish people would tell me these things sooner. In my defense, I have, as I've said on numerous occasions already, completely lost my sense of time as it pertains to anything other than the current activity that I'm involved in. As far as I'm concerned, it's still the 15th of July 2009, and I'm still stuck in Missionland. There's been a sort of vague awareness of time passing for those around me (the snow gives it away sometimes), but I'm still prepared to go out in summer gear. Speaking of which, the temperature has been delightfully warm all week, and even if it is raining today I'm still walking around without a coat on. What a strange feeling. The whole point I'm trying to make here though, and what I'm really getting at is, Happy Father's Day, dad! I guess it passed fairly successfully, and apparently that's all that counts.
So I had a whole paragraph written about calling unfamiliar members in my area, but then I decided that that's one of those only-interesting-to-me kind of things and deleted it. You're welcome. Speaking of amusing phone calls though, this is one I received from one of our babushkas. The same babushka, in fact, with whom I had the pleasure of riding to the hospital after she'd fallen and severely wounded her head ((it's all healed up, just in case you wondered). She called on Tuesday, right as we were heading to an appointment.
Her: Come over! One of the neighbors made me a cake, and I don't want it all. You need to come and eat it.
Me: Wow, a cake? How nice. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll be able to make it today. Thanks for the offer, though.
Her: What? Why? Too busy to eat cake with Baba Anna?
Me: Yes, unfortunately we've got an appointment that we're headed to right now. Maybe tomorrow--
Her: No. Tomorrow it'll already be three days old. Too long. An appointment with whom?
Me: An investigator.
Her: Well cancel it! What are you doing aterwards?
Me: We've got another appointment set up. And another one after that as well. I just don't think it's going to work out today, I'm sorry.
Her: You can't call the investigators and cancel them? Which investigators, anyway?
Me: Well, one is Valentina. Maybe you've seen her at church once or twice.
Her: Of course not! Tell her it's just not going to work out today!
Me: I can't just cancel appointments with investigators. Missionary work doesn't really work that way.
Her: [Exasperated sigh] Let me talk to Oksana (for the record here, Baba Anna is one of those people who will do anything to find out your name, and then she'll refuse to call you by anything but. If you're Russian, at any rate. I'm pretty sure she thinks my name is Read).
So of course I handed the phone over to Sister Tolmachova, and I hear Baba Anna asking the exact same questions while Sister Tolmachova gave the exact same answers I had. I guess it just sounds more reasonable coming from a native speaker, or something.
In any case, my time is all up and I'm starving. We were supposed to meet up with The District (we have districts. Ha.) and eat lunch, but somehow communication broke down somewhere in the middle and it never worked out. So. We're off to find our own lunch. You all have my permission to enjoy yourselves in the not-quite-as-warm-as-Vlad Oregon weather (if you happen to be located in Oregon, obviously. You can still enjoy it in some other state, but I don't think it's quite as effective), try not to eat too many strawberries, and of course remember that I love you.
-Sister Read. Cake-less. And serves me right.
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