Meeting the Fam

Today was my cousins homecoming from serving an "honorable" (and I'm not questioning it was honorable I put the quotations around the honorable because thats what its called by the Church) Full time LDS Mission in Houston Texas.

The day started out with my father waking me up at seven in the morning to get dressed so that when my mother came home (she works the graveyard shift as a pool CNA for Intermoutain Healthcare of IHC) so that we could be up at Paradise, Utah (which is not even 10 minutes from Logan, UT but about an hour, hour twenty minutes drive from where I live) by the time their church started at 9:00 AM. Naturally I fell back asleep almost immediately after he left (infact I'm not even sure he even finished his sentence when I fell asleep), figuring I would have another fifteen minutes to sleep (but I knew I wouldn't wake up in fifteen minutes...) so when my mom came up I immediately popped out of bed and began getting dressed. It must be understood that I was working on adrenaline at this point and it quickly ran out as I almost fell back asleep (and I did fall down after putting weight on my leg), so as a result I was groggy. But, I got dressed in a reasonable amount of time and we were out a little past eight.

The drive up to Paradise (where my mom's family cabin is also and we go perhaps three times a year on average) is usually quite scenic-expecially so around this time of the year- but I slept the whole way up. But we got up there and in the Sacrament Meeting Room at 9:03 and right as the service was beginning. As my brother and I began to work our way to the back of the meeting hall (because, honestly, I can barely stand some of my aunts and uncles and very few of my cousins, the exceptions being a handful of those with their Ph.D's) my mom sat next to my aunt so my brother and I exchanged looks and we sat down. I don't really care sitting next to them, I really don't, because the only drawback is having them comment on how much I have grown, how handsome I am...etc (I have never understood WHY aunts give these empty comments, but there must be some genetic component that compells them give thier two cents about you-perhaps there is a quota that aunts and even uncles have to fill with their nieces and nephews. But this is unlikely considering I'm a recent uncle and I did not recieve any such order or instruction book.) Either way, I wanted to sit in the back so I could sleep in relative peace-which did not come so I did not sleep. However, I would like to make one note about what I have observed in the LDS church (I do not know if it happens in other churches because 1. I have not attended any other religions services, but I would like to and 2. I'm not sure if these other churches put their members in situations where this phenomenon will happen) when someone is asked to stand because they recieved a new call, they are new members, or when someone gets married, baptized and some other situations EVERYONE turns to look at the person. It baffles me everytime; some of these people have lived in the ward or have been in the congregation for years and yet everyone turns to look. I would not be surprised if the bishop were asked to sit down with his family (because he is asked to presided over the meeting up at the stand and not with his family) and then asked to stand everyone would STILL look despite looking at him every week. I suppose its just natural instint to look at something that is brought to our attention, perhaps has its origins when humans were governed by their natural instincts (i.e. the "fight or flight" scenario) and they would look to see if they would, well, fight or fly away. But everytime I take care not to look to see if I can; sometimes I fail, sometimes I don't. I just think the "practice" is funny, especially if the congregation as a whole can't find the person and they are looking frantically trying to find the small child or person who didn't hear their name the first time...etc.

After the "opening excercises" of the 1. opening prayer, 2. opening song and 3. ward and stake business (where most of the people stand up) the meeting then progresses to talks by the youth and adults. I went up to go the bathroom when the youth speaker began and my cousin began his talk when I came back, and I was not even gone 5 minutes (just goes to show that another practice in the Church, i.e. 30 second-2 minute talks from the youth, is a widespread practice.) I must say, I was impressed by my cousins talk: he improved it, said roughly twenty scriptures by memorization, and was able to name about another twenty scriptures that were relevant to what he was talking about from the top of his head and read them from his own copy. Also, in very much his fashion, he spoke fairly loudly (but not TOO loud, just right as Goldy Locks would say) and with pure conviction and fervour (but it was not annoying.) Needless to say he's a gifted public speaker. However what he spoke about was the typical missionary lessons given in the mission field (or what I remember from reading about from "Preatch my Gospel" manuel for the missionaries), so its not SURPRISING he was able to read off and had memorized his entire speech and scriptures because that was all he did for two years, but he did have it down perfectly.

After the sacrament meeting my mom took my brother and I up to my uncles house who lived on my other uncles farm land (actually it was my grandpas, so my uncles and mothers father, land and handed it over to one of the uncles, so his son) and I slept a blessed hour in thier nice house (which was a replica, in my opinion, of their OTHER house in Syracuse, but the design works).

After which we went over to my uncles house (the dairy farmer, or who took over after my grandpa) to do the typical meal and family and friend gathering to welcome home my cousin. Honestly I can't stand these "get-togethers" because 1. All my cousins are either too old to care about what I have to say or do or they are too young to do anything (but are INCREDIBLY fun to play with but that only happens on rare occasions for one reason or another) and 2. My aunts and uncles all carry the typical "cold niceness" from Mormons and I honestly feel that some of them don't really like me or my brother because either of past history with my father or we smell funny to them or SOMETHING. Either way the food was great and there was some good company, but I mainly spent the time with my brother. Despite these blows to my aunts and uncles and family in general they really are nice people, and today was just another proof of that.

I would like to give an example of what would appear to be the "farmers curse" (or at least it woudl be a curse to me): a farmers son will always be a farmer, usually the farm that his father owned. I have already given an example of my two uncles, and now the cousin that returned from his mission has plans on taking over the farm from my uncle. It just seems this family can't leave the farm (its interesting to note that there is only one original barn but the farm house is still standing and they still live in it; so in other words, my uncle has been living in that house for over 60 years!) I personally couldn't stand to live in a farming community, expecially in a community that has been in the family for the past 100 years, I swear. Even though its georgeous up there, it just seems like life screetches to halt and I can't stand that feeling. The only way I could stand it is if I could occupy my brain somehow, and farming does not seem the best vehicle to do so. Perhaps when I retire...?

Today was just an average Sunday: Church, family and a lot of napping, oh and food. And my testimony was strenghthened some, but that it is basic neurology that if one hears the same thing OVER AND OVER again it will become a belief and one will consider it true because that is trained on how you think (thats why unrestricted child behaviors continue into adulthood: it was how they were raised to think and behave and their brain will operate that way until "programmed" otherwise.) Perhaps this is why the Church keeps on repeating things over and over, but there is a feeling described as the "Spirit"; but that could just a rise in endorphens and an increase in blood pressure as one gets exited or emotional-but I feel this unlikely considering individuals in other societies feel the precise same thing, and I remember reading a report (I just can't remember where... :( ) that different cultures are taught to react differently to various things and to me it would seem unlikely that different cultures would react the same to this stimulus the same. On the other hand perhaps the Church as managed to find a method to utilize basic instincts. But to be fair it could also be the method in which God communicates, but that is a poor comparison since the conception of a God would superfluous-but there still IS a God in the model. Either way I felt good and I feel that it is the Spirit instead of a natural reaction-but I don't see why they can't be the same thing since God can't break his own laws of physics. Perhaps this feeling that it is God arises from being "trained" to think that way, but my point is I don't really know, and I feel we can't really know.