Ancient Writing and Antique Artifacts

So, I've lived in my house two years. Once I actually bought a house and moved out of an apartment my mom got this funny idea that I should take all of my stuff that I had left at her house and move it to my house. Moms are silly sometimes. Anyway, I thought I had gotten everything but she was recently cleaning and found a few more boxes of stuff. Among the stuff were important artifacts like my Star Wars cup collection.

Or my Taco Bell Chihuahuas.

But even more importantly were some old journals. One was a personal journal that I had kept, and the other was a "Dialogue Journal" from 3rd grade, where I would write and my third grade teacher would respond. I thought I'd share a few excerpts from the Dialogue journal, because these ancient writings are full of wisdom. Here are a few things I wrote:

"I like to write about almost everything like space, animals, monsters and caves." For those of you who read my blog you know I write about everything, but especially space, animals, monsters and caves.

"I like money because it's green, that's my favorite color." Since then I may or may not have found other reasons to like money.

"If I had a million dollars I would buy several acres of land and would put a zoo there." I had a bit of a fascination with animals when I was a small child. It's possible I'm still into animals and nature. Swimming with sharks sound like something I might do?

"What I like to do on my birthday is get presents." Enough Said.

"If I had three wishes I would wish for a million extra wishes then I would wish that the world wasn't polluted and I would keep wishing forever." I'm not sure if pollution would necessarily be my number one priority now (you can tell I was heavily influenced by reading about animals and their environments) but I still like the idea of wishing for a million wishes. I was kind of a genius.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to share some of these ancient writings and artifacts with you. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did.

The Search of a Lifetime

So, this story begins many years ago, but the end happened very recently so that's why it appears in my blog today. You see, when I was serving as an LDS missionary I set a goal to read the entire standard works of the LDS church. (The Old Testament, The New Testament, The Book of Mormon, The Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price) I decided that not only did I want to read them all, but I wanted to study them all, so I purchased all of the study guides that are put out by the Church Education System. I really enjoyed the additional commentary that the study guides had to offer, it gave me a much deeper understanding of what I was reading, and many times there was commentary associated with every 5 or 6 verses.

I went through the many study guides and was thoroughly pleased. But I was most excited to obtain the Book of Mormon study guide and see what it had to offer. Unfortunately, it was quite thin and had very little to say compared to the other books. I was sorely disappointed. I figured the Book of Mormon guide would be the best, since it should be the book of scripture that all Latter Day Saints are studying most thoroughly. Well, I went through it and did learn some new things, but felt there was something lacking.

Later on, I was serving in Minot, North Dakota when I went into the church library there, and found a Book of Mormon study guide that was about 4 times thicker than the one I had. I realized I must have just bought the wrong one. With great joy I began searching to see if I could buy one from the church. In my search I discovered a great travesty. It seems that the good version was printed in the 70's and early 80's but it had such a delicious wealth of information that people read the guide rather than the Book of Mormon itself. This was a concern for the brethren so they decided to print a lesser study guide so as to not distract people from studying the actual Book of Mormon.

I was a very sad boy. I decided I would begin a lifelong quest to acquire my own copy of the study guide. I also promised myself that it would merely be a study aid and that I would continue to study the scriptures themselves. Later, when I married Robyn I commissioned her with the quest of finding me a copy as well. I figured with both of us on the job one of us had to succeed.

Well, that brings us to last week. I was telling a friend of my quest and he decided to check ebay. I had obviously checked ebay before, but this time the results were better. I was actually able to buy a copy that was still in fairly good condition. Isn't it beautiful?


To prove to you how superior this one is, I'd like to show you the newer version side by side.
Don't you feel sad in your heart about all the information that was lost in the newer version? Well, have no fear. All that information will soon be transferred to my brain. You're all welcome to come over to my house and share in the knowledge. But you can't borrow the book, it's much too precious.

Tenth Moniversary

Well, here it is, the tenth Moniversary. (As always, if you're new to my blog, you can refer to the first Moniversary post to find out what a Moniversary is.) The month hasn't been too adventurous, but we've had a few fun times. Among them were a creature that showed up unexpectedly, Robyn's new look and her new green thumb abilities. Below are a few other experiences of the past month.

A Most Delicious Treat
I had a companion on my mission that loved to put peaches in jello. He would make gallons of peach filled jello and we would just eat it for every meal. It was the greatest thing ever. I had told Robyn about that so she recently made me my favorite treat. She was then surprised at how quickly I consumed the whole thing.

Bear Lake Trip
My good friend Jared William invited Robyn and I to go spend a weekend with his family at their cabin. It was tons of fun, we went swimming in the lake and had some good time to hang out. Of course, my personal favorite from the whole trip was watching him jump on the trampoline with his mom as she giggled with simultaneous terror and delight.

Robyn's Awesome Outfit
There isn't much of a story here. But I just wanted to include this awesome picture. It was a Sunday morning. Robyn had already put her dress on for church but she was cold, so she improved her outfit. I wanted her to wear it to church but she wouldn't.



"What is wrong with you?!?!"
I got up on a Sunday morning and Robyn was brushing her hair in the bathroom. I came up and hugged her from behind. She looked at me in the mirror and exclaimed, "What is wrong with you?!?!?" My reply was, "I'm sorry, I just love you." Of course, she was referring to my mutant eye. I got an infection in the skin around my eye and had to go to the doctor for an antibiotic before it would go away. She affectionately called me mutant for the next few days. The funny thing was that the reason she had freaked out was because it had been getting swollen for several days, but seeing me in the mirror she thought it had switched eyes.

Creatures at the Work Place

So, today I had a somewhat interesting adventure. I was just minding my own business at my computer at work, when Tyler (the guy I share an office with) yelled from the breakroom area, "Jeff, come see this quick!" Now, there's usually not much to see at our workplace so I figured that I'd better come quick so I don't miss it.

I ran into the other room just in time to see a snake slither across the floor. I've seen several snakes around the outside so it must have just slithered its way in one time when the door was open or something.

Well, naturally we caught it. This is what it looked like.

Sorry the images aren't super clear. I didn't have my camera since I was at work, so these were taken with my phone.

Anyway, naturally since we had a snake it was important for us to have some fun with it. We put it in a box and went and handed the box to Mike, another one of our coworkers. Upon receipt of the box his first action was to shake it. We told him that was not recommended but he should open it. He opened it and shrieked, "Oh My Gosh!" and promptly held the box out for us to take it away. It would have been cooler if he threw the box, but that would have been sadder for the snake.

We tried giving the snake as a gift to another coworker but when he opened the box he just said, "oh cool, a snake." After that we just let him go outside.

Of course, the whole thing was not nearly as cool as the time we put a gopher in someone's desk drawer, but that's a whole different story.