Mistaken Identity: Episodes 611-618

Now with extra non sequiturs and WTFery!

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A Canadian Other Me is facing a hospital bill collections agency. Apparently when you don’t pay doctor bills in Canada you can have a “Notice of Crown Debt” issued against you. I have no idea what that is, but I imagine beefeaters steaming across the Atlantic to show up on her doorstep with truncheons and axes. It’s a small amount, though, so I feel it my responsibility to reassure the beefeaters that it was probably the most innocent of mistakes. Stand down, beefeaters.

I feel it my duty to stick up for an Other Me, especially since her real middle name is one of the fake ones that people give me. Am I alone in this? People don’t shorten my name, they lengthen it. Sarah-Ann, Sarah-Beth, Sarah-Jane, etc. Does this happen to people who aren’t named Sarah?

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Andy in Tennessee sent a song called “Lay Me Down Pallet.” It’s a girl singing with a guitar… I wonder if it’s Other Me singing?

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Tamara of the Spiritual Teachings Department at the Center of the Golden One is very pleased that Other Me has joined her Road to Freedom program. I think it might be religious? I’m imagining golden calves. That may not be entirely accurate.

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Do you know what the automated message looks like when a federal prisoner wishes to communicate by email with someone who is not incarcerated? Well, now I do.

In passing (I wanted to find out what he was in for; couldn’t), did you know Google is now microfiche? Is there anything Google doesn’t do?

Oh yeah, protect your privacy.

By the way, you know what’s funny? As noted in that Google article, the older you are, the more you’re spooked by technology being used to track who you’re with, where you were, what you say. I propose a corollary to that. The younger you are, the more surprised you get when actual people in front of you know that stuff. I still find it startling when local friends or acquaintances know what I’ve been up to. It’s kind of nice, but I’m definitely not used to it. This may be less that I’m young (I don’t think I can claim that anymore. 34 in 15 days! Track my age, Google!) and more that I was a nomad for so long. ANYWAY.

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Chrissy sent a massive Mormon missive (five times fast!) to her mom, who is apparently a Hawaiian Other Me:

Yeah mom!!!

SOunds like life is good out in the 808!! so stoked for u guys! And i am sure the kids are doing alright… ask brad if chris hauter and taylor boyce are playing on our church ball team….

This week was pretty standard… just preaching the gospel

On thurs we got asked to help at a funeral… it was really cool, half the family were members and about half werent… but the bishop did a solid job and the spirit was deffinetly there… but the only reason we got invited was to help lower the coffin into the ground…. it was actually pretty stressful, because we had been standing outside by the grave for like 30 min in negative weather… and all i was wearing was my suit… so my hands are like numb and they strapped the coffin up with ropes and we had to slowly lower it into the ground…. well when your hands are cold its almost impossible to untie ur shoe… so i am trying to grip this rope with my hands and it just isnt working… but luckily the other elders had it figured out and we got it in safe… but i was so scared i was just going to drop this lady into the ground… narly

But that was the only thing that was pretty out of the ordinary… We got 5 new investigators with was really sick… 2 chinese, 3 africans…. this one chinese kid we taught was very interesting… he is muslim but he never really was taught about his religion so it was cool just talking about who god was and what jesus christs role in gods plan was…

So i dont know if i told you this but we were teaching this one chinese couple who were so solid… but they are living together… but in seperate rooms of the house…. and they dont want to move… but when we went over after church on sunday we spoke to them about baptism and learning the gospel and me and elder blackwood had a feeling that it would be super awkward and that they would tell us that they didnt want to change… but man i dont know if it was the spirit inside them, but they just said how they were so sad that they couldnt make their date and that they still wanted us to come and teach them… and then when we spoke about what would have to happen if they wanted to be baptised, it was like they knew exactly what we were going to say and they agreed to pray and talk about wheather they would move out…. so something that i learned from that experience is that we do not have the right to judge a person and whither or not they are going to choose the right… we just need to see the light of christ in everyone and let them know we love them and how we know the righteous decisions will bless them…

Then we had this sick lesson with this kid from Malawi, Africa… dude the kid is so prepared… like i dont know if missionaries are in Malawi but the church needs to get them there, we got to talking and we had planned to read 2 Nephi 31 and discuss baptism and the blessings of it, but for some reason we just felt like Mossiah 2 was what he needed to hear… so we started reading and then somehow his concerns just started to come out… he has a hard time realizing how some people have so much in life and how some have nothing, it was so cool just answering his questions through the scriptures… it was awesome and it is so cool how good King Benjamins sermon on service and the atonement applies to almost everything in life.

But yeah solid week, and we are so excieted because we have a chinese kid ready for baptism, and he is getting baptised on the weekend that the stake is having a massive missionary prep convention for the youth, leaders and prospective elders, so it will be neat to have a baptism during the seminar and for people to really feel the spirit of the work and things… i am excieted…

but here are the questions:

Qs
1) Is there anything you want from Hawaii? Tshirts? Food? Do you like that candy with the Chinese hot powder on it? I cant think of the name…I don’t think I can send angel’s shave ice or pinapple… 🙂
haha idk… there is this killer powder for pineaple called Li hi mui i think dude it is so good, like sour and sweet…. but i think i am good, get me some new board shorts for when i come home i guess because all the ones i have are ripped…
2) LIST what I can send for your birthday… Food, Clothes, Stationery, Random items, Books??
hmmm… i dont really know… i am good on clothes… i do want to buy an english suit…these things are so sweet, super good cut and everything… and that would be a sick present… they cost about 100-150 american dollars….
3) Who got baptized? When and how did you meet them, etc…?
no baps this week… but hopefully soon!
4) Tell us some of the names of your investigators and their “stories” so we can pray specifically for them…
there are too many… just pray that the spirit is with them when we teach so that they can understand and feel the importance of the message
5) What is the “funnest” thing you did this week?
hmm this isnt so funny but we got refered to this brazillian lady and we called her up and set up a lesson… well we start teaching her and everything is solid… and we start asking her her background, and she says that her family isnt religious and that she didnt grow up with religion… and so we start talking about families and how they are the support system on earth and all that good stuff, then i asked what about urself have u ever been interested in finding out if there was a god or anything, and she goes, well yeah like 20 yrs ago i went to visit my aunt in london and she is a member of ur church, and the missionaries taught me and i got baptised… we were amazed haha she was already a member and stuff, and had forgotten pretty much everything, so we are going to reteach her and hopefully teach her kids, so it should be cool
6) More importantly, what was the most faith promoting thing that happened this week?
faith promoting… hmm well my favorite verse of scripture i read was Mosiah 5:13… it talks about how could a person know a master he does not serve… I think that this is a perfect thing when you are teaching people about developing a testimony and teaching someone about streangthening their testimony… if u arent activly trying to serve others and change your life to fit the mold that jesus christ has set for us, you will never know what it feels like to recieve a blessing due to following a promise…

So pretty solid week, me and blackwood were laughing the other night because we have been together for 6 months… and it feels just like 6 weeks haha… then we were just talking about life and funny stories and i was telling him about all the funny things that have happened in my life haha… it was way weird to talk about, i dont feel like i am the same person… then right before i fell asleep i remembered that story when i was shooting my pellet gun in the back yard and somehow i had shot the neighbor girl…. what was i thinking haha?

thanks for everything, god bless and good luck in HI.
Love u guys
Elder Morgan