Death Star, Wet Sponges, and Long (Short) Books

Apparently last week's blog post was a cop out. Our apologies to everyone who was waiting with baited breath for an enthralling post about the excitements of our lives. Unfortunately, not every week is as exciting as the Death Star trench run.

Stay on target...

Anyway, since school started Jill has been working her night job while still having early class because I, in my inability to be legal, could not work. So the poor girl has been working late into the night (morning?) and then waking up early to be a good student. I'd tell the whole story of why I wasn't legal to work, but it's boring and, quite frankly, I don't think I even understand it fully. Suffice it to say, I would be shipped back to Canada if I had started working before being authorized.

Fortunately, my employment card finally showed up last week and I was able to get my job back with the MTC doing all their video needs. This means that Jill was finally able to quit her job and get all the sleep she needs! At least, she gets a lot more sleep now than she used to.

I got back to work just in time because last night at devotional Mr. Ballard spoke (M. Russell... Mr...get it? Ok...). Church AV brought their super-nice broadcast truck so we can broadcast to the international MTCs, since our current camera/broadcast situation in our facilities are being upgraded. Funny how "upgraded" means "doesn't quite work yet."

Working with Church AV has some great perks. One such perk is we actually get fed dinner before the devotional. Otherwise we'd have to fend for ourselves.

The second perk is the equipment. This is the cameras they have and we get to use:

Drool...

The lens itself is worth over $25,000. I've absolutely loved all the time we've had working with Church AV. Knowing how to put together and use these crazy-nice broadcast cameras has been amazing. Nerd alert.

But like I said, last night Elder Ballard spoke, and although it's sometimes hard to actually listen to the talk (since I have to focus on getting shots and listen to voices in my head - ie. the director), it's still a huge blessing to just be in the same room as him.

Moving on to this past Monday, Jill had to volunteer at some teacher/parent carnival/party/thing at an elementary school. I was a little nervous, because the last time I was at a carnival-type event I ended up with sopping-wet sponges thrown into my face.

Anything for the kids...

But I digress.

We were assigned to help at the fishing pond booth where kids fished for fish (derp), and when they caught one (ie. when the person hiding behind the blue sheet clipped a laminated paper fish to the paper clip at the end of the child's rod), they could trade it in for a free book! How awesome is that!? Pretty dang awesome. Except that the Iron Man and Captain America books were all in Spanish. But that didn't stop some of the kids from running off with them. The first kid to win a book held up and Iron Man book and asked if we had one in English, since he didn't know Spanish. I said no, but told him he could use the book to learn Spanish! As a joke. Well, I'm not used to interacting with younglings of that age, and so he decided to go with it. Before I could tell him I was joking he had run off with the book, excited as ever.

At least it has fun pictures in it.

Anyway, we had fun helping out and giving out free books.

Speaking of books...

Today I just finished reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. WOWDEEWOWWOW that was a tough one to get through. If you thought the actual Lord of the Rings books were difficult, you should try reading the history of Middle-earth. It's a doosey. But at the same time, it's rather quite interesting (if you're in to histories of fictitious places). Just thought I'd share that with the world. I felt like it was a big enough accomplishment that I deserve to. It's weird, because that book is 304 pages and it took me forever to read it, whereas I can read a book that is gigantic (say, for instance, A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan) in just two days.

4 weeks

2 days

Something's wrong with me. But we already knew that.

So that's enough about me and my reading habits. Jill and I will do better at updating this thing and making it interesting for everyone. Have a nice day, and wake me up when September ends.