Nine Excuses and One Really Big Meeting

Exactly one week ago, I was supposed post the Mindyified transcript of Elder Greg's very last mission phone call. But... I didn't get around to it that day. Or the next. Or the next. But I wasn't just slacking for slacking's sake. I promise. The last few days (weeks? months?) have been a bit busy.

My newest niblet visited my cowtown for the first time, so I had to welcome him (Credits: Photo by Mindy, Onesie by Jenny, Baby by Becky... We make a great team!)

Greg would totally understand my need to spend time with Bubba and his sisters.

Then there was the ten minute 6th grade orientation video that took me about 52 hours to film and edit. And the three hundred creative writing projects that needed to be graded.

I am also substituting for the sunbeams teacher for a couple of weeks, so there were primary lessons to review and pre-traumatic-stress deep breathing exercises to practice.

The junior high's talent show was this week (Great Work Val, Kim, and Marta!), so I had to help my yearbook kids prep for their act.

And speaking of yearbook, there was a very wet, very cold track meet that I needed to attend in my official capacity as yearbook book Jedi master.

And then there was Thursday night's science fair, which deserves a post of its own. Stay tuned for a blog-worthy bevy of inventions that sprang forth from the very creative minds of our 7th and 8th graders.

I did have about an hour or so Thursday between the talent show and a Relief Society meeting when I was going to try to get some Greg info posted, but Blogger picked that same window of time to perform what better have been some very VERY important maintenance.

As annoying as Blogger's shutdown was, it did give me a few much needed minutes to finish filling the last of 325 service seed packets with service idea slips.

Those seed packets are not only my 9th excuse for delaying my Elder Greg post, they are also the transition into the second half of this post. You see, those service seed packets were made especially for our 2nd Stake Relief Society Meeting.

Remember last year's meeting, our presidency's first, for which we turned the cultural hall into a Celestial room with optional basketball capabilities? If not, feel free to read about it HERE.

Well, this year we decided to go with a more understated approach. No towering topiaries or miles of twinkle lights this year, no-sir-ee.

This year we kept it simple...

Well, not quite THAT simple, but simpler than last year.

Instead of ten miles of twinkle lights, we used a just little over 300 satin sashes, and instead of a six-foot-tall flower arrangement in the middle of the room, we went with beautiful potted plants on each of the 37 tables.

Much simpler. Far simpler. Mucho simpler.

Except for the 8x10 foot temporary stage that had to be built in the middle of the gym, but that was for function rather than form, so it doesn't count.

The one thing that might not have been all that simple was the dinner. Turkey wraps with herbed cream cheese and a cranberry orange sauce served with a salad of spring greens, strawberries, oranges, feta cheese, candied nuts, and a raspberry vinaigrette with individual cheesecakes for dessert doesn't count as simple. Especially not when you are preparing plates for 300. But thanks to our wonderful committee members, even the not-simple-dinner went smoothly.

We owe a lot to our wonderful committee ladies... and all of our friends and family members to stuck around to help deconstruct our "simple" meeting set-up. They are all angels... chair-stacking, sash-folding, dish-washing, floor-mopping angels.

And don't even get me started on how fabulous our nursery leaders were. Three brethren from the singles branch Elders Quorum ran the nursery for us. In return for their selfless service, I now owe them some seriously wonderful refreshments for an activity of their choice. I was going to give them my first born child, but they crossed out that clause in their contracts after hanging out in the nursery for two and a half hours. I really can't imagine what might have brought on that little change of heart...

The night went pretty smoothly for us (except for Sister Hobson's skirt adventure that is not only worthy of its own post, but also deserves it's own episode of MacGuyver) thanks to all of our in-stake helpers and our out-of-town performers. Their program had us laughing and crying all night.

So now, with two successful stake meetings under our belts, we are already feeling the pressure to make next year's event even more memorable. But don't worry about us too much. I already have a plan.

For our first meeting, President and Sister Jones spoke and bore their testimonies. This year we had three sisters sing, dance, and bear their testimonies. Next year, I think we should combine the two ideas and have President Jones sing and dance. The sisters in the stake would LOVE it and, if we agree to pay President in dinner mints, I think he might just go for it.

So now that our meeting is over and my 300 creative writing projects are (over half) graded, I will see what I can do about getting Greg's phone call posted. And the science fair projects. And Jolene's skirt adventure.

I guess it's a good thing summer vacation is right around the corner. So many posts, so little time.

Elder Greg Vs. The Rat

The countdown is on for the return of the current Elder Haws.

Next week, I will be posting the results of his final phone call home and, next month, I will be posting about his awkward return to post-mission life. So I have decided that now would be a good time to revisit my most babiest of brother's run-in with a rodent of unusual size.

Elder Greggie had only been in Portugal for a few months and was serving in a trio of Elders, one of whom had not yet developed a testimony of housekeeping.

Now, my baby brother has a testimony of housekeeping. In fact, when he got to Portugal, the stock in local hand sanitizing and other cleaning products skyrocketed.

The other missionaries really liked to have him transfer into the area because, when he got to an apartment that looked like this…

…it wouldn’t take him very long at all before it looked like this…

But even with all of Greg's cleaning, it just took one messy elder and some disguarded crubs to create rodent-inspired chaos.

Anyway, the Elders woke up one morning and discovered that one of the apples on their table had been nibbled upon. Greg wrote, “We were all confused until we looked closer and saw that it looked like a bird or something had been pecking at it. We didn’t think much of it so we just ignored it and went to district meeting.”

After the district meeting, the missionaries went about tracting and teaching as usual, the nibbled-upon apple all but forgotten.

The elders came home that evening and were in the process of cooking dinner when Greg walked into the living room … just in time to see a long tail slither under the couch. Greg wrote, “I stopped and said, ‘Dude, I just saw a tail...’ Then we all freaked out.”

After spending the next few minutes screaming like little girls, they decided to lift up the end of the couch so they could have a better idea of what they were dealing with. Well, the rat did not take kindly to having its lair disturbed, so it ran out into the middle of the room, prompting the elders to 1) drop the couch 2) jump up on the non-rodent-infested furniture and 3) start screaming like little girls yet again.

The screaming continued as the huge rat ran around the room. When the rat was finally able to squeeze its fat gut under a bookcase, one of the Elders sprang into action. He ran into the kitchen where he grabbed, not a broom or a knife, or any other sort of universally accepted rat-battling device, but a Tupperware container.

No, you didn’t misread that. The elders decided the best course of action would be to TRAP the rat in a Tupperware container. After few more minutes of chasing and screaming and uttering some non-missionary-ish words, the elders came to an important conclusion: they needed a bigger Tupperware.

Elder Greggie wrote, “We finally got a big Tupperware, scared it out one last time, and somehow caught it. Kind of. Elder Davis had managed to drop the Tupperware on it, but he was so surprised that he actually caught it, he took his hand off it. Then, remembering what he was doing, he put his foot on it.”

But it turns out that catching the rat was only the start of their problems. Now they had to decide what to do with it.

Their first thought was to take it down the block and let it go. But the thought of it finding its way back to their apartment with vengeance on its mind dissuaded them from that particular course of action. I think that was a pretty wise decision on their part. I mean, think about it for a moment. Even with the combined brain power of all three missionaries, it took quite a while for them to catch the rat and then they almost let it go again. If they had decided to turn it loose, it would most likely have beaten them back to the apartment, locked them out, and updated their area book.

So, with rodent relocation removed as an option, the elders decided that they had no choice but to kill it. Being city boys, none of them had ever killed anything bigger than a beetle before, so this presented a whole new set of concerns.

They decided that shooting it would be the quickest and easiest way to dispose of the rat, and then they spent some time deciding who would pull the trigger before realizing that they didn’t actually have a gun.

Other methods of execution were then discussed, but most were vetoed due to the perceived pain those methods would inflict upon the rat. Greg wrote, “We all felt really bad about it because we had all seen Ratatouille (the movie with that rat that cooks) but it had to be done.”

Searching for some wisdom greater than their own, they called the office elders who told them that the easiest way to kill the rat would be to put it in the freezer. They theorized that, as it succumbed to hypothermia, it would just drift off peacefully. Of course, the rat didn’t seem to be enjoying his time in the Tupperware OUTSIDE of the freezer, so the elders doubted that it would find its situation any more tolerable IN the freezer. They made an additional decision: they would get the rat drunk first. Then it surely wouldn’t suffer.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, they decided to GET THE RAT DRUNK. So that it wouldn't suffer. Really.

Being LDS missionaries, the only alcohol they had on hand was rubbing alcohol. They poured some in and then watched as the rat sampled it. Now, please don’t ask me how they planned on determining the rat’s level of sobriety. I don’t know and I really don’t want to know. All I do know is that, at some point, the rat-filled container did go into the freezer.

Greg ended his weekly e-mail with this statement: “So now we have a Tupperware in our freezer with a giant rat in it.”

The Tupperware containing the rat was removed once a few days later for a post-mortem photo shoot, then it was replaced… so it could be discovered by the next set of missionaries to inherit the apartment.

So what is the moral of the story? Actually, there are several, but we are going to go with this one: If the Church wasn’t true, the 19 year-old elders and 21 year-old sisters would have destroyed it long, long ago.

School (Teachers) of Rock

Remember back, like, a month or two ago when I mentioned that the kidlets were having air band competitions at lunch? If not, please pretend that you remember. Normally I wouldn't mind reminding you, but I am just not in a flash-backy, re-cap-ish mood tonight. It might be all the wind, it could be all the rain, or maybe it has more to do with 5 a.m. exercising in the wind and the rain, but I'm just not feeling the flashback vibe.


Anyway, not long after that post, it was suggested that the faculty put a few groups together and have our own battle of the bands during 7th and 8th grade lunches. Blame it on the dry erase marker fumes, but a few of us thought having a teacher air band contest would be pretty darn fun. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the teachers must have been using chalk and/or pencils that day because "fun" was not a word that popped into their fume-free brains.

Without a sufficient number of (insert adjective of your choice here...I'm going with *brave*) teachers, we only managed to form one band, so a competition was out of the question. That is how the six of us (a heath teacher, two English teachers, a reading teacher, a science teacher, and a shop teacher) ended up lip syncing to the School of Rock song from the School of Rock movie at the school-wide Renaissance assembly on Friday.

We were all pretty nervous, but it turned out to be pretty fun in a sort of embarrassing kind of way. The kids were impressed... there was a lot of cheering and clapping and I actually signed a few autographs later that day. At least I think they were autographs. Looking back, I probably should have unfolded the papers to make sure I wasn't signing some sort of "no homework" guarantee, or some kind of "please excuse Bert from PE" excuse.

Note to self, don't sign anymore pieces of paper for the kidlets without reading them first.

Also, don't make any more decisions after having thirty dry erase markers uncapped and in use for hours at a time.

You all don't have to watch the videos, they are mostly just for my fellow band mates to enjoy. But, if you do decide to watch one, watch the one below. Why? Because you only catch a few glimpses of my attempts at back-up dancing. Dear sweet Valerie tried to knock some rhythm into me, but I am afraid I am a hopeless case.



Untitled from Mindy Haws on Vimeo.

Oh, and don't ask about the accordion. That is a video and a post for another day... a dry-erase kind of day.

Untitled from Mindy Haws on Vimeo.

Bubba

My sister-in-law Becky (and my brother Warren) welcomed a new addition to their family on Wednesday. His name is Daniel Floyd Haws... But we all call him Bubba. I dubbed him "Bubba" over Christmas break when I got tired of calling him "The Baby". I already call Jenny's youngest "The Baby" instead of his proper name, so having two "the babies" was a bit too much work. It was supposed to be my Christmas break after all.



I give all of my niblets nicknames, but I didn't necessarily mean for Bubba to stick... but it has. His two older sisters refuse to acknowledge their brother by any name other than Baby Bubba. Yes, Jenny, I know you warned me. You were right.



But so was I. Daniel is totally a Bubba. And he doesn't seem to have a problem with the nickname at all. See...

Things Bubba does have a problem with... flash photography, having his ears rubbed, not being completely swaddled in his blankets, and having people touch his chins. Yes, chins. The kid was almost 10 pounds. Bubba indeed.

Isn't he sweet?

This photo is for his Aunt Jenny. Not being able to come up to Idaho and see Bubba while he is nice and new and squishy is killing her. I thought a nice baby toe shot might ease the pain some.

about thirty seconds into my visit, I decided that I like Bubba a lot.

About three hours into my visit, Bubba decided that my camera and I were just a bit annoying. But don't worry, he'll come around as soon as he is old enough to participate in gummy runs and swimming afternoons.

Someone he doesn't find annoying is his Momma. Bubba likes his Momma a whole lot. Becky has had a rough couple of days, but I am pretty sure that she adores him anyway. See that tag on his belly button? That is his GPS thingy. Bubba is my first niblet to come fully loaded with baby LoJack. Infants are so high-tech these days.

I am going to spend the rest of the weekend adoring him, and then I will post the video and photos from our faculty air band performance from today's assembly.
Welcome to the family, Bubba!

The Homeliest Candidate

My dad is running for a seat on the school board back home. It wasn't his idea, but he has been a real good sport about the whole thing.

Running for the school board, or any sort of elected office, was never really on Homely's to-do list. As I understand it, the school board has two major functions: 1. having meetings and 2. attending the graduation ceremonies of the various high schools.

Homely is NOT a fan of meetings. In fact, he has an inflatable pillow tie that he wears to stake meetings so that he can nap in comfort. He is also not a big fan of graduations, as evidenced by the fact that he tried to pay-off his assorted children in futile attempts to avoid the dry speeches and never ending line of marching caps and gowns. But, after being told that he would be running for the school board, my dear old dad decided not to focus on the boring meetings aspect of the job. He decided to focus instead on what he could do for the district that educated him, and all six of his children. In these troubled times, with education coming under attack from all sides, Homely admitted that it was his duty to try and help out in some way.

Of course, his present lack of concern over the boring meeting thing could also have something to do with the fact that he would actually have to be elected first. And that is far from a sure thing considering his, um, political affiliation.

As his daughter with the political mindset (or, at least, the correct political mindset - Sorry Jen), I decided that I would chip-in by coming up with some campaign slogans.

Homely is kind of partial to his own, "Haws...It's not just another four-letter word," and when you take his colorful Sunday vocabulary into account, it is rather fitting. But there are just so many other possibilites!

The fact that he attended school in the district should factor in there somewhere. Maybe... "Elect Homely: District 91 made him what he is today. Now, it's payback time."

We could also try something that would appeal to like-minded people. Perhaps, "A Vote for Homely is a vote for shorter graduation ceremonies."

Then there is the family angle.

"Vote For Homely: He made room in his home for teachers, jocks, nerds, and band geeks. He'll do his best to make room for them in the budget too."

"Elect Homely for School Board: His favorite grandkids live in the district, so he'll do his best not to screw it up."

"Vote for Homely: He's NOT the Haws that was arrested for mooning a police officer."

Or we could focus on his stellar coaching career.

"Coach Homely spent five years teaching your spastic kid to dribble and shoot. Voting for him is the least you could do."

I was thinking we should take advantage of his impressive amount of first-name recognition. Truth in political advertising is also a hot topic right now, so we could combine the two and go with something works on both levels, like, "Looking for an honest public servant? Vote for Homely, because he is." Get it? It works on two levels.

A few other thoughts...

"Vote for Homely: He's not that kind of Democrat."

"Haws for School Board: Come on Idaho. If you could elect a dude named 'Butch' governor, you should be able to put a guy name 'Homely' on the school board without breaking a sweat." I'm not above going for the sympathy vote either. Sympathy for my mom, that is.

"Joyce had enough charity to marry him. You just need to have enough to vote for him."

If he decideds to use this photo on his campain posters and/or flyers, we could play around with things like, "The candidate with the cleanest campaign" or, "He'll clean up school politics", or "He only takes a bath on Saturday nights so that he can work for our schools the rest of the week."

I haven't run any of these slogans past Homely's campaign manager yet, but I'm sure he will love them... or not. But either way, I am just happy to be contributing to my dad's latest adventure in some small way.

Of course, seeing as how no one I have ever voted for has ever been elected, moving out of town and thereby making myself ineligible to vote for him was probably my greatest contribution to the Elect Homely cause. But, like I said, I'm happy to do my part.

And now, if you will excuse me, I need to call my sister and offer some preemptive apologies for at least two parts of this post. Love ya Jenny... despite your misguided and completly wrong political opinions.

Angels Round About Him To Bear Him Up

In two months, my most babiest of brothers will return from serving a two-year LDS mission in Portugal. It will be the end of a missionary era in our family. An end of Christmas and Mother's day phone calls, an end to Monday e-mails, and an end to all of those wonderful mission stories that I love to use in Sunday school lessons and Sacrament meeting talks.

Greg's mission has been especially bountiful in terms of narrative material. The rat story, for example. Have I told you the rat story? Probably. It's one of my favorites. Telling it was the highlight of all five of my semesters as a mission prep teacher. Classic. I will have to type that one up one of these days...

But not today. Today I want to tell you about Greg's latest adventure. Those of you who know Greg, know that he is a special kid. Special in a lot of ways. Special in his sweet, loving nature. Special in his unique sense of humor. Special in the way he has to wash his hands 57 times a day. Special in the way that allowed him to get mugged without realizing that he was mugged until the next day.

Ok, so it was more of an attempted mugging, but still. Here's how it went down:

A few weeks ago, Greg and his companion were walking home a little bit later than they should have been. It was only 8:30 p.m., but since it was Carnival time the missionaries curfew had been bumped up to protect them from all of the excitement and debauchery .

As they were walking, they ran into a group of teenagers who were wearing masks and carrying sticks... not a good combination. The Elders did their best to maneuver away from the rough looking group, but to no avail. The head thug, stick in hand, sauntered up to Greg and said something along the lines of, "Give me a card."

Now, most people, when confronted by masked and rustically armed guys, would panic. But not Elder Greggie. He was cool as a cucumber... a very sweet, faithful, clueless cucumber.

Without missing a beat, Greg handed Thug #1 a card... A PASS ALONG CARD. The kind with the picture of the Savior on one side and the phone number to call for a free copy of The Lamb of God on the back.

Dear, darling Elder Greg. I'm sure he was thinking, "Wow! How blessed am I to be serving in an area where people walk up to the missionaries and don't just ASK for pass along cards, but actually DEMAND pass along cards?!? Dude! This is Sweet!"

Well, Thug #1 did not think it was so sweet. Thug #1 was a bit confused. He waved the card around and demanded, "What is this?"

Elder Greggie told him, "It's a card for a free movie about Jesus Christ." Then he started handing them out to Thug #1's posse.

Thug #1 just kind of stood there, trying to figure out how this white boy could have misinterperted what I'm sure he thought was a pretty straitforward transaction. I mean, they were wearing masks. They were holding sticks. It should have been fairly obvious.

But as Thug #1 was pondering this odd turn of events, one of his buddies said, "Hey. My mom would probably want one of those." So Greg hooked Thug #2 up with a card for his mom.

The Elders continued to chat with the would-be-muggers/investigators for a bit, before the stick wielding masked teens turned and walked away. One even left with a parting promise to call for the video the next day.

Speaking of the next day, that is when Elder Greg realized (with a little help from a street-wise native Elder) that the thugs had been demanding BANK cards, not pass along cards.

I'm sure Greg's repsonse was something along the lines of, "Bank cards? Dude! Now the masks and the sticks make sense!"

Greg ended his account with this thought: "At that moment I was grateful that the Lord blessed us with protection even though we weren't in the right place. But at the same time I thought it was funny that some kids got deterred by a pass along card. I still don't know if they were actually going to rob us, but either way it makes for a good story."

My dad pointed out that it would make an even better story if, three years from now, there is an article in the New Era by a new member of the Church who developed a testimony of the Gospel after watching a video he obtained from a failed missionary mugging.

But even if none of those thugs ever see the light and trade in their skull-thumping sticks for the Stick of Joseph, it is still a great mission story. Mostly becuase niether Elder actually got their skulls thumped. And like Greg, I am very thankful that the Lord takes such good care of those clueless kids who do their best to take His Gospel to the world.