The Unicorn is the mascot for a high school that I served fairly close
to in my last area. It has has the best name among high schools that
I've served around on my mission, with second being the Hutto Hippos.
Hopefully I can snag a Unicorn T-shirt before I head out of Texas.
This has been a week full of change. Full of it! Things are just not
like they were a week ago, or two weeks ago, or so on. I will be
spending the last few months of my mission in Buda and Kyle, two small
towns that are beginning to explode as commuter towns for Austin,
which is about 15 minutes north of us. This is a fun area, the largest
and most rural of my mission. The congregations are smaller, and the
members are close to missionaries. Things are further apart, there are
some older couples, and life is slower.
These two towns share with Austin a sort of crossroads of culture. You
can run into true cowboys on the same street that you run into
computer junkies. You see men with full beards and Oakley sunglasses
carrying a mac and wearing skinny jeans. There is a giant Cabelas that
looms over the town of Buda that doesn't have plastic bags. It's kind
of fun to see.
I suppose that my new companion, Elder P, and I are the perfect fit
for an area like this. Elder P is a, well, hick. It's hilarious.
All analogies and stories used in lessons are about guns and hunting.
His similes and metaphors all connect with animals. His pronunciations
are textbook. "That's a tough sitchie-ation right there." "I used to
cover Plum Crick." Or this excellent conversation.
"So, that lady's name was Janice (pronounced Jan-is), right?"
"Yep, that's Janice (pronounced Jay-nus)"
"Okay, so it's Jay-nus"
"Yep, Jay-nus"
"I thought she said Janis."
"That's right."
"So, is it Janis or Jay-nus?"
"Jay-nus"
"So not Janis"
"No, it is."
"Janis?"
"Jay-nus."
A few tries later I gave up and decided it was Janis. It's really fun,
because he isn't trying at all, it's simply who he is. I only hope
that when the novelty wears off, he'll still be funny. He really is a
good kid though. He'll talk to the cowboys about horse riding, I'll
talk to the Austinites about ACL. And surprisingly, both groups really
like baseball.
I realized the other day that I spent 74 of the 104 weeks of my
mission in my last two areas. That's a long time, almost 18 months.
And being in this area for just 1 week now, I wish I could spend a
good chunk of time here as well. To me it shows that love doesn't stay
in one place. Memories travel with us. It isn't our surroundings that
determine what we feel and how we act, it is the character that we
have developed within us. What makes someone easy to love? It is not
always them, it is sometimes us.
But yes, sometimes it is them.
- Elder Richard Hall
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