"Just so we both understand, stay on your side of the fence." April 20, 2015

A couple months ago our President asked us to study the Christ like attributes in Preach My Gospel and he wanted us to choose an attribute that we could work on. I chose charity because I really hate people. Not a lot of people; like 30, 45 at most. That's not even tumor inducing, and it's mostly other missionaries. So I'm sitting in this interview with our mission president and we're talking about charity, and I have a sneaking suspicion that someone is listening in. I can't quite peg who it is, but I know that something is off. We finish up the interview, I commit to working on charity (this would be my down fall, more on that later) and leave. This was in my last area in Moreno Valley. When I got transferred to my current area, Wildomar, one of the first things I did was go around to meet everyone. The movers and shakers of the ward, the big players, in other words: the Bishop's wife. 

I heard somethings about her and how she has literally offended an upwards of 25 people in the ward. I don't know about you, but I feel like that is an amount of people you have to try to offend. That doesn't just happen. If it does, you are an insanely cantankerous person. A woman after my own heart. So, after 3 months of serving for in this ward, I grow a knot in my heart that I can't undo by myself. I find that this knot is forming whenever the Bishop's wife is talking. About anything. This woman could be talking about my most favorite thing, and I would find myself hating it. "Oh! I just love Saltine Crackers!" ,she would say gleefully as if she had just found a cure for cancer. And I would find myself think, "I bet you do, you cantankerous wench. I hope your blood pressure sky rockets." Then one morning I'm sleeping through my personal study (studying Lehi's dream, if you will) and "pondering" about the word charity. Then it occurs to me: the Lord was listening in on my on my interview with President! That is sooooooo like Him! He would listen in on my interview. This woman has found ways to piss me off about things I didn't even know I could be pissed about. Missions are funny that way. They put you in contact with people that you have no control over, and the solace that you can take from it is that if you want, you will never have to talk to that person ever again. I just hope that someone like her isn't my mother in-law. A couple nights ago she had the audacity to say, "If a family falls apart, I will guarantee that it's because the mother has given up." I mentally checked out at that point. It's like when you're playing a video game and you get a score so high it flips back to zero. My brain just shut down. And I'm here to tell you that if you close your eyes, it's really not that bad.
Yours truly,
Cody

Editors note: This is Cody, this is who he is, take it with a grain of salt. We all have those people in our lives that we wouldn't mind pushing down the stairs like a slinky!