Ironwood Activity Days with Sarah, Bowling, Octapharma Plasma, and tough Emotional Problems

Sarah and I had our first activity days activity with the 7-9 year old boys in the Ironwood Ward. We finally decided to do a fingerprinting activity. We had six boys show up, including James Ferguson, Strider Farnsworth and father, Eli, and three more. It was cool to see the boys open up. Some of them, like the three I mentioned, were pretty open already, but two of the last three were really shy kids. We found out how many in our group had arches, whorls, and loops in their fingerprints.

Just yesterday I had my labs taken out. Meaning I had my blood taken for labs. When I got home. Sarah and I talked about starting donating plasma for money. We made the decision to go to the Octapharma Plasma Center, but they had had their systems go down, so they weren't taking any new patients. Which was a bust, at least until Saturday when they say that their systems will probably be back up again to take new patients. On our way in and way out there were some nurses promoting getting your plasma taken out with some prizes and some hotdogs. They gave us a hotdog, chips, and drinks, and there was like a wheel of fortune. Sarah had gone before me but I could tell that she hadn't won what she wanted to in her spin. I guessed that she had wanted to win some sunglasses but had instead won a cup. Well, I ascertained what the parameters of the spinning was, which was that it didn't have to go around all the way. I looked for the closest sunglasses section on the wheel, measured what my spin would had to be to get there, and crazily was able to get it to barely land on sunglasses. Sarah and I were so proud.

We then went on a drive, but Sarah told me that she had an idea of something that we can do, but was pretty aloof about it, and told me that we needed to get socks. Me thinking this was true, proceeded to want to go to Walmart to get a lot of socks, but instead we went to the dying business of the 99 Cent Store. Everything was on sale, so we walked around the whole store to see what was available. We got several different trinkets, including socks, and after talking to the cashier about a place that the cashier could look for a job, Sarah started driving the car. She told me to close my eyes for the duration of the trip.

I had no idea exactly where we were going, except that we needed Sarah to have socks on for the activity. She led me into a building where I could clearly hear bowling balls and pins crash and fall. She was taking me bowling. This was exciting because I had told Sarah a couple weeks earlier that it is one of my desires to be a more frequent bowler, which at this point, it had been a few years since last I had gone bowling. So we played a game. It was really fun. I got several spares, one where I knocked down all the pins on the second chance, so pretty much like a fake strike. I got a ending game score of 105, and Sarah got 55. While we were leaving the building, Sarah noticed that they were selling some bowling shoes and told me to try them on. They actually fit, so we bought them for $10. Pretty fun outing.

Sarah and I have not been doing good emotionally since last Thursday. The impetus that caused this negativity was the fact that I continually have a hard time with going to ASC on Thursdays, which is in direct contradiction to who I'm supposed to be as a musician and lover of choral music and leading a choir. After ASC last week I was in a worse mood. Friday was just not a very happy day, besides going to the temple. Sarah doesn't want me to have a hard time with this because it contradicts all the work that she put in for me to get a degree in college in this very field. I should be loving this and it honestly shouldn't be this difficult in emotion and feeling. But sometimes I cannot help feeling like I am a failure and an imposter with this whole ASC experience. This semester's experience started by me having to take less time at the Large Combined Rehearsals and I hadn't chosen a song to do personally and instead one was chosen for me. Which I didn't feel like I personally worked hard to get the choir comfortable with me conducting, so I rescinded my desire to do any of the music, and instead just lead the choir during rehearsals. This has not been my finest moment, but I am trying to be kinder to myself.

We've also been struggling to reach our financial goals, especially since it is my job to earn the money for us. It just hasn't been enough. So this has been a challenge on both of us that we had have to discuss at length and pray about, as well as ask for prayers. Sunday was especially challenging for both of us, because I did some unwarranted blaming of Sarah, and the rest of the day was not very great for us. We went to participate in the temple choir, but it was a really strained experience. Anyways, we're working to make things better for each of us and we prayerfully ask for things to get better, because we are on the cusp of great things to happen. We can just feel it.

We hired Meg Irvine to wash our dishes. She also cleaned our stove. It was definitely a godsend having her do that. We're working to get better, since then. I've started doing the podcast with Jacob again. We got two episodes under our belt since we started again. 5 episodes for the year 2024 so far.

We also went to Hitching Post Saloon because we wanted to get out of the house. They had a live band and we enjoyed dancing and Sprite.