Traditions

While serving a mission in Chile, I lived with my companion and one other companionship in an area that was close to this grocery store that was the Chilean equivalent to Walmart, Jumbo (pronounced Yumbo). It was a superstore that had everything. It was outside of the mission, just barely, and we were allowed to shop there for our stuff. While cruising down the aisles, we came across the game Monopoly. I don't know why it seemed like fun, but we got it and brought it back to the pinch and to play with the other set of missionaries.

We didn't get to play it until the next prep day, but we were so excited to play we decided to start on P-day eve, Sunday after the day was done. We played that night until about 2 in the morning. Even though we went to bed way late, we still made a point to get up on time and study and as soon as we could start again, all day long, multiple games throughout the entire day. We had to stop in the middle of a game because we had to go out and work, but as soon as we came back we resumed playing.

We realized that our obsession with the game was becoming a problem when we finished studying in the morning on Tuesday, and while brushing our teeth, all four of us were standing around the board that we had left on the kitchen table, plotting our next move. From that point, we decided that it would only be played P-day eve when we got home from proselyting, once we gathered all the zone numbers, until no later than 12am. (My mission started an hour later and ended an hour later, which I LOVED. So instead of 630, we started at 730 and came home by 1030 at night. That was perfect for me at the time.)

You guys...you have NO IDEA how excited all of us were to come home and play Monopoly on Sundays. It became a thing where on our walk home, we almost started running back to the pinch to get everything setup to play. My comp would do our numbers for the week, the other junior companion would do his, the district leader would do his and get his district's numbers, I would call the other district leaders in my zone for their numbers, and the junior companion would set up the board while we were getting everything taken care of. I honestly can't think of any specific time in my life when I was so titilated by anything as I was by Monopoly. It was so ridiculous, but I loved it so much. We could blast through 3 games in about 2 hours. To this day it is always the board game that I want to play with people more than anything else in the whole world. But it has to be with people who are competitive and take it seriously. The worst is playing with someone who just folds quickly and dumps everything onto whomever it is that he wants to win.

Anyway, it's fun to have those kinds of traditions. Have any of you ever had anything that you ever looked forward to with all of the anticipation and excitement of your whole soul? That's literally what it felt like for us playing that silly game. Last Friday I think I found something else that will quickly become a similar kind of thrill - Boomer's Batting Cage Fridays.

I don't know what it is, but I just can't get enough of the feeling I get when I connect on a ball and send it flying through the cage, even if it only ends up hitting a net 50 feet away. I just love it more than anything. Last week I was crankin' on 50 mph fastballs to the delight of a group of 8-10 year olds. I had them ooh-ing and ahh-ing. It's just so much fun though, and it's perfect because I got the bat for Christmas from Dave (ahthankyou), and batting gloves, and it's on my way home from work. Now I'm looking at the clock not only because I'm tired of blogging all day long on the job, but because I can't wait to get out in the cage and crush some dimpled, rubber, yellow balls. That's what she said.