Our relationship began like any other. We checked each other out in passing, occasionally pausing to wave or say "hi". It sort of evolved from there. Each of us courting each other in the way that strangers do. Slowly, we became more comfortable with the notion of the people living on the other side of our walls. I'm talking about our neighbors. They seem nice. Young. 3 kids. Mormon.
We had our suspicions when they put a Mitt Romney sign in their front yard. We thought, "hmm...young, lots of kids, supporting a Mormon candidate...most likely Mormon. We were right. As our daily hellos became a little more extended we all thought, ok, well, that's nice. Then our neighbor asked one of the roommates about the people in our house. We may or may not have more people than are legally allowed. At any rate, we all decided to be a little more guarded - ok to be fair- I decided to be a little more guarded. Everyone else thought it was fine.
Then it happened. One day the door bell rang. I went down to answer it and there was the male half of the neighbor couple. He asked if we weren't doing anything for Easter dinner if we would like to come over to their house. I said lamely, "Uh, I'll check with everyone and let you know." Generally Zach and I have an Easter tradition of a picnic type day. I make a bunch of things and we pick at them all day. But we didn't want to alienate the neighbors and risk some sort of recourse, so we all decided we needed to go over there for Easter.
On Saturday Zach and I ended up doing our regular picnic fair. The menu included Black Bean Salad, Southwestern coleslaw, Hummus and veggies (made by Zach), deviled eggs, pizza made from scratch, and fruit dipped into melted chocolate. It was pretty darn delicious.
On Sunday we went over to the neighbors. The Germans (roommate and her visiting boyfriend) Zach and I showed up with some little gifts for the kids and some Chocolate Mousse. It was nice. Pretty fun. There were missionaries present as well. Everything was pretty nice. Not even that awkward. Then at the end of dinner we were treated to a passage from the Bible and one from the Book of Mormon. That's fine. A little much for the first time meeting people, but what are you gonna do? I've had Mormon friends over the years. They are always very nice people. There's just a little something strange about people who are all about the conversion of others to their beliefs. I'm really more of a "live and let live" kind of gal. Sure I may be judging you and judging you harshly. Yeah, you can pretty much bet that I am doing that. But at the end of the day, I'm all about you doing whatever you want to do and going on your way. That's cool. Don't try to change me and I'll extend the same courtesy to you.
I have always been fascinated by converts and the people that loathe them. It seems like there are many issues which people feel really strongly about. Vegetarians or Vegans vs. Carnivores for one. I don't know how many times I have witnessed or heard about a carnivore berating and trying to change the mind of vegetarian. "What? Why don't you eat meat? That's so stupid...blah, blah. Natural order, blah blah. King of the food chain." It's just bizarre. What the hell do you care? How can you meet someone at a party and instantly decide that you must change their lifestyle? It's insanity. But it happens with a lot of things I suppose. And then there are the people that have made a change and now want everyone else to join the bandwagon. Just live your own life dude, it's all cool.
Anyway, that's how Easter went. I don't have any pictures. I should just start drawing pictures of the things I am describing. That would be pretty awesome.
Also...I'm running some participants in my experiment and I had another one show up with mouth herpes. Oh man, now I have to throw out the pen s/he used and sterilize the computer and button box. I'm pretty much a zealot on the issue of mouth herpes, but I'm not trying to convert anyone. You have mouth herpes, fine by me. Just don't aim them in my general direction and we're cool.
1 comment:
you really sucked me in with the "how mormons celebrate easter" title and then i only got 3 sentenances in the middle paragraph covering the time you and zach arrived at the dinner to the reading from the book of mormon. its like soft core porn (despite the fact that there was a time when i was big fan of soft core porn). anyway, i think you should expand those 3 sentences into an edge-of-your-seat-expose (e with accent mark). even if you have to make most of it up. no one will know and you`ll make an american abroad happy.
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