Best. Date. Ever. ?

Alright guys, I'm way behind and I've got LOTS of catching up to do. Sorry about that.

So once upon a time I lived in Heritage Halls. Great place for freshman! Occasionally we get some returned missionaries living there. Some of them are ok to ask freshman girls on dates. Some of them stray away. But mostly...sometimes returned missionaries aren't used to dating girls.

So one Sunday evening (like two days after the blind date I went on) I got a knock on my door. It was a boy! It was one of the RM's living in Heritage wanting to take me on a date. To the MTC. :) We planned to make a lil visit to the TRC to pretend to be investigators. He looked at the schedule and we planned to go on Friday. Awesome. I had never been to the TRC. I thought it was kind of an interesting idea for a first date, but I thought it would be cool.

So Friday rolls around, he shows up at my door. We walked to the MTC together and checked in at the front desk. I saw someone from my ward back home, which was pretty cool. I talked to him for a wee bit, then I went with my date to the building for TRC fun. When we got there, they told us they didn't have any English-speaking missionaries signed up for that time. Oops. They told us we could do it in Spanish. I don't speak any Spanish...like at all. He served in Brazil, so he could speak Portuguese...so we decided to just go for it and have a little Spanish lesson with the missionaries. So for the next half hour while I waited, I tried to learn as much Spanish as I could while trying to make conversation with my date.

After about a half hour, they asked us to go in the room, and the missionaries came and knocked on our door. They started talking to us in Spanish (they were pretty new, so their Spanish was still pretty rough). My date talked to them, and because their Spanish was pretty basic it wasn't too hard to communicate. I just mostly smiled and nodded and tried to understand what they were saying. When we got to the lesson they were able to teach in English, so everything was fine there. We were supposed to be Buddhists or something according to our paper. But after the first lesson, the guy in charge came in and told us we were not actually supposed to pretend to be Buddhists...I guess we looked at the wrong side of the paper. :) The rest of the lesson went pretty well, I suppose. It was cool to be in the MTC and see how the missionaries learn and stuff. It made my desire to serve a mission even stronger. :)

So after the MTC, we started walking back to Heritage. The whole time he was telling stories from his mission and asking me if I had any mission stories. I've never actually been on a mission, so I didn't have a lot to say or connect with. Mission stories are really cool...but I didn't really know him and I didn't have anything to connect with. So I guess I felt a little awkward. On the way back home, he asked me if I wanted to go to the Creamery. I work there. And go there on most dates...so of course I said yes. Because I like ice cream.

It was pretty crowded at the Creamery, so we had a good line to wait in. So guess what we did in line. Told more mission stories! Or...I guess mostly I listened to him tell mission stories. :) We got our ice cream, then he said "Hmmm...it's kind of crowded in here. Do you want to go back to your place?" And I thought to myself, "Nope, someone left their dirty dishes out all over the counter." So...we just went back to the lobby of Wells Hall. After eating ice cream for a while, he said, "Wait, you play the piano, right?" And I thought to myself, "I haven't practiced for like half a year." So...we ended up going to the basement and he had me play the piano. After like a slaughtered song and a half he said, "Do you play hymns?" and I thought to myself, "Yes, I do play hymns. But this has already been kind of a weird date." So...we ended up playing hymns together. He played the right hand and I played the left.

That went on for a while. Then my friend that set me up on a blind date the previous week came down the stairs. He saw me and said, "Hey Ginelle! So what did you think of (name of his friend I went on a blind date with)?!" And I thought to myself, "I'm on a date right now...I probably shouldn't be talking about other dates. I feel awkward again." So...I said, " He was really nice and he seemed pretty cool. Why?" And he said, " He was basically infatuated with you. He kept talking about you like all night." This made me laugh a lot. My date was just like..."Yeah...awesome....cool." So when he left we kept playing hymns for a wee bit. Then he said, "Oh! I have a video I just loaded on my phone I want you to watch." And I thought to myself, "Cool." And he showed me a seminary video of all the Stakes the have been organized around the world throughout the course of the time. It was a good video, but it really had nothing to do with what we were doing or talking about. Except...well, I guess missionary work. Which is pretty much all we were talking about. Then when the movie was over, he said, "Hey, do you want to see my mission pictures?" And I thought to myself, "uhhhhhhhhhhhh..." So of course we looked through all his mission pictures and he told me the stories behind all of them.

After we went through all his mission pictures, he looked at the time and said "Well, we should probably go. I've got some homework to do." And I thought to myself, "yep." So he walked my up the stairs to the door of my apartment, shook my hand, and walked away. And I went inside and told my roommates about my date.

It was just funny how "BYU" this date was. My date is a really good guy. He was still adjusting to getting back from his mission. I can tell he loved serving his mission, and he had a lot of cool experiences. He wasn't telling me his mission stories because he wanted to "impress me with his spirit" or anything. He just really enjoyed the work, and it was something he loved to share with others. I really do like mission stories, and I love missionary work! I plan to serve a mission someday. I just felt a little weird on the date, because I felt like I didn't have much to contribute to the conversation. And it was very missionary-oriented, to an extreme. Which is why I'm glad we're counseled to have "moderation in all things." Except sin.

That is all.