Happy Easter!

If I did my quick mental math correctly, it was 105 days ago that was Christmas night, and I was doing my Sunday blogging, and it just so happened that my weekly events had a lot to do with Christmas--a ward Christmas party, a work Christmas party, getting a four-day weekend due to Christmas, having my car not start when I finished my Christmas shopping, Christmas Eve, and of course Christmas Day's events. Thus my entire blog had a Christmas theme.

This week was of course the week leading up to Easter. But oddly, the week's events don't really have anything to do with Easter. It baffles me that Christmas is so much bigger than Easter; theologically, Easter is more important. You might argue that Easter couldn't occur without Christmas, but Christmas wouldn't be important without Easter. The only reason that the angels appeared to the shepherds and that the wise men followed the star was because Easter was going to happen thirty-three years later.

I suppose the reason Christmas is a bigger holiday is precisely because Easter is more important. It is so important that we don't reserve it just to be observed at a particular time of year. The doctrine of the Resurrection is so important that we talk about it all year long. The Atonement is the most important thing ever to happen. I wonder where I would be without the Atonement of Jesus Christ--it's a scary thought.

I've established that Easter week isn't very Eastery. So what did I do?

On Monday, my roommate Bryton and I were walking over to nearby Kiwanis park for FHE. There was a man on the sidewalk who started talking to us. I assumed he must know Bryton, so I immediately went into "This is his conversation, not mine" mode, which is more comfortable anyway. But it was soon apparent Bryton didn't know this guy, who called himself B-Money. B-Money looked like he was in his thirties and even had graying hair. (Sometimes talking about hair is unavoidable...) He was very friendly--overly friendly for someone we didn't know and who looked a little old to be a BYU student. He was going to J-Dawgs. I couldn't hear part of the conversation, but apparently Bryton said that sometimes people call him B-Money too, since his name starts with a B. But B-Money said that Bryton wasn't really B-Money because he was. I can't remember too much else, except that he liked to do fancy handshake/fist bump stuff. It was really weird and random. After B-Money went to J-Dawgs and Bryton and I were out of his earshot, Bryton asked me if he was drunk. I was trying to figure out the same thing, because his behavior was so weird, but I didn't notice any slurred speech or staggered walking or smelly breath. It's rare to find drunks so close to campus.

On Tuesday morning I had a geology field trip to Rock Canyon. It was less informative than I had hoped, especially since for much of the trip I was far away from the TA and I couldn't hear. But it was still fun; we looked at a fault, the Bonneville shoreline, an unconformity over glacial deposits, an anticline (which I had a hard time seeing), and tilted strata. I learned that the hill by Rock Canyon and by the temple is an alluvial fan. I was glad that I was able to notice a rock on the ground and identify that it was quartzite. It made me think that since I live so close, I should go up there sometime just for fun and look at the geology. That afternoon I had an interview for an internship. I didn't get the internship--which is actually a bit of a relief because it will make spring and summer easier.

On Wednesday I got a five-dollar haircut (I had a coupon) across the street at Craig's Cuts. (There I go talking about hair again. I'm not sure what to think of the haircut.) Immediately after that was an Elders Quorum barbecue. I was wearing my Eddie Munster t-shirt; several people commented and someone told me he loved my style, since he had also noticed one of the Peanuts ties I wore to church. Never would I expect someone to like my style; it's generally ridiculous.

On Thursday we were having a test review for geology. We showed up to class and our professor wasn't there. Usually if a professor doesn't show up, you leave after ten or fifteen minutes. But this was one class we actually wanted to have since it was a test review. I volunteered to go find the professor. I thought his office would be in the geology offices. I was wrong, but they told me where it really was. I knocked on the door, and when he answered I asked if we were having a review. He was shocked and panicked; apparently he had turned his iPod's alarm off. He walked sheepishly into the classroom and kept making comments about how dumb he was. It was pretty funny.

On Friday I was able to go running for the only time this week (I was wanting to let my foot heal). I thought about Easter socks for most of the time and I was able to run a little over an hour. That night I watched It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown.

Yesterday I drove home in the morning. My parents had just gotten home from a trip to southern Utah. They took my niece Allie home with them. Allie is eight and still believes in the Easter Bunny; she was shocked that he had come already. (That Easter Bunny is so accommodating to us; he knows we prefer our candy on Saturday.) We made cookies (which was probably unwise since we had so much candy), dyed eggs, and watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail, the first Easter show I ever owned. I first saw it in kindergarten and was destined to like it; it's the one where Peter travels to all the different holidays to try to give away his eggs. I felt sick from eating so much candy.

Today we went to church. I don't make it to the Orchard 11th Ward very often anymore, especially since last fall (and on some subsequent visits) I usually went to the singles ward. For the first few months after I got home from my mission I was kind of a ward hero. It seemed like they asked me to say the prayer in Sunday School nearly every week. But now I've been gone for so long and so many other missionaries have returned that I'm not so much of a hero anymore. They did, however, ask me to say the opening prayer in Priesthood opening exercises.

This afternoon we went to dinner at my grandparents' house. It was pretty fun.

Tonight on my drive down to Provo I munched on my Easter candy--jelly beans, coconut Kisses, coconut M&M eggs, and those crispy Whopper eggs. All I had left when I got home was a Cadbury creme egg and two blue Peeps bunnies. I have a memory of being four or five years old, watching cartoons in our family room, and biting the ears off of the bunnies because it made them look like snowmen.

It was good I finished all my candy. It will all be out of season tomorrow. No candy will be in season until Memorial Day weekend, and even then it's hard to find patriotic candy. Tootsie actually does a pretty good job. They put Tootsie Rolls in American flag wrappers. They make red, white, and blue Tootsie Roll Pops that are flavored cherry, strawberry vanilla, and blueberry. They make two-tone patriotic Dots that are cherry and vanilla and blueberry and vanilla.

But I was talking about Easter, not the Fourth of July.

Most of you are probably reading this after Easter is over. I don't usually like putting stuff like this on my blog, but I saw this on Friday and laughed my head off. If you didn't see my post on Facebook, you need to see this. (In case you don't notice, it's a slideshow, not just a single picture.)


Happy Easter!