Mormon Church in Provo!

The miser made me get up early again. Brian's going to Las Vegas for a video game conference and I got to take him, Eric and Keith to the airport. One good thing that came of the mini-trip was that I realized that I love waking up early on Sunday mornings and listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It reminds me of growing up.

When I got home, I woke up Russell (with Mexican music of course) and he took a shower. We had to leave by 9:30am to make it to the church meeting where he was going to speak.

I wore jeans to a Mormon meeting even though I know Mormon's don't wear jeans to their meetings. I feel badly because I don't wear jeans at my church because I think it's disrespectful, but I wore them to the Mormon's meeting. Is that subconscious bigotry? I wore jeans because I wanted to be comfortable. I rationalized my action by saying that I've worn enough suits and ties on Sundays to be able to wear jeans to a Mormon sacrament meeting.

During communion (or sacrament as Mormon's call it), I noticed that Russell didn't take it. (Mormon's don't take the sacrament when they feel they've committed a sin). At first, it shocked me because he was sitting in the front where everyone was looking at him. If it were me, I would have taken it for the sake of appearances. After I thought about it for awhile, I realized how amazing Russell is. Him not taking the sacrament in front of 300 people speaks to his integrity and his careless attitude about how people view him. I wish I could have that quality.

Russell's talk really impressed me. He has an engaging speaking style and made people laugh multiple times. He really made me laugh when he said, "I love all my brothers equally, even Benjamin who is adopted." Russell was lying (or "telling stories" as he calls it). Ben isn't adopted, but it made for a compelling and interesting talk.

By the way, I was really disappointed in the quality of men in Russell's ward. Usually, BYU has really hot guys with good Mormon stock. Russell's ward had one cute guy... at least it's Russell's roommate. ;)