Baptisms and Traditions

I had four baptisms this week which was awesome, but to make these letters more interesting, I am going to tell a story rather that talk about the baptisms.

Here, it is a tradition with birthdays that after singing Happy Birthday and blowing out the candles, that the birthday boy/girl takes a bite out of the cake without the aid of forks or hands.  We were at a little-kid-just-had-a-birthday/little-girls-just-got-baptized party where this tradition was to take place with a 2 year old kid.  He did not understand the take the bite out of the cake part, however, so when it came time for him to do this, he just took bites of air near the cake, which was cute, but not what the people wanted.  He did this a few times, not understanding why people who probably normally told him to not put his face in food had suddenly decided to tell him the opposite.  In order to complete the tradition, he needed to put his face in the cake, so as he was going in for another fake bite, his dad - being the good father that he is - shoved his face in the cake.  This picture is about 10 seconds after that.

That´s all I´ve got for this week, so hope you enjoyed the story,

-Elder Casdorph

[A bonus post from the editor: this paragraph is from the letter Jack sent me this week in response to a story I told about teaching the three Nepali boys who are living with my parents how to play a card game, Hand and Foot.  I had explained my observations about the way each family member modifies the English language to help accommodate these boys.  Here is Jack's response.]

I think I know a bit how the Nepali´s feel now.  I get a lot of people yelling slowly at me (and sometimes I think, "It doesn´t matter how loudly or clearly you say it, I still don´t know what that word means"). Old people are the worst, they talk super quietly and with absolutely no enunciation, often due to their lack of teeth.  I also get a whole bunch of Kirks who talk normally and like to throw in the random phrases that they know in Portugese or even worse, Quetchewa (which I have no idea how to spell by the way).  Despite this, I am saying and understanding a ton more every day.

[If you receive any blog-worthy stories from Jack, please send them to Andrea to be immortalized on his blog.  I think he runs out of computer time very quickly and doesn't get to put all the stories in one place.]