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A few days ago we saw a lighted traffic sign in town that said “El Grito – Bucklin Park – Sat 6pm”. We weren’t sure exactly what that meant, but upon returning home I looked it up. It turns out El Grito is short for El Grito de Dolores, the Cry of Dolores. That’s the event on September 16, 1810, when a Catholic priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang the bell at his church and gathered his congregation to start the movement that led to Mexico’s independence from Spain.

In short, El Grito is to Mexico what July Fourth is to America. Since we live in a city that’s over 80% Mexican, it didn’t surprise us that there was a big city-wide celebration this weekend.

The weather was a refreshingly cool 95 degrees, so we headed out. It’s about a mile from our apartment to Bucklin Park, and it felt like walking weather.

The park is quite large, and it was filled with thousands of people and dozens of booths. You could buy tons of Mexican flags and hats, any kind of taco you could imagine, and about five different varieties of snow-cone or shave-ice. There was definitely a fun carnival atmosphere.

When we arrived there were flamenco dancers doing their thing onstage:

Later, they were replaced by a mariachi band.

We enjoyed walking around and feeling the same sort of excitement from the crowd that you’d find at a Fourth of July carnival. Happy Independence Day, Mexico! Or, as they say, Viva Mexico!

It was back in October 2012 that I had my first In-N-Out burger. Thom and I were on a trip, and he insisted we go. He loves In-N-Out, and since there weren’t any near his home at the time, he wanted to take the opportunity when we were in southern Utah. Although my memory probably isn’t fully intact, I feel like he made many comments during our week together about how amazing that burger was going to be. He built it up to the point where it sounded like I’d have a religious experience as I bit into my five-dollar bun and beef.

Sadly, it wasn’t so. The burger could only be described as mediocre. I’d been betrayed. I’d been let down. Let down in a soul-crushing way that made me wary of In-N-Out for years.

In later years I’ve returned to In-N-Out a handful of times, always at the insistence of others. I’ve tended to shy away from it, knowing in my heart that it just doesn’t measure up to what Thom had made it out to be.

As it happens, we live two blocks from an In-N-Out, and it’s always busy. Shortly after moving here, I snapped a photo as I drove past, just to send it to Thom. It was around nine at night, and the drive-through line literally snaked around the restaurant, through the parking lot, and into the street. An entire traffic lane was blocked by people waiting for their mediocre burgers! And it’s that way every night.

That many people can’t be wrong, I guess, so today Pepper and I finally relented.

It’s still mediocre. But it’s cheap (in a time when even fast food is becoming frighteningly expensive) and for the price, it’s actually pretty good. So yeah, maybe we’ll come back a few more times while we live here.

If nothing else, I’ll do it for Thom.

We coordinate and lead a small scripture study class for young adults, and although we’re technically the teachers, lately we’ve invited the students to each teach a small part of our lesson that week. It’s worked surprisingly well, and it feels like they really enjoy an opportunity to study and prepare a five- or ten-minute presentation on what they’ve learned.

Today one of the women talked about faith, and she mentioned what Jesus taught:

Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

Matthew 17:20

As a fun demonstration, she brought a jar of… mustard seeds! (She loves to cook, and apparently she uses them in some of her recipes.) Right beside the pen on the table you can see a single seed:

I love object lessons: they’re a good way to focus everyone’s attention in a class, and really add depth to the message. It was great to see an actual mustard seed while we talked about faith!

In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal.

Seneca

I’ve been thinking about how to decorate our little apartment, and my first experiment in printing a poster-size photo and framing it failed pretty spectacularly. The print was far more expensive than it should’ve been, and the frame I bought at a thrift store (much cheaper than a custom-cut frame from Michael’s or wherever) ended up breaking. In the end, we have a wrinkled, sad-looking little print hanging on a dark wall.

I realized that standard 4×6″ photo prints at Walmart are really cheap, and can cover a lot of wall space. Instead of large prints and frames, why not have a hundred– or hundreds– of little prints stuck to the wall?

Bam.

There are about seventy photos from the first quarter of our missionary adventures. Pepper pointed out that I’ve already used about half of the wall space in the living room, but I figure I’ll just wrap around to the other walls later.

For now, it’s fun to see reminders of the awesome people we’ve met and things we’ve done on our mission as we’re heading out the door or sitting on the couch. More to come!

Back in Bigfork, there’s a legendary restaurant called Burger Town. If the sign is to be believed, it’s been around for almost fifty years, and is a fixture in the town. Everyone’s been there. And although the burgers aren’t stellar, it’s a really fun location and a great place to enjoy a summer evening (they’re only open in the summer months).

Yesterday we found its twin in San Diego!

There’s no relation between the two (other than the name) but it was a nice reminder of home. And the burgers were pretty good too.

When our kids were serving missions, we loved getting unexpected texts from people who’d met them and shared a photo with us. It was good to know they were working hard and meeting good people. We were always grateful to those strangers who took a moment to send us a text about our kids.

So, as we meet and work with the amazing missionaries out here, I’ve been making a habit of taking pictures with them and texting their moms. We added a few more recently:

It’s fun to get the responses from moms who are thrilled to hear about their kids. My goal is to text all the moms of the missionaries we serve with. 100% so far…

Don’t say “I didn’t have time for that.” Instead, say “That wasn’t a priority for me.”

Jeff Burt

We always make time to do the things that are priorities for us. If we can’t make the time, then it must not be important enough.

Reframing a task like that can help us reflect on how important it really is. And if, when we claim it wasn’t a priority, it sits well with us, then we can be satisfied with not doing that thing.

Living in Colorado for decades fed my soul. I love the mountains.

Then, moving to Montana fed my soul in a different way. I found that I also love lakes. (And mountains!)

Now, living in California is feeding my soul as we head out to San Diego at times. I’m finding that I love the ocean.

Our mission leader, President Merritt, enjoys baseball.

As a reward for all the missionaries’ hard work, and as a way to get everyone together for a fun evening, he bought tickets for the Padres game. All two hundred missionaries– young and old– were given seats in the right field upper deck. Since we were all wearing our proselyting clothes (“pross”), it was pretty cool to see an entire section filled with white shirts and ties, skirts and dresses.

Many of the women had never been to a baseball game before; in fact, the two sitting behind us didn’t even know the rules. It’s probably safe to say the men were much more excited. Here’s President Merritt surrounded by a bunch of pumped-up missionaries:

Here we are, a few rows back with our friends the Knudsens:

Margie decided she should open her mouth like me in photos, because it always looks like I’m having so much fun. It seems like maybe she needs more practice, though.

It was a ton of fun. Our section went crazy when several of the missionaries were featured on the big screen. Notice President Merritt in the lower right:

The Padres were playing the Tigers, and in the first couple of innings the home team went up 3-0. The middle of the game was a fairly mundane three-up-and-three-down slog, and then we hit the top of the ninth. Detroit, with two outs and still down by three, poked a single up the middle. The Padres brought in a relief pitcher– the third of the game, if I remember correctly– and judging by his stats, we figured the game was over. We prepared to leave.

He walked the first batter he faced.

Then he walked the bases full on the next batter. Unbelievable.

After a few pitches, it was a 3-2 count. Two outs. The very last pitch of the game. Or… was it?

Grand slam.

The Tigers’ batter smashed a home run to deep left field, clearing the bases and putting Detroit on top 4-3. The Padres had their final inning but all three batters came up and then sat down. Game over.

There was a lot of grousing about how the Padres had blown it, but since I didn’t really care who won or lost, I kept telling everyone, “That Tigers batter just had the night of his life. A two-out full-count grand slam to win the game? That’s the stuff Major League Baseball players dream of. His mom must be very proud.”

So yeah, that was cool. And it was super cool to hang out with such fine men and women, even if I had to be in a shirt and tie.