Cami and Music

A few weeks ago I was facebook stalking and saw that my sister Cami posted some songs she wrote on a site called PureVolume. The songs she posted are some of my favorites. She did all the different instruments and harmonies. Though Cami's songs have a personal, sometimes spiritual aspect to them, they aren't overtly religious and have such pretty, acoustic, harmonies.

Track list (with my explanations):

Oranges in the Car--Cami spent a semester in Jerusalem a few years ago and she uses some of the experiences and things she saw to draw on and describe in the song. I really like the instrumental mix and the harmonies.

The Angel's Story--her most recently written song, she talks about what it might have been like to be an angel at the birth of Jesus. I loved this song so much when she sang it for me at Christmas. I may or my not have shed some tears...

Sheep-- this song is written in 5/4 time and she was so excited to have figured it out. Its played on her ukulele. She sings about a black sheep and how its still part of the herd even if it is different.

Finland-- before going on her mission to Finland I flew to Oregon to spend the weekend with them. On the way to the airport Cami pulls a cd out and says, "I just recorded this song! Want to hear it?" The song describes what she thinks Finland might be like and some of her concerns with moving there but also how she knows it will be "home away from home".

Go over to the site: Camille Richey on PureVolume. I'm so proud of her and wish I was as talented.

What I wish for right now

1. That it was Saturday and I wasn't at work.

2. That I had peanut butter to go with my apple. (Preferably the delicious honey roasted peanut butter that gets made in to peanut butter right before your eyes at Whole Foods.)

3. That I was in Eugene with my family because CAMI GOT HOME LAST NIGHT FROM FINLAND!!

Missionary Update

I had a fantastic snow day, thanks for asking. No, I didn't go play in the snow. I didn't even leave the house. Ha! I love having an excuse to stay inside. Although, it would have been fun to leave, I just couldn't bring myself to put on snow clothes.

Aside from it being the week of Christmas and I have to work, I get to talk to Jess and Cami! Yay!

Jess is currently in Sibu/Mukah East Malaysia.

We went to Mukah again this past weekend, and I have to say, those 2 days were probably 2 of the best days of my entire mission. The bus on the way was pretty good, actually managed to sleep on it. When we got there, we checked into the hotel, ate, then went straight out to the long house, and it was pretty crazy. We finished teaching the 10 commandments and the Baptism Interview Questions in about 30 minutes, then the got their baptism clothes on and had their interviews WHILE already dressed in white (never had that happen before), but the family passed (a mother, father and daughter), and then we had a parade of people walk out of the long house down the street towards the ocean. Their long house is right on the beach, but there's a river that runs right by it and feeds into the ocean. So we had the baptisms right there, and we all gathered in a circle next to the water. their clothes were so white they literally looked like angels on the sand, so beautiful. And we took pictures (which I'll send later), then just had a prayer together, Elder Spanos said some words, and we proceeded to have the baptism. It was the most beautiful setting, and by far the most spiritual baptism I've had on my mission, despite the fact that the water was SUPEr muddy haha. When they came out and dried off, we all stood there, and I just felt like we needed to sing a song, so me and Sister Clark sang Familes Can be Together Forever and I am a Child of God as everyone just stood there so quietly and listening and the waves were rolling in the background. Elder Spanos bore testimony and welcomed them, then asked if they had any words to say. The mom, Bunsi, all the sudden put her face in her towel and just started crying because she was so happy for her family. The first baptisms in Mukah EVER. Oh, it was so wonderful, and then we all walked back along the beach to the long house. So good!

Unfortunately the bus ride back after that was pretty bad again—maybe the worst, I'm not kidding. We were in the back seats, right on top of the wheels, so we were literally FLYING out of our seats, I felt like I was being tossed like a rag doll, and at one point I almost got thrown out of my seat and had to grab onto Sister Clark's skirt. Then one time I got tossed practically on top of her. Ridiculous! But we just cracked up every time anyway, because it's kind of hilarious.

Cami is currently in Helsinki Finland

The other teach was with Milla. We brought Minna along, and it was good. The actual teach wasn't that great. I find that my Finnish is a lot worse when a member is there because I don't NEED to speak really well. It’s kind of weird. Anyway, we taught about the word of wisdom. She doesn't have any problems. Let me say that again, she doesn't have any problems with the word of wisdom. Incredible. Then her and Minna talked for about an hour afterwards about different stuff, Minna's conversion story (she went to the temple open house. That's how she got introduced to the church.), they laughed and I kind of sat there trying to hold onto the words I knew and laughing even when I had no idea what they were saying. Haha! And they knew I didn't understand too. Cool. Anyway, after that Milla was driving us home and she had a HUGE stuffed bear in the back that she bought in Estonia. I was like cuddling with it in the back. It was funny. Then no one knew how to get to our house because I only know on the trains, and it was rush hour (which isn't even that bad compared to rush hour in America, goodness), and they were like screaming in the front and laughing. Milla was hilarious. Actually we went to the elders' apartment to drop off a package I picked up at the office (where we had our teach) and then we, the elders, Milla, and Minna all sat and ate candy (that was what was in the package for Heelis, of course) for a while. It was really fun. Yep. Really fun. We’re going to look at the temple with Milla on Saturday. She’s driving. Minna’s coming, so we'll have a little temple lesson. Kind of cool, huh? She wants to get baptized, but the whole law of chastity thing is a problem. She doesn't want to hurt her boyfriend by moving out, but she says that once they're married, she's going to get baptized. Does it work like that?

So, I like my sisters, and can't WAIT to talk to them this week! Hopefully everything will go according to plan and I won't get stranded somewhere due to bad weather! Cross you fingers!

Missionaries!

I said I was going to give updates of “my missionaries” I forgot until today. I need to do something to keep my mind off my ensuing bad grade in Calligraphy. I’m going to get a B in Calligraphy I know it. How ridiculous is that? Very I think. And now I only have one more real final and a few bookbinding projects to do! Hooray! And I have four days to do it! Double hooray! Usually I’m doing this the night before! I suppose I should feel grateful then that my hardest finals were yesterday and today. They weren’t even that hard because it wasn’t like I was trying to salvage a grade or bring up a B+ to an A- by doing well. I’ll just do my thing and be happy with my B+ or B or B-. It’s not like I’m trying to get into Medical School or something. Nope, they will still give me a diploma even if I get a B in Impressionism and the Arts or in Southern Baroque Art or in Calligraphy for that matter (I just thought my countless hours in front of the TV practicing my letters would at least get me an A- no matter how bad my letter slope is). Ok! Back to the missionaries!

JESS has been transferred to Kuala Lumpur which is the capital of Malaysia. But she had a really dramatic experience in Miri last week. Here it is:

The biggest news of the week is concerning our most recent convert, Langu. We went to her house on Saturday night because we're starting to teach her 10 year old daughter who is so cute and loves church. it was a random stop in, because another appointment fell through. Well, we walk up to her ghetto house, her creepy husband is sitting by the door smoking and drinking and we ask if Langu is home and we look back, and she's sitting in the back room by candlelight just crying. So we go in and find out that they had a big fight about him drinking and she hates it that he's always drinking. So then both of us tried to have a go at him, try to get him to realize that his wife is good and beautiful and all this stuff. She said he threatened to kill her and all this stuff. He was just drunk though and everything we said he didn't care about it, and I was SO MAD at him, I had to hold myself back from just like yelling his head off. Eventually we just had to leave though even though we didn't want to, so we said a prayer with her and she ended up smiling when we left.

We found out Langu's husband had hit her after we left the night before, and we knew she didn't want to go home. So we told the RS president, then talked the branch president and tried to figure out what to do. Basically, we ended up taking her home to pack up all of her stuff and get her last kid. Elder Dean drove us over there with her. We walked into the kampung, her husband came out and started making ridiculous comments to us, and then their neighbor, this totally independent Iban woman came out and started yelling at him to get away from us. So he slunk back inside to drink more. Then Langu just packed up all her stuff, Sister Clark stood guarding the door so he couldn't get in. Once he found out that his wife was walking out on him, he came out and started asking her for all of her money, and Langu went ballistic. She started hitting the door and yelling at him in Iban, like, "I don't have any money! You have it all!" I asked her neighbor what goes on, and she said every single night they fight, he hits her, sometimes doesn’t let her eat, throws the kids around, spends all the money on alcohol and cigarettes, etc. I just couldn't even believe it. Here we didn’t' even know, because she won't ever talk, but all we knew was that she liked church, and kept coming and liked us and had the biggest smile when we came over. So before we knew it, every single woman in the kampung was sticking their heads through the windows and doors yelling at him to get away, telling us that the "orang putihs" (white people) where coming to take her away from her evil husband. It was the craziest thing. So we left with her 3 kids, her stuff in probably only like 4 little bags, and got into the Deans car and drove her away.”

CAMI has now been in the MTC for a month. Here’s what she has to say,

“It has been 3 weeks, and I still can hardly say anything in Finnish. ha ha. Ridiculous language. There’s a new sister from Finland who just came in last night and she's going to Croatia, and she looked at all the charts in our room and was like "I don't know how to read those, and I have no idea what they mean." English just doesn't translate to Finnish very well, but it's fun when we get the sentences completely right, which hardly ever happens. We watched "the testaments" in Finnish on Friday with English subtitles, and it sounds really cool. Like there's a lot of "l's" and "k's" and rolled "r's" and they say they're vowel sounds kind of in the back of the throat. It’s just cool. I’m excited to be able to really speak it. Right now it's fun to try and pronounce everything correctly. Oh, by the way, all of the eastern Europe country missionaries like hate the Spanish-speaking missionaries because they always walk by us and are like "holla, hermanas" and then they start trying to say sentences in Spanish that end up being like "voy a cafeteria" and we're like "hm, wonder what that means." ridiculous. Basically we're all like if I went Spanish-speaking, I would only have to be in the MTC for like a week it's so easy. And the mama Finns get offended when they're called "hermanas." (I remember feeling the exact same way. But people are needed to serve everywhere, and thanks to the Tower of Babel we have lots of languages to learn. Some easier than others.)

Last day with Cami

Cami went into the MTC today. I could hardly handle being in the little orientation meeting with all the crying moms around. I couldn't hold it in. But there is always something about when Cami cries that makes it hard to stay emotionally in control. But we had a really good morning before we took her.

Cutie Cami

Cami's 21st birthday was Thursday. I remember when I turned 21 I was just turning in my mission papers and wondering where I was going to get called to. I didn't have a party because I have a summer birthday and I never get one. I was working at the Dermatology Clinic of Springfield trying to save up money that I desperately needed after having completely depleted my bank account after four months in Vienna, a semester of school and a month in England where I knew that one pound was more like $2 but I still had a hard time with the calculations. (I almost bought a really cute pair of shoes that were totally on sale for 25 pounds but I had to remind myself that that was $50 and they weren't worth $50.) But my insane money spending problems are not the purpose of this post. This is a post for Cami. She's in town this weekend to visit for her birthday and before she leaves for Finland next month (well, just the MTC really). But I like Cami. Actually, I love Cami. She does her own thing. She's really goofy and doesn't care if she looks retarded in a picture or doing something weird. Examples:

But she's also so beautiful. When she was a baby her nickname was Pret which was short for Pretty. I know, my nickname for a while there was Different. Jess's nickname was Special. And Emma's was Toot and Rachel's was Chub. How did Cami get the best nickname? Luckily my nickname didn't stick. But anyway, back to pretty Cami:

Not only is Cami pretty but she's good at lots of different things. She's talented athletically (she was our QB) and she's so talented musically. She's really good at playing and writing music and she's smart.

Cami does her own thing and I admire her so much for doing what she wants and being her own person. She went to Jerusalem last year at when I went I looked to her for a lot of advice on the best things to do, where to shop, what and where to eat.

Cami is fabulous. She is a wonderful example to me of staying calm in the heat of emotion and is able to focus intently on what she wants and what she's doing. I am proud of her for going on a mission and I'm glad she's in town for her birthday weekend.

What the Hel-sinki!

After Cami's day from Hell, she opened her mission call in my apartment. She had told us about a dream she had about going to Finland on her mission, and well, her dreams came true, she's reporting March 18th to the MTC! Yay!

She pulled the envelope contents out but the mission call wasn't in there! (I saw an application for a passport and knew she was going foreign.) Lacy found the call still in the envelope.

Emma's face is great! She's holding the phone for my family in Oregon.