Valentine's Day Invitation of Days Past

In my old congregation, the one full of single people, my job was to help Devin Mackay put together fun and enlightening activities, while encouraging people to mingle and kiss and stuff. (heehee.) The following is a particularly good mass e-mail I penned, inviting everyone to come to a Dating Seminar, hosted by Devin and myself. Oh, the cleverness of me!
Pop Quiz, Hotshot.

You're on a date with a lovely lass and a crocodile attacks you, making you look like a fool by forcing you into a wrestling match and completely alienating your date, because you can't give her your undivided attention and you can tell she's getting annoyed...

Or

You're with a really swell fella and, when he goes to put his arm around you, you get struck by a falling airplane part and then he acts all rejected and hurt because you don't want his protective arm around your bruised, bleeding waist...

What do you do?

You don't have to answer right away.
Those sound like bad dates, huh? Pretty silly, right? Funnily enough, the worst case dating scenarios are anything but. It's a good thing, too, because it's awfully hard for most of us to deal with the non-life-threatening challenges gracefully, let alone the near-death experiences.

You may not have to ingest rattlesnake poison from your dates punctured heel, or even save her from drowning in sand in the desert, but chances are you'll have to deal with such things as "the kiss of death," or the "DTR."

Well, that's where we come in. As the Activities Committee and Co-chairs, your dating life is important to us. Okay, okay. You're important to Heavenly Father, and our jobs are important to us. Therefore...you are important to us. That is why we want to share our hard-earned dating wisdom with you! Believe us when we say that dating is essentially difficult fun. Oxymoronic, isn't it? That's what we're all about!

This year, our February Activity is going to be fun, fabulous and very beneficial.
We're going to take you through some Worst-case Dating Scenarios, step-by-step, and even show you some tricks such as:
How to make sure she says "yes" when you ask her out...
and
How to make sure he never asks you out again...
and
How to tear down her emotional walls with three easy steps...
and
How to lead a person on...
and
How to date her roommate to get to her...!

We hope you'll become an integral part of our seminar...and dinner!

Open the evening of February 17th for the Charlottesville Third Ward's Third Annual Valentine's Day Party.

Because, honestly, it's time we talked.

Love,
The Activities Committee/ bonny


HERE IS ANOTHER ONE. This time, for the annual Thanksgiving Football game, known as The Turkey Bowl:

What do you get when you cross 30 YSA's, 20 mesh jerseys, 6 blaze orange cones, 25 flags and, of course, Ye Olde Pigskin? A muddy, sweaty, exhausted body by 1 pm. It was always thus and always thus will be.

At 10 am on the 20th day of November of last year, our comrades gathered on the upper field of McIntyre Park to participate in America's Second Favorite Pastime- The Annual Turkey Bowl.The game began after a prayer (see D&C 10:5) and, consequently, nobody was seriously injured.

Highlights:
1. As Harrisonburg's MVP, Odie, scored a touchdown, his shirt was ripped from his person.
2. Chuck Michaux, in a moment of Machiavellian bravado, knotted his flag-belt around his waist. As a result of this superficially benign act of defense, at least two players were towed several yards as they tried to apprehend Brother Michaux's flag. When he was approached by this reporter about his blatant disregard for rules, Chuck made this official statement: "I could explain it to you, but it would confuse the heck out of you." Indeed.
After a lunch, preceded by James Mitchell's well-timed counsel on the benefits of recycling, we went our separate ways, adjourning the Bowl until this year, when there are plenty of new faces to crush into the turf. Until then, let us all adopt the motto of altruism, first spoken by that revered coach of yore, Vince Lombardi, when he said, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing."


AND ANOTHER:

So, David Sloan is having a party at my crib on Friday night at 7:30.

It will be an exclusive party, to which everyone on earth is invited. More like everyone in our ward...not quite as exclusive as I'd hoped... But, since Dave is in charge, you're all invited.
Wear black, in mourning of our collective lost childhood. Thanks, Sigmund. Our special guest speaker will be Dr. Leo Marvin and the 12 Russian people who live across the hall from us. Remember that we all need to act intellectual.This will be the last party at my house, because I'm getting ready to settle down.
Dave is bringing food. We'll have mood lighting, but if ANYONE kisses, I will personally beat said offender to a bleeding pulp. I don't know what white jazz is, but Dave wants it and, as you know, he is a spoiled brat and gets whatever music he wants. He's a good Institute President, huh?
We have matches, too. And cornstarch. We'll try again on that one. See you all tomorrow. Come in shifts. Our apartment is not huge. We'll be admitting people until about midnight, but people that I really like can stay later.

Happy Friday. Enjoy the reasonably unseasonably warm weather. Get some sleep. We're going to play games, too. Mind games. I like those a lot.