A Disclaimer & A Dream

I'm not a blogger. I'm not! Now I know what you're saying, "But look! You're writing a blog! Therefore by definition you ARE a blogger." My response: "Next time I see you I'm gonna punch you in the neck!"

I tried once before to maintain a blog, and it failed miserably. Not only did no one have any interest in it at all so I was the only one reading it, but after about 3 days I, myself, lost interest and never wrote again.

I still have no interest in blogging, however, for quite some time I've had an interest in keeping a dream journal, but what fun are dreams if you don't share them (at least the non-inappropriate ones)? Well in the last few days several friends of mine have created blogs, and going on the assumption that since they're currently "into" the blog scene that if I link them to my blog they'll actually read it, I'm giving this whole blog-thing another try.

So without further ado, here's last night's dream:

* * * June 12-13, 2007 ***

I was at church with my parents in the building they used to attend, and there was a young man having an extremely difficult time blessing the sacrament. In his first attempt or two he mis-spoke just one or two words, but as he went on he got more and more flustered until he started just throwing in his own words and entirely new phrases. At one point I think his version of the sacrament prayer started out like so: "Our Heavenly Father, thank you for this day...".

At about this point a member of the bishopric went over to help him, but the young man was such a mess by now that he really was beyond help. Apparently thinking that the bishopric member was going to say the words of the prayer into his ear for him to then repeat, just as a young child gives a prayer with their parent supplying the words, his next attempt (unintentially with the bishopric member's help) was delivered straight into the microphone as, "Just the words on the card. No improvisation." At this, much of the congregation let out an audible (although unintentional, I think) laugh.

Finally, coming to the struggling youth's aid, a Polynesian man in his mid-twenties approached the front of the chapel and blessed it himself. Imagine my surprise, however, when I realized he was blessing it in ilonggo - the primarly language spoken in my mission! The problem was, that his polynesian accent was so thick that whether he was speaking English or Ilonggo, I could barely understand him. I DID, however, distinctly hear in his version of the sacrament prayer "Ikaw nga amo ang Dios ni Zarahemla", which would roughly translate to, "Thou who are the God of Zarahemla". Now I KNEW that this wasn't in the sacrament prayer, but when he was finished he just turned around and gave a thumbs-up to the bishopric, who of course don't speak Ilonggo, so they just presumed he must have said it right!! *sigh*

When the meeting was over I tried to find the Ilonggo-speaking Polynesian to ask how he knew how to speak the pure Adamic language that is Ilonggo. But I was having the hardest time at it! First of all, the building - although I had gone to it many times in my youth - had been completely remodeled, so I kept getting turned around. Then on top of that, there were a REMARKABLE number of Polynesian men in attendance that day, all about the same age & build as the Ilonggo-speaker. I finally tracked him down to one of the foyers, but he somehow snuck (it's a real word! http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/snuck) away into the building's cultural hall. Right after I realized he was gone, I overheard some of the people who'd been speaking with him say, "That was an amazing language! What was it called? Ilonggo?" "Ah ha!!", I thought, "It WAS ilonggo! Now I just need to find him again and ask how to learned it."

Well, once again, that task turned out to be easier said than done. I - as any sensible person would - entered the cultural hall to try to find him, only to discover that another ward was in there setting up some quite large decorations for some sort of graduation ceremony or dance or something. Also there was a photographer with a backdrop, lights, and a camera completely set up and a group of people, in quite formal attire, had formed a line leading up to him waiting to get their pictures taken. It was quite a bizarre scene in retrospect but, as is so often the case in dreams, nothing about it as the time struck me as being unusual. I left the cultural hall on the side opposite from which I had entered, however, I never saw what was on the outside because I woke up.

* * *

Definately not the most interesting dream ever, but that poor kid's sacramental prayer rapidly degenerating made me laugh out loud with the rest of the congregation.