Pioneer Days Celebration 09

I finally had the opportunity to make it out to the Manassa for The Pioneer Days Celebration. I have always been in school during the celebration. It was a great experience getting to know Jessica’s extended family. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Manassa, it is a tiny town in Colorado a mile wide and a mile long. This small town has some far reaching roots and some amazing traditions. They have the record for the most hamburgers sold during the celebration. 

At the park watching some concerts after the parade.  I work with Chris Blinzinger at the ER and he used to live in Manassa. I told him I would make sure to go see his name on the Jack Dempsey statue.   This is Jessica’s cousin, Tori. I’d never been to a Moto-X, but she did awesome. Later some pro guys did some sweet tricks. Jessica’s Grandparent’s house where we stayed for the trip. I’m excited that we were able to go and even more excited that Andrew, my younger brother, will soon be a part of the Durfee/ Sowards clan. He’ll be the new guy next year if he is able to make it.

Flash Back: Missionary Memories

 Okay, this doesn’t look like “Quiet Dignity”, the motto of the MTC… but to my defense I didn’t even want to wrestle. My companion and I were walking by and this room when we saw this elder (the one on top of me) was wrestling another, so we watched. I think I had laughed or something and the Elder said something like, “Do you think you can do better?”

I replied, “No, I don’t want anybody to get hurt.” But he thought I was meaning I would hurt him. I was actually worried about myself! Well, he grabbed me and I did my best to stay alive! But I’ll have you notice that one arm is holding up like 350lbs, until a second later when my head went crashing into the ground. It was pretty bad because the MTC dorms have a nice thin layer of carpet laid over concrete. 

As you can see I had rug burns to pay for as penitence and worst of all it was winter and we were required to wear our suit jackets, but I couldn’t put mine on because I didn’t want to get my jacket dirty. I was the only elder in a sea of dark colored suits, a beacon of light because of my white shirt. When I got bandaged up I could wear my jacket but then it would sting having something pressing against it. All in all it was a stupid thing to do. But the Elder later told me out of all the people he wrestled I had given him the hardest time. Nice!