How long have you been in Fertile?

Just got back from a trip to Iowa for a friend's wedding for which I was one of the scripture readers (Psalm 121, baby!). During the rehearsal dinner, I was catching up with another good friend who is just finishing up his internship for seminary. He's in a small town in Minnesota called Fertile for two more weeks. I wanted to know how long his internship was (a couple weeks, the whole summer, a year, etc), so I asked:

"So, Ryan, how long have you been in Fertile?"

Immediately, Ms. Fiance burst out laughing. It was at this point that I actually realized what I had said and how it sounded. He took it quite well, and was laughing along with everyone else at our table.

Another interesting note from the weekend: When I was first asked to be one of the scripture readers, I asked the my friend (the groom) if he wanted me to read from a particular translation. He said probably the same one they used in their church, which was NRSV. I hunted around my house to found my first bible, given to me in 2nd grade, which was NRSV. I brought it with me to the rehearsal, and all three of the scripture readers used it since there was no bible up in the pulpit. After the practice, the pastor came up to me and asked me which translation the bible was. I replied, "The one the groom requested." As I was saying this, he grabbed the bible (which was in my hand), and read the spine himself to make sure it was the right one, and then said "Good." I thought it was a bit strange. I guess just hearing us all read our versus moments earlier wasn't enough reassurance that we weren't using the Hawaiian Pidgin bible or something.

Regardless, the whole wedding went very well and the reception and dance were great. The reception was at the Iowa Arboretum, so some of us took a little time to walk around outside and take some pictures. Ms. Fiance and I did a lot of dancing, so much so that I think I lost about 50 pounds through sweat alone. We made sure to do enough Swing dancing to be ready for the next time we see Janet. And since there were no polkas played, my parents started to polka to one of the songs on their own, so Ms. Fiance and I joined in. After a bit, I switched to go polka a little bit with my Mom (which let Ms. Fiance polka with my Dad), followed shortly thereafter to dancing the polka with my Dad. My parents are awesome dancers. They were teaching a couple of the little kids how to do the twist, and pretty soon one little girl kept hanging around my Dad to dance with him. It was really cute.

DotD: Da Jesus Book (Hawaiian Pidgin New Testament) - $10.41 - "Da peopo dat know Jesus, if dey goin do good job fo help odda peopo find out bout Jesus, an teach, dey gotta use peopo's language, so dose peopo can know him fo real too."