Vol. 24, No. 6

Dear Family,

“Dude, has anyone ever told you you look exactly like Rick Carlisle?”

The question was posed to me as I walked along Ellsworth Avenue in Downtown Silver Spring by a stranger sitting on the sidewalk between the entrances to Ben & Jerry’s and Noodles & Company.

“You’re talking to me?” I asked.

“Yeah. Rick Carlisle,” he replied. “You look just like him.”

I told the guy that no, in fact no one had ever told me that before. There was this guy who worked at the Subway I frequented in college who thought I looked like Bob Saget (and called me Bob whenever I came in). And I’ve had more than one person (including Mom) tell me I resemble Henry B. Eyring when I wear a certain pair of glasses. To my knowledge, however, this is the only time anyone’s ever said I look like a (former) professional basketball player.

I continued down Ellsworth and that was the end of our encounter. But I obviously have not been able to stop thinking about it, and if you find this an odd story to open with, then, with all due respect, you must not read many of my letters.

Carlisle is twelve years older than I (and two inches taller), and the fact that we are both tall, balding, middle-aged, and white (and the man on the sidewalk did not appear to be any of those things) might have had more to do with it than anything. I am terrible with faces and honestly couldn’t tell you whether there’s any resemblance (beyond our shared stature, pallor and baldness). I don’t know whether anyone can confirm ever seeing us in the same place at the same time, but you can decide for yourself.

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Being told I look “exactly” like a 61 year old reminds me of when the receptionist at our office told me I looked “reasonably fit for a guy in his forties.” I might have found this flattering had I not been 36 at the time. (She was fired a short time later, as I recall, for unrelated reasons.)

Surprisingly though, my purported resemblance to people is not really this month’s featured story. That distinction goes to Sophie, who officially began her mission this week.

The lead-up to this began two weekends ago when we traveled to the Philadelphia Temple for Sophie to receive her endowment. Her appointment was at 7 a.m. on Saturday and so we thought it would make sense to drive up Friday afternoon.

I’ll go ahead and tell you now, I’m never doing that again. At, say, 5:00 a.m. on a Saturday, the 133-mile drive up I-95 to Philadelphia takes about two hours. On Friday afternoon, the same trip seems to take about six days. By the time we arrived, I had hatred in my heart for all humankind and was wishing for everyone on earth driving a car to drop dead. (Not unlike how I feel about 15 percent of the time anyway, but not exactly the feeling you’re going for when you’re about to enter the temple.) We parked the car in the garage underneath the temple and walked the six tenths of a mile (with our bags) to the Residence Inn across from City Hall. (The temple garage is free and there was no way I was going to pay $56 (plus tip) for the hotel valet to park it overnight.)

We donned our masks and entered the lobby. “As of today, Philadelphia is officially open,” the masked woman at the front desk joyfully announced from behind her plexiglas barrier. “Masks are optional everywhere if you’re vaccinated.” We’d been vaccinated for quite some time, but most of the people in the lobby were wearing masks and so we kept ours on as well. I then made the mistake of following a couple into an elevator. I’m not sure how to characterize the look of shock and disgust the two of them shot me, but I suspect it wouldn’t have been any different had I started taking off my pants. They mumbled angrily at one another and got off before the doors closed. I followed them off, apologized, and offered them the elevator. But they just kept shaking their heads, muttering and waving me away dismissively as they pressed the Up button again.

Morons.

I was in a better mood by morning and it was lovely to be with Sophie (and Crystal and everybody else) in the temple. Unlike the City of Philadelphia, the temple’s covid restrictions remain very much in place — masks required at all times, and our group was limited to 16 people. Temple workers met the 16 of us in the garage, escorted us up to the recommend desk, then to the changing areas, and then up to the endowment room. After the session, another temple worker sat with us in the celestial room. When we said we were ready to go, she escorted all 16 of us together back down to the changing rooms and then politely shoved us out the front door. It was ruthlessly efficient, as temple worship goes, and that’s just fine with me.

Following the session, some of us walked over to Reading Terminal for whatever you call the meal one eats at 11 a.m. on a Saturday. (Is Saturday brunch a thing?) We then picked up the obligatory after-temple doughnuts from Beiler’s Bakery (a Pennsylvania Dutch place with unquestionably the best doughnuts I’ve ever had and I know doughnuts!) and wandered around Center City for a little while on what turned out to be a lovely day.

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The precise moment when Sophie actually became a missionary remains a matter of some debate. Some would argue that it was on Father’s Day, when the stake president came over and set her apart (after eating dinner with us since his family was out of town).¹ But I interpreted her letter from the Missionary Training Center (the one telling her that she’d be MTC-ing from home) to mean that she became a full-time missionary (and was expected to begin living like one) when her training began on Wednesday the 23rd, irrespective of when (or even whether) she’d been formally set apart. I personally tend to interpret rules in whatever way affords me the widest latitude. But Sophie being Sophie (and basically the polar opposite of me) began acting and dressing like a missionary, name tag and all, on Sunday.

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The question is moot now that Sophie’s training has officially begun and the house has necessarily been transformed into something like a convent (albeit a convent with HBOMax² but Sophie doesn’t watch it). We’ve watched a few Gilmore Girls episodes together on Netflix since Wednesday. Don’t tell anyone.

There haven’t been enough days for me to fully grasp her new routine yet, but it seems to include many of the same elements I remember from my in-person MTC experience 30 years ago. One difference is the time shift. We are very much a Mountain-Time-Zone-based church (which is awesome for the 7 percent of Americans who live there) and which means Sophie now eats lunch at 3 p.m. and attends classes that don’t end until well past my bedtime. She’s cool with all that.

Her Russian training is still in its infancy and reportedly won’t get going in earnest for another couple of weeks. But Sophie still spends quite a bit of what little free time she has plugging away at it and can now actually pronounce the name of the Church. She says the name is “quite a mouthful” in Russian … just like it is in English … and French … and I imagine pretty much every other language.

Being able to participate in Sophie’s setting apart was a nice Father’s Day gift this year. Lucy missed it because Father’s Day (like Mother’s Day) is all-hands-on-deck at the Outback Steakhouse where Lucy continues to work as a host. It sounds like it was a pretty hectic day and the place is still understaffed, which compels Lucy to work more hours than they’d like. But they continue to hang in.

Grace made me feel loved on Father’s Day by sitting next to me through parts of the U.S. Open. She mostly suppressed the urge to mock me for getting weepy at watching Jon Rahm clinch the win with clutch birdie putts on 17 and 18 and the ensuing celebration with his wife and their infant son.

Grace also started working at Forest Knolls Pool this month, becoming the third Willis girl to sit in a lifeguard chair there.

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The start of summer also heralded the resumption of the Montgomery County Swim League following its 2020 covid-enforced hiatus. Our girls have swum in this league for nearly 20 years. I think Grace still enjoys it (the social aspects of it at least) even though Crystal and I are probably more involved with her team at this point than she is. It’s a fun league, I imagine like countless others around the country, in that the cheering for the slow swimmers (e.g., our kids) is nearly as intense as it is for the all stars and future Olympians.³ I don’t think it’s an exaggeration (or not much of one) to say that the energy and noise generated by the anchor leg of a close relay rivals that of a football game. It’s something to behold.

Crystal so much enjoyed her first year helping middle schoolers on the Autism spectrum navigate their days that she’s decided to stick around for summer school next month. I think she will miss one boy in particular whose Asperger’s-level obsession with World War II (he was disconsolate when he learned that the annual 7th-grade field trip to the National Holocaust Museum was cancelled this year) sometimes made it difficult for him to think or talk about anything else. In addition to reciting obscure trivia about every Axis and Allied general and admiral you’ve ever heard of (and several others you probably haven’t) he once took to drawing from memory a map of the entire Pacific theater on the classroom’s white board. It wasn’t perfect (he somehow managed to omit Japan and, to Crystal’s indignation, the Philippines) but nevertheless was apparently quite remarkable.

His plans for the summer include wanting to go to In-N-Out Burger, where he’s never been (probably because the closest one is in Austin, Texas, and I was surprised to learn there was one even that close). Crystal talked him off the notion that he could ride his bike there. She then had to explain why Uber probably wasn’t a workable option, either. Last I heard he was trying to figure out how to get there by bus. Crystal is clearly going to miss this kid and I’m going to miss the stories over dinner.

Speaking of mental health, kind people often ask how Hannah is doing and I never seem to have a good answer. This is mostly because she and JT live far away and Hannah doesn’t talk to me as often as she talks to Crystal and other people who live here and read Brandon Sanderson novels. It’s okay, though. I’m pretty sure she still likes me.

Hannah frequently advocates for more openness and candor when it comes to mental health. As a result, she’s cool with my telling you that she underwent some genetic testing this month that aims to minimize the trial-and-error that always seems to accompany prescribing antidepressants and other psychotropic medications. Hannah has a lot of experience with things that don’t work for her and is encouraged by what her particular genetic markers appear to reveal. We obviously hope that the ensuing treatment is helpful.

Well, Sunday’s just about over and I have to go. Crystal and the girls just made this cake and it’s not going to eat itself.

Here’s hoping you’re healthy, mentally and otherwise.

Love, Tim

1. This would comport with our religious tendency to think of rites as a light switch. (You’re one thing, then someone in authority lays hands on your head, and you become something different.) Pandemic procedures have made it fairly clear, however, that while this is true of saving ordinances, it is not necessarily true of being set apart for positions. Setting apart is something that is supposed to be done, but setting apart clearly is not what installs someone in their church position. Calling and sustaining seem to do most if not all of the work there. People have a similar misconception about U.S. Presidents taking the oath of office (Joe Biden became President Biden at precisely noon on January 20th, 2021, by virtue of having been elected, irrespective of whatever time it was when he said the 35 magic words in Article II of the Constitution — the election is what made him president, not the ceremony, but that’s a whole other topic and this footnote’s already pretty long.)
2. The 2 hour, 23 minute run time was almost enough to prevent me from watching In the Heights on HBOMax this month, but I’m glad I powered through and I recommend it if you’re on the fence. It’s totally worth it — unless, y’know, you have more productive things to do with your time than watch TV.
3. MCSL differs from most other community swim leagues in that it will have two alumnae that I’m aware of (Ledecky and Bacon, two girls who went to the same elementary school) swimming in Tokyo next month. Go ahead and try to figure out the odds of that. I’ll wait.