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What else do they do together as they get to know each other, besides attending at-home football games?
On a Sunday evening at Kristie and Bobbie's apartment, the four of them were looking at their schedules for the winter semester.
Bobbie said, "Karel and I have three anthropology classes together next semester."
Dan responded, "Oh, yeah?"
"We have a class in island culture we are talking for credit, and then he's the teaching assistant for a math class in methods of analysis for anthropologists that I have to take."
Karel explained, "They're letting me be the TA because it doesn't make sense for me to take the class, but they need to make sure I've seen the approaches used in anthropology. And Bobbie is going to be the TA in the 'Medicine and Physiology in Other Cultures' class that I have to take."
"For basically the same reasons," Bobbie added.
"So you probably won't want to do a cross-discipline class with Kristie and me?"
"What class would it be?" asked Karel.
Kristie said, "We've had an interdepartmental class in linguistics recommended to us."
Bobbie and Karel looked at each other inquisitively. Bobbie blinked and said, "I think I could do that."
"Me, too. As I recall, it's one that's optionally recommended for us, as well. By the way, what religion classes are you guys taking?"
"Haven't decided," said Dan.
"Let's all take an in-depth class on
Doctrine, Commandments, and Covenants together," suggested Kristie.
(Similar to the Doctrine and Covenants in our world, as you would guess.)
"Is that the one where they also study the pamphlet
Discussions on Theology?" asked Dan.
(Similar to our world's Lectures on Faith, of course.)
Bobbie said, "Yeah, that's it. Kristie and I were talking about it yesterday."
Dan said, "Sounds interesting."
Karel was less enthusiastic. "Discussions is going to be talking about an awful lot of things that we're going to have to specifically ask God how to understand. And some of it is considered by some not to be appropriate any more."
Bobbie was insistent. "But it will be interesting!"
Kristie added, "I think it'll fill in some of the things that I'm missing about the cultural."
Karel scratched his head and said, "Culture's not important, but, okay, I guess I'll have to take it with you guys, to keep you all out of trouble." He grinned as the other three groaned. "Just kidding. Are we going to take a dance class together?"
Kristie suggested, "How about folk dance? That should be fun."
Bobbie cocked her head and looked absently at Karel.
Karel raised his eyebrows and shrugged. "I can think of worse things to do.
Dan agreed enthusiastically, and Bobbie smiled a slightly ironic smile and nodded. "I'm in, too."
*****
The next time Bobbie and Karel met at the Anthropology Department offices, Melissa gave them an update.
"I told Winn what you told me about mutual responsibilities, and he was surprised."
"Oh? What did he say?"
"He didn't say much, but he called his ministering brother and talked to him for a while." (Borrowing terminology from Mormon culture again, a ministering brother or sister is someone who is asked to help and watch out for another member. In the Church on Xhilr, they tend to be assigned as couples when possible.) "Mr. Jordan came over with his wife a couple of days later, and they brought their scriptures. They had us read where it says the man is the head of the woman, and where an apostle says women should not speak in church." (We can can find similar verses around 1st Corinthians 11: 3; and 14: 34.)
"Uh oh." Karel said quietly, but Bobbie seemed not to be worried.
"But then they showed us about prophetesses in the scriptures." (In our Old Testament, we have mention of Deborah in Judges chapter 4; and in our New Testament, we have Anna, in Luke 2: 36-38. They had similar prophetesses in their books of scripture.) "And they explained that they thought that not speaking in church must have been for a specific reason for a specific congregation, or maybe in certain meetings. But women speak in your church meetings all the time."
Bobbie nodded her head, and Karel said, "That's right."
"Do you guys have your own Holy Book, or don't you?"
Bobbie looked puzzled.
Karel shook his head. "If you mean our own version of The Holy Book, we use the Authorized Version." (This is corollary to the (Authorized) King James' Version in our world, and, in Xhilr's history, the name of the king who gave it his seal of approval means "supplanter", so "King James Version" would work, but it would surprise too many people. So we'll just go with Authorized Version here.)
"What's the Inspired Commentary?"
Bobbie and Karel both nodded in understanding. Karel spoke first. "Several of our prophets have clarified places in The Holy Book where there were errors made when monks transcribed the original texts, or errors in translation, or where traditions of mortals make it hard to understand." (Note more minor differences between our world and Xhilr.)
Melissa frowned. "But The Holy Book is the word of God. There are no errors."
Bobbie further explained"The Holy Book has been protected by angels and blessed, but every one of God's children has to be free to make mistakes and grow. Even Jesus grew in understanding."
Melissa knit her brow and pursed her lips and named a scripture similar to Luke 2: 52 in our Bible.
"That's right." Bobbie nodded again. "And if there weren't any possibility of misinterpretations or copying errors in The Book, how could we be free to figure it out for ourselves? How could we increase in wisdom?"
"That seems like cheating."
Karel tilted his head. "If it could only be interpreted perfectly, that would be God cheating. We'd never grow."
Bobbie nudged Karel quietly.
"But how can we trust The Holy Book if it has mistakes?"
"How could we really trust it if it didn't?"
"Karel!" Bobbie cautioned him with both word and look.
Karel ducked his head. "Sorry. I always tend to use words too strongly."
Melissa scratched her head.
"Anyway," Bobbie continued for Karel, "The Holy Book was given to us to help us, not to make all our decisions for us. And traditions change, and words change in meaning, and monks make mistakes. So the modern prophets have given us some inspired commentary to help us figure out the harder parts."
"For what it's worth," Karel added, "The Inspired Commentary is not part of our official canon. And we're supposed to pray for help understanding it."
"So your prophet, Increase Wright, said that there was an 'also' too many, and changed a 'for' to an 'if'."
Bobbie looked at Karel. "Does the Inspired Commentary say that?"
Karel raised his eyebrows. "I don't have my copy with me, but I believe it does." (But not in our world. See, as noted above, 1 Corinthians 14: 34 to 37.) "But I think the verse following, 'What? Are you the only source of the word of God?' makes it clear enough to any man willing to listen to his conscience."
Melissa looked a little troubled, but continued. "Then we read where it says that men and women need each other." (The verses she mentioned here were similar to our 1st Corinthians 11: 11, 12.) "And then they pointed out something I hadn't noticed before --" She paused. "-- Hadn't really paid attention to, where Jesus told the apostles that the greatest is to be the least, and the servant of all." (These verses are similar to our Matthew 23: 11, 12.)
Again, Karel and Bobbie both nodded in agreement.
"I guess it does put a different light on the verse, '... as Christ is the head of the man, ...'." She thought for a bun or so. "And then we read some other scriptures about how leaders are supposed to behave, and about how contention is not compatible with the Holy Spirit." (We can find something like the verses she mentioned here in our 1st Timothy 3: 2 and in the Book of Mormon, in Mosiah 4: 11-15 and 3rd Nephi 11: 29, 30.)
Karel asked, "Did they talk about what 'counseling with each other in righteousness' means?"
"I'm not sure about that. I got a little lost at a couple of points. But they did read some scriptures about how being in agreement when we pray is a key to getting answers." (Similar verses can be found in our Mosiah 18: 21, and in our Doctrine and Covenants 41: 2 and 42: 3.)
Bobbie asked, "Did they read a scripture about 'without compulsory means'?"
"They had us read that, too. Those verses are poetry." She smiled hesitantly.
(You might think, if their planet and language were closer to ours, that they had copied those verses from our Doctrine and Covenants 121, starting around verse 37 and continuing to the end. Or that ours was copied from theirs, modulo translation.)
Karel smiled and said, "You have a good ministering couple."
And Bobbie smiled to herself as she nudged him again.
The concept of ministering brothers and sisters is fairly simple. In the scriptures, believers are taught to watch out for and take care of their neighbors. You may be familiar with Jesus' parable about the Good Samaritan in our New Testament, and the verses in Ezekiel about watchmen.
Similar to many other religions, Ehyephoot practice is to instruct the believers to watch over the church and visit other believers, to teach the Gospel to each other, and to help each other not to gossip or fight with each other, etc.
But nobody appreciates a busybody neighbor, and nobody really feels
comfortable about just letting a neighbor walk in and start trying to help in a situation they don't understand.
To help them visit each other regularly and constructively, and to learn to use wisdom in how they accept each other's help, they Ehyephoot are given specific ministering assignments. And
they are expected to seek to be guided by that better, Holy Spirit which
lights the conscience, as they go about visiting and helping each other. The are expected not to engage in what we would call "do-gooding".
It doesn't always work perfectly, but in this case it seems to have worked fairly well.
For the record, our four friends also took their turns visiting fellow students in
their congregations. In order to avoid the appearance of pairing singles off, single men would do their ministering with another man for a companion, and single sisters would do theirs with another woman. I haven't mentioned such visits because they haven't really played a major part, but it's worth noting that they occurred.
Many of their visits were similar to the chats Karel and Bobbie were having with Melissa, helping each other find answers.
"Winn says he feels a lot more comfortable knowing that he doesn't have to decide it all by himself, and we've been talking together a lot more about our plans for the future."
Bobbie asked, "And he is listening to you?"
"Oh, we sometimes forget to listen to each other, but when we find ourselves arguing, it seems like it's easier now for both of us to back off and think and then start listening to each other again.
Bobbie said, "My parents went through this, too, figuring out that being in charge isn't about being in control, that both spouses have to have freedom, or they can't act responsibly. And children, too. They need both freedom and responsibility, also. It really changed things for us."
Karel added, "My family, too. I think every couple, every family has to go through figuring these kinds of things out together."
And after a bit more talking, Bobbie and Karel went to meet with their professors again.
*****
(An autumnal Thanksgiving holiday must be a near-universal concept in any culture.)
A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, Bobbie suggested that the other three could come to her hospital over Thanksgiving weekend to be volunteers and help out.
"It's good experience! Changing bed pans, cleaning rooms, doing laundry!"
Her suggestion was met with groans and chuckles, but the other three seemed interested.
Karel frowned. "But my bishop is asking for volunteers to go to the Church Welfare Center, to help in the welfare cannery and store, on that weekend." (More strong parallels between Xhilr and our world.) "I guess it's not as directly people oriented, but it's still good experience, and it's still service."
"But my family is expecting you and me for Thanksgiving dinner, Karel." Dan said.
Kristie looked a little sad.
Karel asked, "What are your plans for Thanksgiving, Kristie?"
"I don't really have any. My parents thought it would be a little far just for a weekend, so we're not getting together. I could volunteer either at the hospital or the cannery, I guess."
Dan thought for a moment. "I think I'll ring my folks up."
Kristie asked, "Long distance charges?"
"We have an arrangement where I call them, and then they call back. It's cheaper to talk when they've called."
*****
A couple of days later, they were talking about Thanksgiving again.
Dan said, "Karel, my folks say they'll forgive us Thanksgiving if we all go there over Wintermas. Kristie and Bobbie, too."
(On Xhilr, the conflation of the birth of the sun god with the birth of the Savior and Light of the World was more openly acknowledged to lack basis in scripture, and what they called the holiday translates to something like Winter Mass instead of Christ-mass. Among Christians, it was still a celebration of the birth of Christ, chosen for winter solstice because they needed a winter holy day, and they didn't have any clear records of the date of the birth of the Savior in their world, any more than we have in ours.
With a little thought, it does become apparent that the Savior Himself probably did not really want to encourage the sorts of idolatry that might tend to develop around such celebrations.)
Karel shook his head. "Sorry, my family will raise a fuss."
Bobbie added, "Mine, too, probably."
Kristie said, "My parents, too. How about New Year's?"
(Where, in our world, Christmas and New Years are separate mostly because of vaguaries in the calendars, in many Christian countries on Xhilr, the new year celebrations had been deliberately moved a week or so away from Wintermas, to provide some separation between the celebrations.)
*****
Dan and Karel cooked Thanksgiving dinner at Bobbie and Kristie's apartment, inviting their roommates Jennifer and Wendy, and Dan's roommate Brad, and Karel's roommate Fred. And they played a card game similar to our Pit, which Karel had brought. Bobbie was covering another nurse's graveyard shift, so they left the party around seven.
At the hospital, Dan and Karel and Kristie put in a late three hour volunteer shift running laundry, to give the staff a head start on the next day, and helped mop the floors.
Dan and Karel left before one, but Kristie got some sleep in an empty room at the hospital and drove Bobbie home before sunup.
(Karel had made arrangements with the dorm mom and his roommate, so they knew he would be sleeping over at Dan's.)
At their apartment, Bobbie and Kristie took quick showers and changed clothes. Karel and Dan came over in Karel's car, and they went together to the Welfare Center for an eight hour shift. Bobbie insisted on going with them, even though the others said she needed to sleep. Nurses, she said, know how to get by on very little sleep. Dan sat copilot in front, and Bobbie napped with her head in Kristie's lap in the back seat.
At the welfare center, Bobbie stayed away from the machines, choosing to take simpler, safer activities like sweeping the floor and stocking light products on shelves. Kristie stayed with her. Bobbie got some more naptime on the way home.
Bobbie was off that night, so they all got some rest before doing another full day at the Welfare Center. This time, they stayed together most of the time, Bobbie feeling rested and safe enough to help operate the machines in the cannery and handle heavy products on the store shelves. Again, Bobbie napped on the way home.
Back at the hospital, Bobbie took the full graveyard shift for work, and the other three did a four hour volunteer shift. Kristie took a long nap in the hospital again and drove Bobbie home in the morning, to get ready for church services.
Bobbie fell asleep during Sunday School, and the teacher was nice enough to just smile and ignore it. After Sunday School, Bobbie and Kristie napped at home in the afternoon while Dan and Karel made lunch with the roommates who were home.
While they were eating, Karel had a suggestion. "Hey, I've been thinking it would be fun to go skiing."
"I think I can arrange for one Saturday off at the hospital. Where do you want to go?"
Karel named a downhill run near the school.
Kristie said, "Those are too easy!" and suggested an area with advanced slopes a little further away.
Bobbie looked a little dissatisfied. "I prefer cross-country, myself. Good exercise, no lift fees, and I don't spend as much time upside down in the snow, ...."
Everyone laughed.
Dan said, "If we weren't so busy, we could go cross-country one day, and downhill another. But I know another place, not so far away, that has intermediate level slopes as well as cross-country. And you can ski up to the top of the slopes, if you're good at skiing uphill and have the patience for it."
After a bit of talking they agreed on the second Saturday following, if Bobbie could get the day off.
For the evening services at church, Dan and Karel visited Kristie and Bobbie's congregation again. And Bobbie fell asleep on Karel's shoulder during the talks after the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
(Ehyephoot are invited by turn to prepare and give short, informal sermons, or talks, after the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is administered. Yes, the symbolism of the bread and wine seems to be appropriate for the people of Xhilr, too.)
Bobbie dozed off in the car again. Karel was driving, and waited with the car while Kristie opened the door to the apartment and Dan carried Bobbie in, setting her carefully on the couch, while Karel waited in the car.
Bobbie woke up while Dan was lifting her out of the car, but she didn't complain, and neither did Dan.
Why do apartments never have enough nearby parking spaces?
*****
The ski trip was relatively uneventful. Roommates and members of the study
groups also joined in, and they had a caravan of four cars. Dan's car wasn't
quite up to the snowy mountain roads, and neither was Kristie, herself, but
Bobbie, Karel, and two of their friends drove. Kristie rode with Bobbie, and Dan road with Karel.
They all rented dual-use skis at the school ski rental, with both cross-country and downhill bindings, so they could split their time between the slopes and the trails.
Kristie demonstrated that she was a better on the slopes than any of them, although Karel and Bobbie were none too shabby, either. Dan admitted that he was unstable on the slopes, and he was always the last one down, rolling and laughing a good part of the way. But he would get back on his skis quickly, and gamely stayed with the rest.
On the trails, Dan was ahead, and even Bobbie had to push to keep up. Then they would stop and talk while the rest caught up. Kristie and Karel got a lot of talking time in together in the group of stragglers, as well.
Kristie did take a roll on a downhill run once in the afternoon, just for the fun of it, laughing as she tumbled to a stop behind where Dan had rolled out and was exaggerating his helplessness. She was on her skis quickly, helping Dan up while Karel and Bobbie retrieved his skies.
On the road back, Kristie rode with Karel, and Dan rode with Bobbie. Not wanting to take the time to get coals burning, they had packed sandwiches
for both lunch and dinner, and they ate in the cars on the way down. Dan held Bobbie's food for her, and Kristie held Karel's for him, while they drove.
Safely back off the mountains' winding roads before any drivers fell asleep, they all met at a roadside cafe to talk, and to drink cocoa and hot
apple cider (non-fermented, unfiltered) with cinnamon, and warm up a bit, before heading
back to their apartments. (Xhilr has a bean similar to our cacao bean, and a drink similar to our cocoa. And they have several citrus fruits similar to our lemons and several deciduous fruits similar to our apples. As in the US in our world, "apple cider" in the UIS on Xhilr is not an alcoholic beverage.)
*****
For Wintermas, Bobbie rode home with Kristie, stopping at Bobbie's house to spend a night and see Bobbie's family. They took turns at the wheel on the road to Kristie's house, and Bobbie spent the holiday with Kristie's family.
Dan and Karel drove in tandem to Dan's house, and Karel spent the night there before driving on to his own house for Wintermas.
To avoid being on the roads on the first day of the year, they all gathered at Dan's house on the second-to-last day of the year, and spent three days with the Claymounts.
Dan's family took them snowshoeing in the canyons near his home on the last day of the year, and they launched roman candles and other fireworks in their backyard at midnight.
And Sheliah clearly approved of both Bobbie and Kristie.
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You can find the original first draft of the chapter this chapter was
extracted from, and various approaches I have tried with it here:
https://free-is-not-free.blogspot.com/2016/05/economics-101-novel-ch05-first-semester.html.
