Monday, October 11, 2010

Choose the What?

Quote of the Blog:

Justin: Brook, we're great friends. Think of how much better we'd be if you weren't so morally upstanding.
Brook: Or if you weren't so morally reprehensible.
(We both laugh)

******

In primary, at church, we used to get little adjustable rings with a green shield-shaped emblem on the top with the white letter “CTR.” CTR stood for “Choose the Right” and we wore our rings as reminders. Not too long ago my mom told me how El. Uchtdorf, one of the twelve apostles, had spoken at a regional conference and said that CTR can not only stand for Choose the Right but for Current Temple Recommend. I work at the LDS temple and loved that idea – a reminder adapted from childhood to a specific reminder to live a life worthy to enter the temple. I thought it was very clever.

So a while ago I was preparing to teach in Relief Society in church (the last hour of church when just the women meet). I wanted to incorporate El. Uchtdorf’s idea of CTR standing for Current Temple Recommend into my lesson and I thought it would be great to have the rings to pass out so I ordered fifty primary rings online. Since the post office closes the same time I get off work, I had them delivered to my work. A few days later the front desk handed them to me as my coworkers Allyson and Sunil and I were coming back from lunch. Sunil and Allyson wanted to know what the rings were for. We’d had quite a few conversations about church and so I opened the package and showed them the rings and told them about the lesson and Choose the Right.

Sunil was kind of looking at the rings so I asked if he wanted one. "Sure!" So I gave one to him and to Allyson. Sunil immediately put the ring on his gold necklace (no, he's not Italian or in the mafia). Allyson put hers on her pinky and wore it all next day. A couple days later Sunil came into the room where Allyson, Justin, me, and a few others worked. He said that his buddy had seen the ring on his necklace and asked what CTR stood for. Sunil couldn't remember. I told him it stood for Choose the Right and then quizzed him throughout the day. It was so funny. Every time I asked him he came up with a different answer: "Chosen True Righteous?" "Cah...Right?"

But Friday of that week was a different story. As you can probably tell from the quote of the blog there is generally quite a bit of teasing and joking that goes on in the office. We all got along really well and had a lot of fun (not all of us work here still). Justin and Sunil were talking with me and Allyson when Justin, smirked and said something sarcastic to Sunil – something like, "Oh right Sunil, like you would EVER be able to do that." Sunil made a face and I countered, "I believe in you Sunil! You can totally do it!" Sunil smiled at me sweetly and said nicely, "Thanks Brook" and then turned to Justin and said, "Yeah!! CHOOSE THE RIGHT! MOTHER F*****!"

I died laughing. It was the last thing I thought he was going to say. But at least he remembered what CTR stood for, right?

2 comments:

  1. "(no, he's not Italian or in the mafia)"

    Glad to see your racism and Italian discrimination is back...

    For shame Brook, for shame.

    ReplyDelete