Hurray for Mustache May!

Ahh May. Month of spring, flowers, love and Mustaches! A few years ago I was invited to participate in an annual ritual celebrating masculinity. The idea is that in April we grow our beards out and come May 1st we cut them to a handsome mustache which we sport the entire month. At the end of the month, we have a Mustache May-hem party and at midnight, the ladies in our lives (or the one that hopefully will be for the next year's celebraton) shave it off for us. It's a great time and instant comradierie with other guys gutsy enough to wear the stache.

Now ladies, I know you are thinking a few things right now.
Q) If you guys get Mustache May, what do we get?!
A) May I suggest Armpit April

Q) He looks so handsome with a mustache. Can he keep it longer?
A) Yes of course. May MM participants have opted to keep the stache.

Q) Since this is a celebration of masculinity, how do I get to participate?
A) Where would the men and their mustaches be without support of the woman in our lives. I suggest the ladies should be invilved in choosing the mustache style their men will sport and even help them shave the beard down to that beautiful stache.

You are invited of course to join the Mustache May group we have on Facebook. It includes great articles, videos and pictures. But best of all, a support group. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11723593391

Here are some of the "Commandments" and tips for MM participants:

"Celebrating Masculinity". Men, this is the one month of the year that we become empowered by the hair of our upper lip. For 11 months of the year we do everything for the ladies that we love in this world. But May, glorious May, is our month gentlemen. Some may sheepishly say, "I can never pull that off" or "My boss will never let me" or "No way, the girls think that is lame". Well buddy, if that's you, you probably wouldn't fit in here anyway.

The Man Laws of Official Mustache May:
1- The grandeur of the mustache must be worshipped in truth and singularity. Therefore, no mustache can be accompanied by any other form of facial hair. In other words, don’t hide behind the beard.
2. May 1st = Mustache.
3- No complaining due to lack of affection. It ruins the spirit of the stache. We are all in this together and nobody said it would be easy. Be creative with it, like "Ladies, it tickles when we kiss. Wanna try?"
4- Handlebars are discouraged. Acceptable only if you really have a Harley Davidson, or you really can kick anybody’s trash, just like Hulk Hogan or Paul Senior, from American Choppers.
5- Be proud of your stache. Don’t avoid public or mingling with the opposite sex because you are ashamed of your facial hair. The hairy upper lip is empowering!
6- It's not what's on the upper lip, it's what's in your heart. Don’t shirk participation because you think your stache is weak or pathetic. Not everybody can grow a stache like Tom Selleck. Michael Jordan got cut from his high school basketball team.
7- Hook up your fellow Mustache May participants. If you wait tables, free drinks would be an appropriate gesture.
8-Encourage others to grow the stache. It’s liberating, spread the love.

Some of you men may face severe pressure from the ladies in your life to not participate. Here is the secret in helping her become a Mustache enthusiast:

Invite her to choose the mustache style for the month. After that, have her shave you down to that mustache she chose. Then it now becomes "our" mustache and not "your" mustache. She will love it and stand by her man the whole month long.

Tacos and Testimony

A decade! A decade! That's how long it's been since I have returned back from a mission for my church in Mexico City. Technically it been 10 years and 4 months, but let's just round down. This last weekend I attended my mission reunion. Years ago we would have these twice a year. Then as time marched on, we moved to once a year. The last one we had was about 5 years ago. At this pace the next one should be in about 20 years.

I was expecting just a really small group of us, like 10 or so. But to my surprise the chapel was halfway filled with old missionaries and mostly the 3 or 4 kids each one had. My mission president, Elder Craig Christensen, is now a Seventy and gave a great little talk. After came the truly great part of the night...tacos! Now if I were to die today and be granted one last thing to eat, it would be street corner tacos, particularly tacos-al-pastor. This is marinated pork cooked on a rotating skewer and they put hot pineapple in the taco. Top it off with a little salsa and you have a little piece of Mexican heaven.

I brought Abby to the reunion (I'll explain all that in a later post). She was a good sport about it. I warned her that Sister Christensen would probably grab her hand (for a slightly uncomfortably long time), stare penetratingly long in her eyes and say something to the effect of how the Lord lead Abby and I together, maybe mentioning the kids we would have and how much she knew Abby and I were right for each other. True to form, she did just that. AKWARD! Luckily Abby took it well when Sister Christensen said, while grabbing her hand and deeply gazing in her eyes at close proximity, "I have been praying for you two to be together. I have been praying for this day." To which Abby replied, "Well, I'll let you know if we make any important announcements."

All in all, a good time.

I also began scanning old mission pictures into my computer, just in case the house burns down, I only really have to worry about grabbing one thing. doing this I remembered how great an experience that was and how much of an effect serving a mission had on my life and shaping the person I have become. Reminiscing on these photos, I felt how much I miss those days and those people. I hope my sons, nephews, grandchildren, etc. are able to have the opportunity to experience what it is like to forget yourself for 2 years and be fixated on something bigger as you can watch the effect and joy it brings to those around you. Here are a few great gems from 1996 to 1998 in Mexico City.