Tres...

There were three things about Gen Cen (remember the new name for general conference) that really made me emotional, I did not cry though, there might have been welling of eyes, but no crying. It takes a lot to make me cry. Seriously it does.

Number 1. The Rome temple.

Number 2. The closing prayer for the second session of Saturday conference.

Number 3. These two people.







Whenever I read about the Free Hugs Campaign I get really emotional. Especially when I watch the video. So it was little wonder that on Sunday afternoon when I was surrounded by thousands of people yet feeling so alone, that these two people offering free hugs and wishing people a good conference, made me emotional beyond all reason.

(I think that was a badly constructed sentence, alas.)

They brought joy to my heart. When there's idiots prancing up and down the street dressed as devils and cussing the church, it was just overwhelming to have someone hug me and wish me a happy conference. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but the Anti's had kids with them, and it was their kids I felt sorry for. They were shouting stuff at Mormons that they had no understanding of, and they just wanted to impress their parents. Lame. I just honestly don't know who has that kind of time on their hands; who cares that much about what other people do. I know I have no time.

Anyway... thank you people that gave me free hugs.

One more thing (columbo style) I noticed that the people who were accepting free hugs were foreigners. There weren't a lot of Americans. They were being too suspicious, or not wanting to act out of the social context they think they should be in.

This reminded me of Stanley Milgrams social experiments that were conducted to see if the German/Jewish hollocaust could happen in the USA. They thought it would not, but they were wrong, because it could. The experiments involved a member of the public having to administer shock therapy to whom they believed to be another member of the public. A man in a lab coat told them what to do, and a high percentage of people went right a head and did as they were told shocking, and essentially killing the other volunteer for all they knew. It's worth checking out here.

So my theory is, because I was a tourist and the japanese and chinese and german people were all tourists we were already out of our social normalities. Whereas people who are less inclined to travel don't know how to react to something new or different that isn't popular yet, or that hasn't been deemed safe yet by main stream society. In other words... I was a black sheep walking among white sheep.