Do you wear normal clothes?

As many of you know, Tom, my brother, is on a mission. He's serving in the Utah Provo Mission. He only has about 6 months left. So until he returns to civilian life, we will post comments on our blog on his behalf. Perhaps this will inspire our readers to be better missionaries. Here's his first featured post in response to my question, "Do you wear normal clothes?"

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Well as a missionary we have a standardized wardrobe. Our daily attire consists of slacks with a white shirt, tie and dress shoes. This makes life rather simple as to what to wear. I wish I had a picture of my closet on me because all it consists of is a whole bunch of white shirts.

In this specific mission we don't necessarily have p-day clothes. There are only a couple of exceptions to the rule of standardized apparel. The first is exersizing (aka sports) in the mornings and on p-day and the second is service. I prefer the second because I don't like waking up at five thirty to play basketball even though we do it once or twice a week. This rule is kept mostly because there are soo many members here where "every member a mission president" or as I like to add in mostly because of experience an emeritus general authority.

Well the dress code does not allow much to differentiate throughout the week. Pretty much the only thing that changes is the tie. That is why ties are an essential commodity to mission life. There are three types of ties.
1- The totally awesome cool ties that you will probably end up taking home - these are the ones that always have stuff spilt on them.

2- The way totally ugly ones that are cool that you wouldn't be caught dead wearing at home but wear just because you can.

3- The ones that are just like why did anyone ever buy that in the first place with ununique designs and just not good- these are used to go tracting in the desert or rain or mud and are meant to be destroyed or burnt.

Finally missionary apparel allows for shoes consisting of the colors of black brown or cordovan. I wear brown, this works great when you serve in the middle of a desert and they dont actually put sidewalks in anywhere. Far less shining and they still look good. I prefer the ones with no laces because its just that much easier. Even with laces I never untied them. I think I would have cordovan shoes except for the fact that I have no clue what cordovan is. I think my companion might have some except we both dont know what it is.

Well hopefully that answered your question as to whether or not I wear normal clothes. For me these are normal clothes, but for your standards, only occasionally. In fact I have only have one pair of shorts and then I have one pair of sweat pants for when its cold. I usually sleep in one or the other.

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Does anyone know what cordovan is??? You will win a roll of bounty paper towels if you can answer. See a previous post entitled "Cat Vomit and Bounty Paper Towels" to understand how valuable Bounty paper towels are if you're thinking, "she's cheap," 'cuz I'm totally not.