this morning morm and i got up early (as in hours before i'm normally awake) to go volunteer down at temple. each year, for chinese new year's, they have a huge celebration. unlike other religions, this one (or at least the temple my mom goes to) doesn't have services. you're supposed to go on new year's day, but you go when you want to (well between 8am and 7pm). you say your thanks and prayers, ask for your blessings, offer your fruits, ask your questions and then go home. it's how most of their day-to-day behavior is, but on new years, they ask you to stick around and partake in a feast (and yes, it's fully buddhist and therefore vegetarian, but even randall liked it).
i ended up on serving duty: eggrolls, fried taro, and then sweet and sour crispy soy item. samshrew, randall, and chris showed up later, but didn't have to stick around long (samshrew got roped into eggroll duty for a while, but got out of it when the rush ended). morm and i left after six hours of serving up food, and needless to say, i was pretty exhausted at the end of it.
also, i never really considered myself a religious person (i only go to temple a couple times of year, and mostly because of morm), but you know there's something sort of amazing about a religion that says, hey come say what you feel like and before you go why don't you eat a boatload of food. not to mention it sounds like it was invented just for me.