Birthday Scripture

Alma 40:8, it's a scripture that brings more and more comfort to me each birthday.

Birthday Gifts

I still feel the same way. (At least, I'm no longer getting acne cream as a gift.)

Not Your Day

Some days on your mission, things just don't work out for you. My second birthday as a missionary certainly felt like that. The day began with some guy accosting us arguing that we didn't worship on the Sabbath. That was followed by 12 hours of rejection as we had no appointments and filled our time by knocking on doors.

Still I came home to our apartment that night content that I had worked diligently (if not smartly) for the Lord.

Birthday Dinner

Be careful what you wish for.

Birthday Breakfast

I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend. Here Elder Van Dyke is trying to enjoy another celebration. (It's not going well.)

Kevin Beckstrom is sharing his comprehensive General Conference notes on his website. They'll make you wish you kept notes half as entertaining. Check them out on his website.

Birthday in the Field

Birthdays as a missionary are kind of weird. Weird in the sense that they aren't at all different from any other day as a missionary.

Treasures upon Earth

Scripture admonitions mean very little when they get between a teenager and his birthday presents.

Two Years of Gifts

Wouldn't it be awesome if it worked like this?

Incidentally, don't you love the comically large piece of paper the son is holding in this page? That ridiculously long piece of paper is kind of a cartoon cliche. I mean, where did he even get it? I can just imagine him carefully taping together several pieces of standard 8 1/2 by 11 pieces of paper for the desired effect.

Birthday Tithing

If  she thinks this is bad, wait until he claims a tenth of her birthday presents!

Gifts of the Spirit

The first of today's gags is featured in this month's New Era. If you're interested, it would make a pretty good birthday card.

I include the second one because I figure you might want to send a card to a young woman from time to time too.

Presents

After the age of ten or so, when it's socially frowned upon to play with action figures and dolls, birthday presents lose some of their fun. This is especially true as a missionary, when you're even more restricted in the types of gifts you can receive.

(Here's another strip via deseretnews.com.)

Missionary Birthday

On my second birthday in the mission field, I spent the entire day knocking on doors and getting rejected. We didn't have a single appointment and, as a result, we spent 12 hours tracting. I ended the day eating a carton of ice cream feeling sorry for myself.

It was not a good experience.

But at least it provided me the material for today's strip. That's worth something, right?

(Read another strip here.)

Birthday Dinner

The worst thing I ever had on my mission was blood sausage--courtesy of another missionary pranking me on April Fool's Day. All in all, Slovene cuisine wasn't bad.

(I'm wrapping up Elder Van Dyke's mission over at deseretnews.com, you might want to check out the final month and a half.)

Breakfast in Bed

Elder Van Dyke's birthday begins with him disappointed. He'd better get used to that feeling.

New subject: since I last posted a comic on this site, I've added a page outlining the many steps I take between a joke idea to a finished gag. You can find the page, titled The Creative Process, here. Check it out, I hope you'll find it interesting.

(Enjoy another strip here.)

Birthday Wishes

Elder Van Dyke is having a birthday, this ought to be good...

(...so is this, it's another strip over at deseretnews.com.)

Birthday Greetings from the Field

Several months ago I mentioned a series of birthday-themed gags I did for a specific ward. Below are the gags for missionaries. (Please notice the utter and complete lack of originality when it came to creating one for Elders and one for Sisters--as always here, you get what you pay for.)

Birthday Wishes

Several weeks ago I was asked to create a couple of birthday cards for the youth and missionaries from a certain ward. I came up with the following for the youth (there's nearly an identical one for the Young Men):
After drawing it, I came up with another version for the not so young:I think the gag works much better for the old, how about you?