Let it Rip, Chuckywanga

Well, we got to find out who’s staying and leaving the Lawton area. And ladies and other ladies, I am happy to announce that yours truly will be headed to Norman. I literally have no idea where that is. But get hyped, because I’m gonna get a new companion: Elder Weese. I’ve met him before and he seems pretty slick. Hope we have a great 6 weeks together. We’ve been pushing the work along here in Lawton, and they’re gonna suffer when they have a severe lack of Schroeder in their midst. Anyway, I don’t know if anything really exciting happened this week, so let’s go through it:

Well, we were making ornaments for Christmas Eve with a member in the church, and I ended up doing what I do best: Pouring too much work into something worthless. So I created an art masterpiece that made Van Gogh praise my name from 6 feet under. I dubbed him “Brand Santa”, and the person whose house we were doing this at loved him so much, he asked to keep it. So I let it go down in history within their household. May they never forget my name.

Dude that’s crazy it was Christmas this week! I got some cool stuff. Thanks to everyone that got me stuff. If you didn’t I don’t blame you. Don’t send me stuff if you don’t want to. Because if you send me stuff, I’ll think I have to send you stuff. And I’m not really about that on my kind of budget.

Well I got to call my family on Christmas, which was cool but I doubt anyone really cares about that part.

ALRIGHT WE GOT SOMETHING. So we went to teach this family where only the mom and the kids are in the church. We’re talking to the kids about Christmas, and we’re like, “What did you guys get for Christmas?” And they run to their rooms and return, triumphant with their freaking BEYBLADES. These 3 lads got BEYBLADES for Christmas. I thought those things were long gone, but sure enough, toy companies know how to make money. They then brought out their “arena” and right before our very eyes, we witnessed a Beyblade championship in that living room. I felt speechless, but you know full well I was cheering on my boy Jerry, which was the name I gave the Beyblade the middle child had. He didn’t win. Sad times. But the best part of all of this is that the kids would literally yell “LET IT RIP!!” Everytime they shot their Beyblades. It was jungle law there man, I’m telling you.

Then this one night we went out to dinner with the man himself: CRAIG. Craig is the pastor dude for the Baptist church, but he loves missionaries. And on the way home, he asks us to figure out who his 2 “roommates” are. I was already thrown for a loop because I thought this dude lived alone, but it turns out we had to guess what he had in his house that was as tall as me. But we had no clue what he was talking about– just playing blind darts on this one. But someone guessed a life-size Darth Vader. And that LIT the Craig fuse. “OH MY GOODNESS!! I was never into all the sci-fi crap. I don’t care about Darth Vader, R2-B2, Chuckywanga…” And I literally couldn’t hear him finish because we were HOLLERING in laughter. “BRO YOU MEAN CHEWBACCA???” I ended up telling him, “DUDE CHUCKYWANGA SOUNDS LIKE THE NAME OF A NATIVE AMERICAN CHIEF!!” And then Craig starts to HIT ME!! I’m just like, “CRAIG!! WHY YOU GOTTA SMITE A BROTHER??” But that’s when he starts yelling, “THAT’S WHO MY ROOMMATES ARE!!!!!” So after getting physically abused, we figured out that he has a 6-foot-tall wooden Native American chief in his house. The other one is a 6-foot-tall wooden cowboy. Which, Craig ya goof, how in the socks were we supposed to guess that??? Wowie, I’m gonna miss that loon.

Then later in the week, for like a solid 8 minutes, it felt like my heart had a STABBING pain in it, and all I could really do is fall off the couch. Which I did. But I’m still alive, so it’s all good.

Dang that’s really all the fun stuff that happened this week aside from doing the work, preaching that good word. I have no idea what Norman will be like, but I’ll let everyone know next week. Thanks for reading this, and I hope you guys all have a fanTASTIC week!

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• Sister Taggart – So I actually DESTROYED her when I roasted her, in front of a whole church member family. But as I said, jungle law out here. She’s gonna be staying in Lawton, so who knows if I’ll get to see her again. I asked her for her ending remarks: “Uhhhhm, I will miss being featured, on hopefully the most iconic weekly email. But you’re gonna do great in Norman, I’m excited for you, Norman is great”
• Sister Kettring – Also gonna be staying here in Lawton, but we’ll ask her for her closing remarks: Sniffs nose “Put your trust in Jesus, stay hydrated, stay thriving”
• Hermana Salazar – She will ALSO be staying in Lawton. She says: “It’s been a real one. Godspeed and yeehaw”
• Sister Howcroft – So she always requests a shoutout, and she’s also going to the Norman area with me, so she’ll probably end up on here again sometime. She is the GOAT, as she says

I Can’t Think of a Clever Subject

We got 2 days, people. 2 days ’til Christmas. And in OK it’s gonna be freaking 70 to the 3 degrees. That’s not Christmas. That’s not even winter. It’s just spring here. I don’t get it, why do they gotta ruin my white winter wonderland? Dang city slickers.

But yeah, at least it means we can bike more! Which WE DON’T FREAKING DO BECAUSE SOMEBODY DECIDED TO REINJURE THEIR TOES! So we’re actually just driving everywhere in nice weather. But that’s ok. DEES TINGS HAPPEN. We’re teaching some new people, including this African family that is just bomb fire and accepts everything we say and loves it, so that’s good!

As for what happened this week, let’s get it started:

Well we had this Christmas Conference, which is where we sound the trombone and gather all the preachy peeps together and you listen to the mission President tell us some stuff, and then have fun. We had a Christmas talent show, which we did a skit for, so that was rad.

But that’s boring pills, let’s tell the good stuff. We went to this retirement home to carol for old people, and since in retirement homes they have a BUNCH of those wall hand sanitizer things, I decided to create a game. I got 2 of the cool Elders to join me in it: The goal of the game is to hit as many of the hand sanitizer dispensers as you can, without dropping any hand sanitizer. So you have to aggressively rub hand sanitizer into your hands, while constantly getting more and more sanitizer. Drop any amount, and you’re out. So you have to balance between getting sanitizer and keeping it in your squeaky clean mitts. It was awesome, and if you get the chance, I suggest you at least give it a shot.

Then also at the senior home, we were talking to this old guy who we couldn’t really understand, but you know we shoot our shot. He thanked us for singing to him and then Sister Nielson goes HOG WILD by asking him to SING FOR US. Now, Sister Nielson is a mad lad. The power move of going to carol to people, and then dropping the Uno reverse card and telling them to SING FOR US. I would’ve dropped from the raw power of that demand, had I not huffed so much hand sanitizer. But this old crusty guy was like, “Yeah I can sing a song for y’all.” Then from his raspy, crinkled voice, he breaks into song: “HAVE YA EVER GOT YER NUTS CAUGHT IN A RAT TRAP?” That is the part that my knees buckled. Literally dropped half a foot from how I was standing. I wasn’t ready. I could never be ready for that. Hearing that sung to me was like someone had removed my spine, and proceeded to beat me over the head with it. That old guy’s going places. Probably heaven soon. Godspeed my brother, keep thriving in madness.

We also got to hang with our zone leaders, who are in charge of the missionaries in a certain area, and we made a video, created Aztec weapons out of hangers and long balloons, had a freestyle rap battle, and I learned the basics of playing the piano with them. That’s what we did when we weren’t OUT SAVING SOULS FOR 15 HOURS. It was super fun. 

I also made a nativity recreation, with only me, playing every role, so that was my after hours for 2 nights.

Well, Christmas is coming around, so I’m getting ready to hang out with people here, call my family and just enjoy the season. I hope everyone reading this enjoys their holidays, and I hope I brightened your day, even just a little bit. Merry Christmas to whoever reads my emails, and have a grooving week!

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• Sister Kettring: Whenever you ask her how she’s doing, she always respond with “I’m thriving”, which is the pedal to the metal lifestyle I’m gonna acquire. What a lad.

• Sister Taggart: It’s pronounced, “tag-ert”, which I instantly related to “Gogurt” when I first heard her name. She played the Holy Ghost in the skit we did, and she’s rad.

• Sister Howcroft: She requested a shoutout, and then left the room to call her family. So I’ll shout her out for wearing a baseball hat every P day. She’s cool.

Stealing Jesus

Well well well, here we go again. Me having to write about what’s happened throughout my week. Keep in mind, aside from every story I tell about something BONKERS that happened, it’s us doing the work, spreading the good work and trying to get people to listen. So rather than talk about the same thing I do every day, I share the things that AREN’T the same every week. Well, here I go looking through my journal to see what has happened to us this time:

So, the background to this story is that, outside of every missionary apartment is a picture of Jesus, for multiple reasons, first being cuz Jesus rocks, and second is so missionaries know where all the other missionaries live and stuff like that. And that’s why we have one at our apartment! Yeah so someone stole ours. Like Swiper the Fox. They just snagged it. And it’s not like they were off into the night with it after they did. THEY WERE OUR NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR. They took it off of our little paper holder thing, walked 10 feet to their door, and stuck it on. I’ll admit, it’s a bold move. Especially since (1) you’re stealing a PICTURE of JESUS, which should like, click as you’re taking it off of someone else’s door that it’s the wrong thing to do, and (2) because we literally know exactly who did it. Imagine stealing someone else’s car, and parking it down the street. Or another scenario is that someone else had the idea to take our picture of Jesus, and put it on our neighbors door. Which, I’m not quite sure why you would do it, but then again this is Okla freakin’ homa, and nothing makes sense down here.

Then later this week we went up to Oklahoma City and did “New Missionary Graduation”, so I am no longer considered a new missionary, which is good because I’m actually the smartest person ever, and that title was holding me back. Anyways, we had to practice teaching all the lessons to other people, and it turns out that for a little part of the lesson, I was literally teaching false doctrine. I was straight telling this person stuff that isn’t true. Which I only found out AFTER I had finished the lesson. I retract my statement pertaining to my intellect. But we’re all human, at least most of us.

But yeah, while we were up there I got a little card that lets me drive while I’m a missionary. So Mad Max is back fools. They can’t contain my fuel effective off-roading any longer.

Alright, this next one’s on me. A little bit. Not really. But I end up having to step up and clean all of the dishes that my comps didn’t clean. I cleaned mine (hope you’re proud mom), but they didn’t clean theirs. And it was now at the point that we were basically creating our own moss and fungus farm in the sink. But I end up just saying, “Alright chums, time’s up let’s do this” and I get down to it. However, we’re poor, and we don’t have a washcloth. And I realize that as I’m getting to the point of needing to clean the counters and the stove, which looked like a Chernobyl replica, I needed fabric that could wipe. So I go scrounging for some kind of rag or something, and I find the top part of a white dress shirt, which looks like the highest crop top of all time. But I’m like, “Yeah this is a rag, this doesn’t belong to anyone here, nobody will care if I use it to clean the oven top battlefield of 1914.”

Now, it turns out that it was NOT a rag, and DID belong to someone, and they WOULD care if I used it to clean the stove. But Past Zaque didn’t know that, homie was just trying to fix this place up, make it spic and span for when Jesus pulls up to the crib. So I proceed to thoroughly and royally MESS THIS SHIRT UP MAN. If it wasn’t a rag before, it sure was now. It had more stains than a 9-year-old kid’s shirt after a good summer day. So I finally finish, and the kitchen is now officially CLEAN. The shirt, very much NOT CLEAN, but the tradeoff seemed way worth it to me.

Elder Spillman does what he does best, and shows up to help when I’ve already done everything myself. He sees the blood, sweat, and tears of my hard labors on the ground, the countertops so clean you could play shuffleboard off those bad boys, and this tattered mass of dirt in my quaking right hand. He’s like, “Where did you get that rag?” as he pointed to my latest Shamwow product. “I just found it on the ground, placed there by one of you dirty dolittles.” Well, turns out that the “rag” was actually Elder Marler’s fake white shirt that he wears under sweaters, so he doesn’t have to wear an actual white dress shirt. So, there I am, clutching the rag formerly known as Elder Marler’s sweater shirt, and looking at the catastrophe on Elder Spillman’s horrified face. He was scared. He was more than scared, he was trembling as he was mentally preparing for the confrontation of Elder Marler that was brought about my choices. But not me. No sir, not me. That 5 foot 9 hunk of snips, snails, and puppy dog tails couldn’t do anything to a man of my caliber. But it was a fight I wasn’t gonna be excited for. So I made a tactical call, and decided to just leave it near the sink, to use later, hoping that Elder Marler would just come to accept that he no longer had a sweater shirt, and we now had a new rag for cleaning dishes. I’ve let that stand as a statement against any and all that are unwilling to actually clean their dishes, to show them the consequences of failing to live in cleanliness. Elder Marler also still doesn’t know that it used to be his, so that helps.

Now, I could explain this next story, but I’ll just sum it up real quick. I went to send my package to my family, and I ended up getting approached by this random guy that I straight thought was gonna shoot me. He asked what church we were missionaries for, and when I said the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he said, “Oh I thought you guys were Mormons. If you were I woulda messed you up.” And he got back in his car. So yay for confusion, which ended up saving me from getting “messed up”. And I got to talk with him alone because my companions BOTH got in the car and decided to not get out until he had left. Snakes in a car, gonna be a spin off movie I make based on this true story.

Well, those are some long stories, but I hope anyone actually reading this enjoys them. Have a great week, and I’ll try to actually get shot next time, so the story is more entertaining. Catch you guys next time!

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

Nick: My boy Nick. Nick requested a shoutout via smoke signal, so he’s getting in on the action. Nick is my hookup with the real world, and tells me about what’s happening back in Colorado, the coolest state in the US. He’s way sick, and a real homie.

Hermana Salazar: She’s a sister missionary, but if you’re also spanish-speaking, you are called an Hermana. She requested specifically being shouted out for having an army jacket that she found at Goodwill. Stay thrifty out there, kids.

The Bloods and the Cripples

Alrighty, let’s start with some good news: The Unstoppable Child of last week got baptized on Sunday. We finally snagged him. One down, 7.2 billion to go. Other than that, we’ve been slowly trying to find more people and teach the people we have found, but everyone is just, slooping away from us. We’ll have to change our tactics to force. Other than that, it’s been a pretty normal week. I think. Gotta check what happened and type it all out, so here we go.

Well, last Monday I talked about how we were gonna do a zone P-Day, where we all get to hang out and play some fun games, and I didn’t get body slammed into the wall this time, but Elder Spillman ZONKED his toe up playing soccer. So we haven’t really done any biking or walking these week, and we had to drop our pace speed to that of an amputee grandma, as we trudge along with Sir LimpsALot.

Then we were given the address of this new member in the church, and it was to these apartments, that we were SPECIFICALLY told to avoid at all costs. So of course we go to find this man, and we were given naught but 2 numbers, as to the possibility of which apartment was his. So we figured we would just try the two different numbers, hoping that whichever apartment wasn’t his, wouldn’t shoot us. Then we get there and find out that there are apartment buildings A B C D E F G. Sooooo, rather than trying every door, we decided to just, not, and call this guy later. Turns out literally both numbers were blatant lies, and he gave us the real number. Fun enough, when we did meet the guy, he told us how 90% of the people living in these apartments were in a gang, and this was their territory. Yeehaw, gotta love Lawton!

Then when we went to teach Unstoppable Child the final lesson earlier this week for his baptism, we just watched this guy 1-hit KO this girl in the parking lot. In between our car, and the one exit outta there. So you already know that we got to drive between these groups of people, I gave ’em a little wave and a smile. Nobody waved back.

Then on Saturday, our ward was doing a Christmas party, and a talent show with it. Sister Benesch, in one last hoorah, signed up the missionaries to do a talent before she got transferred to a different part of Oklahoma. Snakes everywhere, I tell ya. But yeah, I ended up suggesting we do a skit, so we made the roughest of drafts, and then basically assigned roles and went on. I have yet to acquire the video of it, because the person that took it couldn’t send it to us.

Dang this email has been a NAP, but I might as well include my vow that I made literally moments after getting to Oklahoma. So you know how people say “y’all”? Yeah no. I’m not about that. Like, at all. That work belongs to the hicks, and I literally refuse to use it. I usually say “you guys” or something like “you fools”, but never, NEVER, “y’all”. That word is prohibited from entering my vocabulary, as it forever should be, and forever will be. Miss me with that rodeo talk, ya goofy belt lickers. That might’ve been a little harsh, so anyone reading this that uses the word “y’all”: Sorry for calling you out, but that word is not for me. Hope you don’t hate me for it.

WOWZERS I’m sorry that this email hasn’t been the most entertaining, and I really hope nobody got offended by having me call out the “y’all” users, but we’ll find out next week.

SHOUTOUTS:

Kenny: My man Kenny emailed in with the request, and I will deliver. Kenny is going to college somewhere in Colorado, and he’s having a fantastic time up there. He’s super rad and is a real homie for sure.

Sister Kettring: She’s wack. I don’t even know what to say about her. She was actually just flipping out about the new rules we have now, and didn’t have an answer for when I asked her what she wanted me to include about her in the email.

Sister Taggart: She played this dude named Lemuel in our skit, and she’s got orange hair. She’s more laid back than Sister Kettring, but still quite the hoot.

Sister Howcroft: When I asked what the B on her hat stood for, she told me bad to the bone. And I think that sums it up. She’s still chilling with 6 months left on her mission.

The picture is our zone, and we all were required to buy an ugly Christmas sweater, so I joined the Turtleneck Gang with my super slick attire. Also, whatever impure soul suggested we take this picture on a truck lost all of my respect. Not gonna name names, but I know who did it.

Over and Out

Harry Potter and the Unstoppable Child

Well hot pretzels, I gotta crank this out in like, 30 minutes because the rest of the zone is coming to play games with all of us together. So sorry gents and lasses, but this email’s gonna be LICKITY SPLIT.

We’re still teaching people and finding new ones, it’s fun stuff.

Monday after I emailed all you clowns, we went out and got haircuts at this sketchy Korean barbershop, but it was cheap and pretty fly, I personally think.

Then we went to a music store and I bought an instrument called a THUNDERTUBE. It’s a tube, with a long, thin spring attached to the bottom, and then you just, wiggle wiggle, and it goes: WANNNNGAWANNNNNNNGGRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM. It’s my kind of music. 

That night, we went to this kid we were teaching and lemme tell you what: this kid is unstoppable. And I mean it. When he has something to say, HE SAYS IT. No matter who’s speaking, or what they’re saying, he will just have the words formulate in his head, and he will SPOUT THEM FROM HIS LIPS. “So ya see, if we’re all good people–” “SO LIKE WHY DO ZEBRAS HAVE STRIPES? CUZ LIKE, NO OTHER ANIMALS HAVE STRIPES. WELL LIKE, TIGERS DO, BUT LIKE, ZEBRA ARE THE ONLY FRIENDLY ANIMALS WITH STRIPES.” Like flip, my boy, how do we contain you?

Then of course as we’re there, and we’re saying hi to the family, he just pulls out a flat sponge kinda thing from his pocket and boldly announces the power that this sponge has. And proceeds to wipe this dirty knife all over the table and proclaim, “So you see, it can clean up any mess!” Wipes the table three times “BOOM, three wipes and the mess is GONE! Look look, I’ll do it again, even the biggest messes are gone in SECONDS!” Wipes knife on the table again and then wipes it clean “ISN’T THAT AMAZING?? IT CLEANS ANY MESS, IN SECONDS!!” I was living a Shamwow commercial. I thought that I was in some kind of wack dream.

Then he proceeds to explain how he was gonna carve pool balls outta wood, and all he needed was a log. We’re like, “Don’t you want a knife or something?” And he’s just like, “Nah, I’ll use my teeth.” This kid. THIS KID. I could make this whole email about him, I swear. But I’m running out of time, so we’ll move on.

This week has been pretty chill, though. Thanksgiving we spent just hangin’ with some members in our ward.

On Black Friday, we went and talked to people in the stores, because we like a challenge, and then I got peer pressured into buying a 3-pound Hershey’s bar. It’s a wild time.

But Saturday was BRUTAL. We were biking everywhere and the wind was just going BONKERS ON OUR PANTALOONS. Like, at least a whole lot of speed. I can’t tell you how fast it was, because I didn’t have my wind speed tracker on my person that day. But like, it was ROUGH. We biked for 30 minutes one way, and 2 minutes coming back. Also the wind blew me off my bike and I got stabbed by my bike gears. Sad times.

Yeah I’m pretty sure the zone is pulling in, and a couple of them are here. So I gotta BOUNCE. Sorry this isn’t as bizarre as some of my emails, but I’ll try to do some more crazy things. Thanks for reading through my email, and have a great day everyone!

So, apparently getting shouted out in my email has become a thing, so we’ll have them at the end of my emails now.

SHOUTOUTS:

• Sister Howcroft requested a shoutout, so she’ll get another one. We usually just roast each other when we cross paths, it’s fun times.

• Sister Kettring is requesting a shoutout as well. She got transferred in like, 2 weeks ago, and she’s pretty rad. She’s also super short.

• Sister Pike asked what I was doing and I informed her of the shoutouts, so she requested one as well. She’s way sick and really laid back. She’s not from around my area, but she’s here for the zone activities we’re doing late.

Over and Out