Basically Tripping Acid

Well, another week done in Norman. Just chilling in our apartment because we can’t leave. Life is wild. We call people, text people, and try making Facebook posts. OH YEAH, so we put free bibles for sale on Facebook, hoping to be able to talk to people as we handed them out. Well, guess what. We got a couple offers, and we were pumped. So the day comes when we’re gonna meet with them. This is actually at the end of the week, starting on Friday. So we text this guy and set up to meet with him at a local Walmart at 10 in the morning. First thing we noticed: This guy is probably crazy. Texting him was like talking to someone that could only remember the last sentence you said. So that was fun. But we show up at the Walmart, wait for 30 minutes, call him, text him, nothing. So we peel outta there. Next day, this lady wants a bible. We set up same place, same time. Wait from 9:50 to 10:30, with us calling and texting her as well. No show. Then she texts and says tomorrow will be better. Same place, but now a different time. Well guess freaking what? NO SHOW. Oh my hot cross buns. I could’ve sworn we were scheduling times to meet up with gosh dang Tony the Tiger because of all these FLAKES. Three days in a row. What the actual flip.

Dang, we didn’t do a lot of exciting things this week. Oh, we got to bike around OU campus, which was desolate, but honestly, that’s not really something fun to share.

Alright, I got something. So earlier this week I got a bouncy ball. Like, the ones that look like little moons, with the weird crater looking dents in it. Anyway, we went to the church gym to get some exercise, and I figured, “What better time to bust out the bouncy ball?” So we pull up to the church and go into the gym. Elder Anderson is just practicing shooting baskets, and I’m playing good ol’ solo wall ball. But I decide to see if I can throw the bouncy ball at the ground, and have it bounce and hit the ceiling. It bounced pretty crazy high, and nearly hit the ceiling twice. Well, just gotta put some more juice into the next throw, I guess. So I wind up and just throw this ball with the might of Poseiden at the freaking ground. Well. The fates came for me that day. The ball immediately ricocheted and hit me square in the face. I then stumbled to the side, and since I threw my head back so hard, I nearly fell, and my glasses launched off my head. I quickly grabbed my glasses from the ground and looked at basketball boy, who was OBLIVIOUS to what had just transpired. And then I tell the masses on my weekly email, so I still look like a fool. But it was pretty funny.

Alright, I got some things to say. So, this may be dirt on Elder Anderson, but I mean it with no ill intent, and just want to share it because it’s wild. He is the sweatiest man I have ever seen on planet Earth. After we started playing some basketball against each other, his shirt proceeded to go from light red to dark red. Have you ever played basketball against a man covered in baby oil? That’s what it was like. You couldn’t touch him, because he would just slip away, and you in no way even wanted to touch him. My shirt was dry, his elbow bumped into it, and my shirt became wet. Not damp… WET. It’s the closest I can get to going swimming, because this man is practically bathing himself. The average body is made of what, 60% water? Nah. Not him. He’s probably in the triple digits. I don’t mean to put him in a bad light, I just wanted to enlighten all of you with this fun bit of information.

Alright, then something else happened. So, the few people who remember my literal first week’s email, I talked about hitting a stretch that made me almost pass out. It happened again. So I was hunched against the back of this armchair in our apartment, and I was like that for a good while. Then, we got a call that someone dropping off dinner to us was outside. So I stand up and I’m stretching, trying to fix my self-inflicted scoliosis, when I feel that good headrush coming on. My vision just fades to black, and the noise around me disappears. Then suddenly, noise returns and I start seeing things. Just, THINGS. And I start hearing just, NOISE. I’ve never tripped acid, but boy lemme tell you, that’s probably what it feels like. I saw things and heard things, and then, when my consciousness came back, I found myself sitting back in the chair that I never intended to sit back down in. I’m pretty sure I passed out for like, 4 seconds, and then came to. But like, WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO ME?? I was so confused, but we had food to get, so I got back up and we were out the door. But dang, I guess I get head rushes that end up literally knocking me unconscious, so that’s cool.

Other than that, this week has been just us inside our apartment. It kinda sucks, but we’re still living, and having a good time. Hope nobody is dying, and everyone enjoys getting to stay inside! Woo!

SHOUTOUTS:

My mom: My mom asked for a shoutout, and she’ll get one. She’s awesome! She raised me since day one, and somehow put up with me throughout my whole life. You the real one, Mom.

Over and Out

Murder Witnesses

So yeah, we got locked in. We can only really be in our apartment, or at the church. And we can’t visit members. But we can still see other missionaries, if everyone is feeling good. So that’s the situation in which the events of this week were forged.

Well, since we got SHUT DOWN on Friday of last week, we’ll go over the pre-locked-in stuff. I mean, not really a good story, but I got whooped up on in foosball against some members we were having dinner with. And I mean, it was brutal. The kid was like, two years younger than me, but light-years ahead of me in pure foosball prowess. So I took some damage to my pride that night, which hurt.

Also, last Monday when I was here, there was just a random guy wandering around playing bagpipes, so that was unexpected.

Then we went to Chili’s for lunch before EVERY RESTAURANT CLOSED, and found out that Chili’s kinda sucks. Then we threw a mattress off a balcony at some other missionary. It was sick. His spine probably almost collapsed in on itself like an accordian.

Then came the reckoning. We found out we were gonna be on lockdown. So then like 3 days of nothing but calling people, studying and playing board games.

But with all this tomfoolery going on, we got to go and walk around the empty OU campus, which was legendary. We went to this duck pond they have there, and we fed them bread. I was like the animal whisperer, because I would slowly lure them closer to me, one step at a time, until I had geese literally eating the bread right out of my hand. Now THAT was sick. But then I ran out of bread, and it looked like the geese were gonna jump me, so it instantly became less sick. Then we were watching these four ducks swimming around together, and we saw one of them start to violently thrash in the water like it was listening to heavy metal, and then it just got sucked under. Annnnnnd didn’t come back up. We stayed there for another 10 minutes, and that duck didn’t surface. He was gone. He wasn’t coming back. And the three other ducks did not give one crap that their homeboy just got snatched like that. We’ve heard that snapping turtles are in Oklahoma, and that was our best guess as to what happened to that chap, but who knows.

Well, nothing else really happened, because nothing else really CAN happen, with us sitting inside all day. I’ll try to make some more madness in the meantime. Also, I’m staying here for another 6 weeks. Just got word like, ten minutes ago. Same guy will be with me, Elder Anderson.

SHOUTOUTS:

• Patrick: He didn’t ask for one, but I don’t care. Writing this email, especially the part about dropping a mattress on another man, reminded me of my good homie Patrick. Patrick was a LEGEND in gymnastic ability, he went to national championships and stuff. It was nuts. Then his back went through an extreme case of Getting Messed the Freak Up. So it reminded me of him, and I put him on here. Patrick, you a real one brotha, stay frosty.

Over and Out

1 Foot, 6 feet, and 15 feet

So, screw Coronavirus. What a dumb virus. I’ll tell you what we get to do because of that. Actually, more what we don’t get to do. No more handshakes, so formally greeting people is a no go. No more going to church, so seeing our members is out. And on the one day a week that we get to play games and email, games are donezo. But we still are told to go out and visit people, so long as they aren’t feeling bad. It’s not just confusing, it’s also shtewpid. Coronavirus is ruining my mission. And then of course they say stuff like, “Stay at least 6 feet away from someone coughing or sneezing.” Like, the heck am I gonna do, pull out 2 yard sticks and double check that math??

My master idea is that we stop shutting things down and all just embrace the virus. Yeah, we all get it, and the weak will be weeded out, but then everyone strong enough to get through it will be immune. Sorry if you got a weak immune system, natural selection can be brutal. (Nobody actually take offense at this joke!)

ANYWAY.

So this week is the week of the 18th, so once again, we got: THE RAFFLE. Whoever wins better email me where to send it.

Ok, now that the BORING stuff is gone, let’s go over the week. So, I don’t know if you know this, but in some newer-model cars, such as the one we have, they have an automatic stop function if you get too close to something without braking. So I was just driving, like you do, and out of the corner of my eye, I see a shirtless man carrying his leather jacket for a fraction of a second. So I turn to double check if I saw that right, and in the process of looking over, the car notices I’m coming closer to the car in front of me, who had come to a rather quick stop. So the car does the flashing red letters BRAKE, and I start pushing on the brake, not wanting to give myself whiplash. Well our car had a better idea. Since I didn’t push on the brakes as hard as humanly possible, the car proceeds to bring us to a literal GEAR GRINDING HALT. This wack sound was coming from the car, and we were flung forward. No injuries, no airbags, but the car stopped us. A GOOD FIFTEEN FREAKING FEET BEHIND THE CAR IN FRONT OF US. Thank goodness we were able to squeal our tires and probably do some damage to the interior instead of getting to stop a little bit closer to the other car. Honestly could’ve had a homie merge between us comfortably, from where we had stopped.

Time for a story of sweet buttery goodness. So I was making mac & cheese, nobody could stop me, and I realized I needed to put butter in with the milk and stuff, and all we had was butter in the fridge. I don’t want to put hard butter in my pan and mix it around until it’s melted, so I put the stick of butter, with the wrapper on, in the microwave. I hit the 30 seconds button, knowing I’d stop it well before then and then got immediately distracted by the pan of water I was boiling. Next thing I hear is the microwave beeping as I proceed to yell, “OH NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” And sure enough, the butter had melted out of the package onto the glass disc thing. So I dumped the melted butter into a glass and had to use that. Luckily Elder Anderson was there to capture my pure joy on camera.

We also got to talk to a guy working on a broken van, and he had the BIGGEST plumber’s crack I have ever perceived with my peripheral vision. I didn’t dare lay eyes on that unholy sight head on, but that crack had gotta be about a foot long, sweet glory. Could’ve gone to Subway and spent $5 for that thing.

And yeah, that’s about my week. Still going around and visiting families, trying to help them out while talking to everyone we see and trying to find people that want to listen to us. Hopefully I don’t get locked in my apartment and have nothing to write about, but WHO KNOWS? Anyway, thanks to everyone that reads this, hopefully you enjoyed it, have a fantastic week.

SHOUTOUTS:

• Nobody wants shoutouts anymore

Pics:

• The butter fiasco
• I love riding in the back behind people that are over 6 feet
• Gary, from the raffle
• Swapped and went out with a different missionary for the day, who promptly got sick, and we came back so he could pass out
• So this card game called “BANG” had a make your own card, and Elder Anderson told me to draw Thanos. So I did what I could

— Over and Out

Endgame Spoilers, 8 Dogs, and a Guy Who Bites His Cat

Ladies and gentlemen, I have spent another full week among the land of the cowboys. Their social interactions astound me, and I have yet to fully understand them. One that I’ve noticed amongst the fellow missionaries is that they do this finger slapping thing. I don’t know how to describe it. You make your pointer finger really loose, and then you pretty much shake your hand, and your spaghetti finger slaps against your middle finger and thumb. Yeah, they do it when something good happens, and usually say something like, “Let’s goooooo!” I think it’s weird and a little cringy, but maybe that’s because I can’t do it >:( Either way, I’ll probably not reform out of spite because I don’t want to pick up any wretched hillbilly quirks.

With that out of the way, it’s been a pretty good week. We’ve been working with the members here, and there are a lot of cool ones. I don’t know how many things that happened will make a good story, but I guess we’ll find out.

Well, I mean, I don’t have access to the news or anything like that, but the CORONAVIRUS is a fun topic people bring up all the time. What I have learned from the various skewed sources I have is that, (1) It kills old people. (2) It started in Japan or China. (3) A mile up the road of the supposed “origin point” is a high level government lab. (4) There’s like, 1 person in Oklahoma with it. And (5) it has a two-week dormant period before you see the symptoms. And I learned must of that from a guy who kept claiming, “Now, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but…” And then he’d talk to us about how it was a perfect virus that started just near a high level lab. It’s wild. We’ve just been told to wash our hands and don’t do anything shtewpid, so yeah, hopefully it doesn’t take over the world like it’s The Brain. (That’s a high level “Pinky and The Brain” joke for all those goofs out there who don’t get it.)

ENDGAME SPOILER ALERT:

So on a car ride, our driver was talking to us and was like, “Ya know, I don’t know how Marvel is gonna keep making movies without Iron Man anymore…” And now, my guy Elder Anderson hasn’t seen it, so I look at him, and he’s about to say something when the guy finishes, “But now he’s dead.” And Elder Anderson just puts his head down in defeat. As soon as the guy finished saying that, he started saying sorry and saying stuff like, “No, I meant that as in he doesn’t have a will to fight anymore!” And his daughter just going after him for ruining the whole thing for him. Ah, sucks to suck I guess.

END OF SPOILER

If you haven’t seen the movie, which, I can only think of one person on this list that hasn’t, don’t read the spoiler part.

Anyway, a fun thing that isn’t really a good story per se, is that we found a dog without a collar and tracked down the owner, so that was a fun time. Then, on that same day, after we got home, I noticed that my pants were just wrecked, from all the interactions we had with dogs. I went back through and calculated exactly how many dogs came in contact with my pants. 8 dogs. That’s a record for me, just sayin’. Petting 8 dogs in a day is a good day.

So, also. For about half the week it hurt to breathe. Literally. If I took a breath in all the way, my lungs started to hurt. I literally don’t know why they did that; I’m like what the heck stupid lungs, I’m gonna need you to not do that. But now it doesn’t! And life goes on. But I’m just saying, this might be the last email I ever write.

Fun fact: I apparently laugh in my sleep. Didn’t think I could, but it was a funny dream.

ALRIGHT: So we went to visit this member family, who are super cool, and they have these cats. And the guy was talking to us about how they trained the cats to not bite people, and he was like, “Well, they used to bite me when I was petting them, so I bit them back to show ’em what it feels like.” BOY YOU WHAT?? And he’s like, “Hey, it showed ’em that it hurts, and they stopped doing it.” So I mean, that’s metal. But oh man, what a lad. He was also wearing white socks and sandals the whole time.

Yeah, it was a good week, not super off the rails wild, but still pretty good.

SHOUTOUTS:

• Sister Richardson: She’s a missionary serving in Indiana. I met her in the MTC and she’s really cool. She said that she actually reads all the way through my weekly emails, so she’s a real one.

Pics:

• So we went to this donut shop called “Hurts Donuts” and the cashier dude knew missionaries and we got free donuts.

• The lost dog we found

Over and Out

Use Your Imagination

Well, it’s been a whole week. So much has happened. But only the good stuff will make it on this email. On a positive note, some members told us about their friends, and we found out that they’re both outside of the area we have, so we get to give them to other missionaries. But hey, still a good thing. Even though our numbers look bad, we’re doing good.

We’ll hit some brief, vague highlights that don’t really have a good story, and are better left up to the imagination:

• Accidentally insulted the lineage of an Apache missionary
• Learned about obscure Monopoly strategies and how to win (there’s skill in that game?)
• Elder Lara explained to me how this member gave him crystals to draw energy out of
• Went to the police station
• Fed 5,000 kids
• Our closet literally collapsed
• Slept in a mattress sandwich
• Almost got attacked by four massive dogs
• Saw a lady protesting by holding a bag of trail mix
• Elder Anderson popped his bike tire

Yeah, not really anything that I could turn into a story, but stuff happened. Did the normal stuff like going into houses that smelled like weed– which reminded me of the Colorado homeland– and biked for like, 2 hours straight. It was a good week though.

Ok also: So this is just practically fact, or Jesus is covering my eyes. There are no hot people in Oklahoma. Very very few. Now, I don’t know if it’s just that they have no genetic lottery winners, or since as a missionary I can’t date, so I’m not on the prowl. But yeah, there really aren’t very attractive women here. God knew I’d end up getting those digits for after the mission, so I guess that’s why I’m here in Oklahoma. Out of sight, out of mind. And I don’t know anybody from Oklahoma, so hopefully nobody gets offended at that comment.

Well, we also got some pictures of my sick homemade costume.

SHOUTOUTS:

• My sister Kyra. She didn’t ask for one but she’s really really awesome. She goes to college at BYU and is, like, my favorite sister. Even though she seems shy, she’s actually crazy fun if she’s hanging around people she knows.
• My brother Alex. Also didn’t ask for a shoutout, but nobody does anymore I guess. He is rad. Like, even though we’re pretty different personality wise, I have a blast with him. He’s also going to BYU and once you get to know him, you’ll get what I’m saying.

Over and out