Street Genius

So we discovered a huge container of pink lemonade, and it’s made this week all worth it. Even though it says it expired last year, I doubt that stuff can ever expire. It’s pretty much just crystallized, and I end up having to slam it on the counter to break it apart, but other than that it tastes pretty groovy.

Hmmm, looks like this week was pretty tame, with all the excitement happening in the span of 2 days:

So there we were, just chillin’, like we do. I was coloring like an 8-year-old, and Elder Anderson was napping. Then outta nowhere, our smoke alarm went off. One of them did. It wasn’t one of the ceiling fellas, but it was like a smoke/carbon monoxide detector. And these beeps are just horrifyingly loud. Elder Anderson just about had a heart attack, and I was just in my natural state of confusion. Now, there was no smoke, and I saw that it said CO detector on the front. So I try pressing the button to shut this ear-splitting noise up, and it doesn’t work. So that was cool. But we end up breaking the back open to check what 3 beeps means, because for all we know, that could be good ol’ carbon monoxide. But we check and 3 beeps is smoke. And there’s no smoke. And the button won’t silence it. So I made a tactical call and threw it in the freezer. Sometimes I forget that I’m basically a street genius, because that helped quite a lot, and the noise got muffled really well. Then as I’m waiting for this spazzy alarm to finally give up, Elder Anderson began to draw upon his primal rage and got the hammer, saying he was gonna just smash the thing if it didn’t stop soon. I had to give him a humbling, common-sense backhand by telling him that was the stupidest idea he could have come up with. I, of course, would’ve loved to watch this loon beat the crap out of a smoke alarm with a blunt object, but it wasn’t ours, and it’s the only CO detector we have. And then, by our luck, it stopped. Our ears had blissful silence once again, and we put it outside just in case it tried to go off again. Luckily, after we brough it in, it had silenced itself, and hasn’t gone off since.

Then this other day, I had my pen in my hand, writing down something, and I spilled some of that glorious pink lemonade on myself. So I have the pen in my hand, then I have a towel in my hand. Less than 4 seconds elapsed from the time that I got up, holding my pen, to when I had the towel, wiping off my shirt. And I lost my pen in that timespan. I then spent 20 MINUTES LOOKING FOR IT. It ended up behind the oven. I have no idea how it ended up there, but I got it back.

Then another time, we got my bouncy ball stuck on our neighbor’s second-story balcony. So I brought out a chair and a broom and tried to get it down. But since I’m so short, I couldn’t get it down. So then I climbed on Elder Anderson’s shoulders, and we got it down. We totally looked like we were trying to break in, but I don’t care, we did it.

And then as we were bouncing the bouncy ball around outside, this random guy gave us these tennis balls and let us borrow his tennis rackets. He was a nice guy, but I went through the exact process that I was trained not to go through as a kid. Like, step by step, how kidnappers abduct people:

1. He approaches me, and asks me if I want some tennis balls
2. I say sure
3. He tells me he’s got them IN HIS TRUCK
4. I FOLLOW HIM TO HIS TRUCK
5. Instead if grabbing me and throwing me in, he just gives me a bunch of tennis balls

But dang, I guess I’m ripe for kidnapping, so that might be how I go. Nobody reading this try to kidnap me, because it’ll probably work.

Then I hit the tennis ball into a window on the third-story window. Luckily nobody came out to see what it was, but dang, those fools can FLY.

But yeah, this week was actually pretty good, not too many stories, but it was solid. I’ll try to get something exciting to happen this week, and we’ll see what the fates have in store for me. Have a good one!

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• Hey nobody asks for shoutouts, start asking for shoutouts people

Old Women Crave Me

Another week down. Same stuff happening: we call people, study, and have recently been playing Bananagrams. Which is like, every man for himself Scrabble. And my extensive vocabulary is continually expanding at a remarkable rate. Also, we did some fun stuff.

I’m still getting foggy glasses every living moment I wear the face masks we have to, but I’m just embracing it now, so I live in that constant state of blindness.

I believe this story I’m about to unfold before you guys, like some kind of reverse origami, probably gives you a perfect glimpse into what I’m like, fundamentally, as a person. So I’m just doing the dishes, and these two masked men bust through the door. I don’t even flinch. That’s because they were just some other missionaries we knew, but still. They had a letter to give to us, so we take it. Now, backstory before this very moment, we were given these little cartons of chocolate milk from some members, just like the ones from school, but that was WEEKS ago, and when I took a gulp of one that morning, I was SURE that these things were sour, because it nearly TOOK MY LIFE. So cut back to real time, I immediately offer them some chocolate milk for the road. Tell ’em how we got them, and the icing on the cake of carnage I had baked was that the expiration date was still 2 days away. I swear, the stars aligned just so I could pull off this brilliant prank. They thank us, TOTALLY UNAWARE that their taste buds are about to be in for the RIDE OF THEIR LIVES. Oh it was played off perfectly, all I had to do was wait for them to bring about their own self-inflicted armageddon when they took a swig of that chocolatey mess. But as they were walking out to their car, I thought that I should tell them that the milk was nasty. I would’ve loved to see how they managed to not eject out sour milk while in a moving car, but I ended up going out onto our little balcony, and telling them not to drink it. It was so perfectly schemed, and I would’ve loved the payout of my labors, but I couldn’t bring myself to let that happen.

Also, I broke a glass bottle with nothing but my bare hands. I’ll explain this little trick. So, if you take a glass bottle, ANY glass bottle, and you fill it up about halfway with water, you can hold it near the top, and SLAM your hand down onto the open part, and it causes the bottom of the bottle to bust open. Now, not gonna lie, it hurts your hand, and it’s hard to do, but I can guarantee that it actually works. I also gotta give credit where credit is due: Elder Janke, who was on some of my previous emails, had showed me a video of him doing it back when he was here, and that’s how I knew it was at least possible.

Alright, here’s the gem I’ve been saving for last: So these members were bringing us food, and the woman drives up, we meet her outside, she hands us the bag, we say our hellos and goodbyes, and she’s off. So we go back inside and start eating. After about 5 minutes, we get a text from the 65-year-old lady that just gave us food.

“I’m having a strong craving for your lips. Are they busy right now?”

I froze. It was like a speed bump on the railroad that is my train of thought. It felt like a desktop crash window popped up in my head, and I just sat there in trauma. Luckily, she caught herself and followed with an apology, saying that she meant to send that to her husband. But like, SWEET GLORY, she’s literally a HALF CENTURY OLDER THAN ME!! And then just imagining this sweet old lady saying that to us… I didn’t think she will ever want to come in contact with us again. Bless her soul, that was probably the most humiliating moment of her life, and of all the people to send that message to, it had to be THE HOLY MEN that we are. Oh gooooooodness.

But yeah, was a pretty grand week, I’m having a good time out here, even while being trapped inside, and I hope you guys are as well. Until next time.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• Kyra: She’s my sister, and she asked for a shoutout. She rocks! I told her about the Saltine Challenge, which is where you eat 6 saltine crackers in under a minute, and she failed miserably. But she’s super fun, I’m glad she’s so cool.
• Elder Janke: He opened my eyes to more bottle breaking possibilities, so I’ll give him one too. He’s only got a few weeks left before he finishes his mission– godspeed to him.

Pics:

So I made that twice as cheesy mac and cheese I talked about last week, and it was brutal. It was just pure cheesy flavor, which overwhelmed me.

Macaroni and Hair

Well, we got more stuff that happened this week, which is good. We’re still inside, calling people, studying, all the fun things in life, ya know. But we also had some wild times.

So, since I’m locked up, I’m trying to get those new taste experiences, you get what I’m saying? So I start making mac and cheese. Wild, I know. BUT, I decide to skip the cheese, and instead, I substitute it for hot sauce. And in my underdeveloped mind, I figured it wouldn’t taste like a straight hobo trash can fire. Oh, how wrong I was. I finish making the noodles, and then put ’em in a bowl. Then I just DOUSE them in some hot sauce. Mix it up, take a bite. It was just nasty. Like, to describe it’s flavor, I would just say “Noodles and Hot”, and that’s it. But that was only one bite, so I decided to just add more ingredients ’til something edible actually came out of it. Now, the problem with this skewed logic of mine is that it was based off Ratatouille, the movie with the literal rat chef, which was an idea that someone was able to sell, and another person was able to turn into an actually decent movie. So I slowly grabbed ingredient after ingredient, and one by one, added them to the concoction that was these noodles. Each ingredient simply made it worse, until I gave up. The problem might’ve arose from the fact that I only added spicy things, and other hot sauces, but I’m clearly not Top Chef contender. Oh, also the spoon bent while I was boiling the noodles. So that was cool. We don’t have any real big spoons, but we had this pure plastic spoon. And fun fact: stirring boiling water with a low-quality plastic spoon will cause it to become hot enough to bend out of shape. I ended up having to use it the whole time, because we had nothing else. But yeah, that was a rodeo of a lunch, which ended in me eating Cheerios.

Alright, I brought this up last time, about how we’re gonna be wearing face masks in public. But now that we HAVE to wear them when we go into public, I’m straight walking around like some kind of bank robber looking to pull off a heist. Walk up to people like, “Hey how are you?”, but it feels like I’m saying, “Whatchu got in that purse?” It’s wild. ALSO, for those in the HIGH PRIVILEDGE 20/20 vision gang, you don’t know THE STRUGGLE of a pimp like me.
Every.
SINGLE.
Breath.
That I take, is a direct route speed highway straight into my glasses, which fogs those suckers up faster than a sophomore vaping in a sauna. And then sometimes, if it’s the right temperature outside, it’ll fade away, and give me a brief two-second window to see, before I inevitably have to breathe out and WE DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN! Otherwise it just lingers for the entire time we’re outside. Oh I love it SO much.

And then, the fateful day of Saturday came around. My hair was growing out, and people would call me out for having long hair. Little did they know my hair was twice this length when I was back home, but I decided to cut it. Now, we’re stuck inside, and these other missionaries had some clippers, so we snag those and bounce back home. Then, I walk into the bathroom and start going at it. 40 minutes later, a humbled man walked out of the bathroom, with much less hair. The first thing I stated when I locked eyes with Elder Anderson was, “Call Elder Lara”. He’s the one who owns the clippers we were using. It was brutal in there. I started out strong, going off the top, then I moved onto the sides. I picked the thing that said 1/2″ and didn’t even stop to look at how long it really was, because after I ran that fool across the side of my head, I noticed that there was not half an inch of hair left on the side of my head. But I couldn’t take back the stroke of the razor, so I had to shave the other side to match it in length. The problem is, I don’t have my glasses on, so I’m either making out with my reflection or I’m just going full Stevie Wonder mode while chunks of hair drop into the sink. After I did enough damage, I just gave up and decided to let El Maestro fix this hot blonde mess. So he comes over, fixes it up lickity split, and then, like Hillary Clinton’s emails, disappears. The thing is, since I had cut the hair so short, he had to cut ALL the other sides of my head the same length. Not the top though: I was able to pull off a single victory in the War of Failure. But now I’m going around, feeling like a naked mole rat, while I just wait out the time until I actually have some hair back on my head.

Other than that, the week was pretty much the same. We find things to try and keep doing what we can, like calling members or reading scriptures. But hopefully next week can also have some fun in it. I’m gonna take the unused cheese from the Noodle Incident, if you can even unstand that comedic reference, and make twice as cheesy mac and cheese. So that should just be an amazing experience, no matter what comes of it. Anyways, I hope everyone is thriving inside their houses, because we sure are.

SHOUTOUTS:

• Elder Miller: This guy asked for a shoutout, and I’m giving him one. He’s out serving a mission in the States, and is riding the struggle bus of figuring out what else to do right along with me. He’s a chill guy, and is killin’ it.
• Elder Lara: He was able to work his black-blooded barber magic, and save what he could from my hair. This guy is a real G, and lived a WILD life. I say black-blooded because he’s Hispanic, but acts like he’s black.

Alright, we got an abundance of pictures this time. We got the art masterpiece, us wearing masks, me having to use a yard stick to hang up a picture, the stages of the haircut, and then the Mac & Death I created

Also, we got the raffle this week!

Over & Out

Drugs in the Church Parking Lot

Thought we’d run through my week in a variety of poetry styles.

Haiku:

My everyday life
Stay inside all day
Calling all sorts of people
Then we play some games

Beat Poetry:

Locked inside
Wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror
Another day in good OK, man you know that we out here
Still get dressed
Sunday best
Nametag still
On my chest
Calling all the families in the ward
Do it for an hour, then get bored
Make a sandwich, read the Bible
Man we’re living like we’re tribal
Day is done, feelin’ dead
Drop a prayer, go to bed

Hopefully that’s a more interesting way to say, “We’ve been doing pretty much the same thing every day this week.” But things are pretty good here, I don’t know if too many interesting things happened, but I’ll look through the week.

Well, for starters the Spanish missionaries here asked us for our help filming a video for them to upload, and I wore a dinosaur suit to help them out. That was about the only positive social interaction we got for the week, so that’s why it’s a highlight.

Alright, so for those that don’t know, we can go to the church to exercise and stuff, and one day we went to play some basketball. Now, I didn’t bring clothes because I can still dominate a man wearing dress shoes and slacks. They’re actually my shoes from working at Chick-fil-A, so they’re not as restraining as usual dress shoes are. But anyway, Elder Anderson went to go change into actual workout clothes. So I’m throwing the basketball at the hoop, missing like usual, when I see this hunched figure out the window on the gym doors. This mysterious person is bent over in such a way, that it’s like the letter L. Homie has just morphed into a Tetris piece! So I’m just looking at this person, just lost in what they are doing, because I cannot identify the gender. And they stayed like that for like, a minute straight, as I waited for Elder Anderson. He showed up, and I was like, “Yo come look at this person” and then I’m like, “Should we go talk to them?” And then we went out the side doors, came around and said hi. Then this LADY looked up, and her eye was like, going bananas. I don’t know how to explain it, her eye was just in some deep REM sleep or something. It was just looking all around, until it finally sort of homed in on us. I’m 85% sure she was shooting up heroin, not gonna lie. But we said hi and asked if she was trying to get into the building. She said yes, and we told her how it’s closed now because of coronavirus. And as we’re talking, she’s taking off her sunglasses, looking through them at the ground, then putting them back on, waiting a moment, and doing it again. Then we asked if we could help her with anything, and she asked if there was an office we could step into. We were like nah. And then she told us how she got “run off the road by some bikers” and then she came here. Then she talked about how she hasn’t had a hot meal in a while, and she needs a ride home to another town in Oklahoma. We asked her where, and she said, “First gimme the ok that you’re gonna help.” So then we asked, “Well how far away is it?” And she’s like, “2 hours.” So we were like, “We’ll go call some people to see if anyone can help.” Then we asked what her name was, and she thought for a bit, then she’s like, “Kay.” Sick. So she just gave us a letter of the alphabet. But we went and called some people to see what the protocol was, and we got word to just tell her we can’t do anything, because of Corona going around, and she was probably just a moocher, that was trying to get money and a free ride. So we went out and as we come around, she’s smoking a cigarette, and back in her L power stance. As we said hi, she rubbed it into the ground, and the moment we told her we can’t really do much to help her as missionaries, she was like, “This is the second church I’ve come to, and this same thing happened. You know, God sees all, and there will be a Judgement Day.” Basically trying to guilt trip us into giving her a ride or some money, which we couldn’t do because only missionaries could use the church cars, and we both were flat outta cash. Then she hit us with the “True Christians would help, no matter who they were in the church.” So I guess we earned INSTANT DAMNATION for following the rules. Then she asked AGAIN if we could give her a ride to the nearest library, and we said we couldn’t. And when we offered to give her directions to the nearest library, she just proceeded to say, “I hope this church gets shut down.” And she walked away, saying stuff that we couldn’t hear, so we went back inside. So that was just a weird event for everyone involved.

Yeah, also update for us is that we got told we have to wear the face masks in public, which gave me some trauma from the last episode I had involving face masks. But they also said we could wear stuff like scarves or other masks, and the missionary that used to be in a gang is getting us all matching bandannas, so I’m pretty pumped for that. Gonna be going out in public, and people gonna start calling me “Bandito Schroeder”. 

Well, aside from the stuff I talked about, life is just kinda chugging along. We’ll be here for another week, and I’ll try to do something story worthy for next week. Thanks to everyone who reads my emails, even when I’m stuck in the house.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• Kay: She had the guts to do drugs on church property. If someone can consciously choose to do that, and not feel a drop of guilt, they’re truly something else.