Pancake Rambo

Another week in good OK. This week kinda blurred by, so I don’t really remember what happened. Still just a bunch of video calls and stuff, but that’s what we gotta do.

Oh yo! We got to do some service projects this week, which is probably the highlight of the week because it’s something besides sitting inside all the time, so that’s good. Our first project we did was helping with a food drive, which was run by these old ladies who just had us transport food from cars to the kitchen, and vice versa.

Then the other service project we got to do was two and half GLORIOUS hours of shoveling mud. I have never been more excited to shovel mud in my entire life, because I was just desperate to do anything that was outside of the house.

Alright, so this next story has a prequel to it. This cool member gave us some dinner one night, and it was stuff like eggs, sausage, pancakes, ALL that good breakfast grub. And since she’s an old lady, she gave us more than we needed. Which meant we would get to have leftovers. But one day, Elder Horne assembles this idea in his knuckled-head pea brain to reheat some pancakes. Which he manages to do with the microwave, probably at the cost of his ENTIRE mental functionality, because he somehow forgot about the tub of unheated pancakes on the counter.

So of course I strut into the kitchen, looking for something to eat, and I open the fridge, hoping to find some yummy pancakes, kept nice and cool in there. But they’re not in the fridge… they’re on the counter. And since this goose chump made pancakes over half an hour ago, the ones on the counter were already preheated to room temperature for me. So I warn Elder Horne about what is going to momentarily transpire between his leg and my bare hands because of his unwise decision. But this smug little two-faced rat didn’t even care about the generous warning I extended to him. So I took those sweet room temperature pancakes in my right hand, and I proceeded to unload an entire pancake magazine into this ditzy kid. He wasn’t ready. I wasn’t even ready. The last thing his mortal mind could’ve expected me to do was throw pancakes at him, but I did. He was flailing like a fish out of water as pancake after pancake pelted his almost lifeless body, until he fell off the couch.

I let him live, but only barely. Then, since he was in a state of horror, I ended up picking up the pancakes and throwing them away. But wow, that was a good moment. It was kinda like disc wars from TRON, but with pancakes, and it was amazing.

Then on Sunday all we had to eat was dry cereal and canned pineapple, since our pancake supply had been used as a disciplinary tool. But live and learn I guess, unless we die of hunger.

Yeah, that about wraps up my week. Nothing too crazy is happening, with us inside all the time, but we’re still finding things to do, and we even got a baptism this Saturday, so that’s gonna be good.

Anyway, that’s all for this week.

Over and Out

Also, the winner of the previous raffle failed to perform the simple task of emailing his dear cousin, so he has been ELIMINATED, and we drew another name. Here’s the video:

SHOUTOUTS:

• Ethan – Ethan has been my homie down the street basically all my life. He’s a real friend, and we used to hang out all the time, before I came to Oklahoma. What a lad.
• Patrick – Also my homie down the street, since he’s Ethan’s brother. Our ages fell in a perfect row: Patrick, then me, then Ethan, with each person being one year younger than the last, so we of course all hung out together. Also a real lad.

Pics:

• I rigged the deck in Uno one night while this oblivious nerd was on his phone, and I think the title of the image captures it perfectly.

The Most Epic Stew

It’s all the same… And by that I mean we’re doing the same stuff. We call people, video call other people, record videos to put on Facebook, and that’s like, it. We’ve gotten to do a few things branching out from those, but sadly not too often. So this email might be a snoozer. But I’ll check my list.

I mean, something out of the ordinary is that I found this huge spider bite on my left elbow, and every time I ever so slightly tap my elbow on something, it’s like someone just point blank glocks me in the arm. So my wrestling days and atomic elbows are now a thing of the past.

Then we were doing a group video call meeting, and I was just sitting on these stools, listening like a good, holy man. Then I fell off the chair, and some BLACK BLOODED SNITCH decided to announce to the oblivious, that I had just dropped to the floor. Thank you for letting everyone know! What would I have done without your thoughtless actions? I might have kept at least a shred of dignity, but now even that was gone, which is why I mention it here.

Then we decided to sort through the fridge finally, to see what we had. We ended up emptying countless Tupperware containers into a single trash bag, and adding more and more undesirable food. By the end of it, we had about a 50 pound bag of what seemed like beans. Everything in the bag was at least edible at some point, and I brought up the argument of making a giant stew with what was in the bag. Like, it was A LOT of food. And like, if you boil enough water, and put all of the stuff in a big enough pot, you’d be able to feed a small town. But then we threw it out, so nothing of the kind occurred.

Other than these, nothing entertaining has happened. We’ve just been chugging away at the work that we can do. We’ll try to add some spice this week.

Over and Out

Well, it’s that time of month: RAFFLE WEEK!! If you win, you have 1 week to email me where I should send the goods, or I burn your name and draw a new one next week.

SHOUTOUTS:

• Sister Jones: Nobody knows this, but when I shouted her out for serving a mission before… I said the wrong state. She’s ACTUALLY serving in Indiana, not the other state I said. I was also informed that she sneezed 31 consecutive sneezes, absolutely shattering her previous best of 27. What a talent.
• Conor: He’s been biding his sweet time, waiting for a shoutout. He has deemed this week worthy of his glorious name. Thank you for such an honor, Conor. This man is a total homie. He saved my grades in like 4 different classes, and I remember every morning how I would yell down the hall to say hi to him. Good memories.

Pics:

• The art of black magic
• Bag of gifts
• Fun with mops

English, The Language of Fools

Here we go again. This week was pretty good; we’re just trying to figure out our new area, since we gotta pick up everything the past missionaries here were doing. But things are good, Elder Horne is a splendid fella.

The week started with us driving up to switch around with all the missionaries and such, so that was cool to see familiar faces through everyone’s car windows, since we couldn’t get out. But then we pulled up here to Fair Oaks/Forest Ridge. Day 2 of being here I just started referring to it as FOFR (Phoffer). It’s got a “ph” in there because English is a language designed by both geniuses and complete, bumbling doofuses. Gotta love this language. We also got to meet our neighbor Sean. Which is, of course, pronounced “Nay-ber Shawn”. Oh I could go on, but I’m just gonna talk about my week instead.

So allow me to take you back. Back to day 1, in Phoffer. We walk into our place after meeting our good neighbor, and begin to take in the apartment. We had just finished hearing from Sean that our upstairs neighbor was basically a criminal and stole the bikes from the last two missionaries. Cowabunga. So that was some fun news. But we scope the crib out and look around to see what we are gonna have to work with. Eventually I stumble my way into the bathroom, where I find the entire tub lined with body wash and shampoo. All of which are about three-quarters empty. So I just flip the thrifty switch, and decide to save myself both time and space, in one fell swoop. I gather all the shampoos together, and find the biggest of the group. I bop the cap off, and begin to combine ALL of the shampoos together. When the deed was done, the bottle smelled like the 4th ingredient to making the Powerpuff Girls. We had some Old Spice shampoos in there, with names like “Guitar Solo”, and “Captain”, as well as these hot pink ones, labeled “Peachy Breeze” and “Tropical Sauna.” So this concoction of cleanliness took the polar opposites of the shampoo spectrum and just slammed them together, ending up somewhere in the middle. Each shampoo claims to grant the user some beneficial quality, like soft hair or a manly scent. I was invigorated to discover what this final product would be able to do for me. I’m pretty sure that by using this shampoo, you would never cut your hair again, because the very fibers of it would be borderline unbreakable. So this is the path of destiny I have been carving for myself the past week, since it’s the shampoo I have been using every single day. I’ll let you guys know how my hair turns out this next week.

Then, another day this week, we decided to go kick a soccer ball around, because soccer is unquestionably the best sport out there. So we find a little basketball iron cage arena, and start passing it around. To one side there were some other apartments; on the other side there was a pond. Now, Elder Horne hadn’t played soccer for all that long, so he was a little rough around the edges, and he ends up kicking the ball up into the air, and down into the pond. We find this opening to get down to the pond, and pull it out of the grody water. Back to the cage we go. Not even 2 minutes later, Elder Horne picks up the ball, and shoots it at one of the basketball hoops. Now, Elder Horne also hadn’t played basketball for all that long, and the ball just cruises past the backboard entirely, and lands RIGHT BACK IN THE POND. The expression on my face was like the page of an open book, with big red letters reading, “Bro, are you freakin KIDDING ME??” We had to wait around 20 minutes, until the winds of fate decided to finally blow the ball to one of the banks. I looked past his mistakes this time, but the next one will cost him his leg.

Then when I was making Ramen noodles this week, I ended up picking up some noodles with the spoon I was using, to admire my cuisine, when the boiling water that decided to hitch a ride casually ran down the handle and onto my finger. So that was a moment that made me feel truly alive.

Well, this past week was pretty groovy actually, and hopefully this next one can also keep you fools entertained. Until next time.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• Michael – He’s not a missionary anymore, because he finished his time out here. So many good times with this chap. He’s a lad, and it was an honor serving with him
• Jarom – Same boat as Michael, they sailed off together. Back to being regular people for them. This kid is still, and forever will be, the Piano Pimp in my mind. He plays the piano like a madman, and is just about unmatched in his talent
• All the moms out there – Mother’s Day was yesterday, and to all the mothers: I tip my hat to your service

Pics:

• Me and the Hornster
• The ENDLESS possibilities that can come from nothing but two wooden stools
• To all those moms out there that didn’t get a Mother’s Day card, I got one for you

Utterly Incapacitated

Well, gents and ladies, I’m outta here.

I’ve been in Norman for a bit, but I’m going to a place called Fair Oaks/Forest Ridge, because covering one city is too mainstream I guess. I’m getting a new lad to tag along with me named Elder Horn. He was out of country, but now he’s been reassigned here. So that’s the fun news for me. Found that out last night, so today has been a bit of packing. But yeah, hope that place is gonna be off the rails.

But anyway, let’s see what up with this week.

Well, I had a rough night on Wednesday this week. I don’t know why this was happening, but as I was trying to drift off into the wonderful realm of my subconscious, I would just wake up. And when I woke up, which was five different times, both of my arms were just numb. I don’t know what arm-numbing witch cursed me, but I would just wake up, and my arms were tingling. Both of them. And I was just lying on my back! I wasn’t on top of my arms or anything, I was just on my back, arms at my sides, and then I would come to, with these dead arms. And I would try to change my position of rest, in a desperate attempt to increase my quantity of snoozing, only to find out that I was powerless. The problem was that, I was operating with single digit percentages of brain functionality, AND I had a nasty case of SPAGHETTI ARMS, so it was like dragging these dead snakes across my bed. I couldn’t activate my MASSIVE BICEPS, because there was a lack of blood in them, so I was essentially trying to fling my noodle limbs around, using exclusively my shoulders and torso. Somehow, I made it to the morning, but only barely.

Alright, has anyone has seen those videos where people put pancake mix inside those ketchup type bottles, and then make pictures with them? Yeah, well I tried my hand at that. Naturally it was an unqualified success, so I’ll throw the pictures of my art below. It was pretty taxing though, since my bag of pancake mix couldn’t close, so my hands would become drenched in pancake mix if I held the bag wrong. But it was worth it.

Wow! I’m sorry lads, but that’s about all that’s happened that’s exciting. We’ve been doing video calls with families and such, but I guess we haven’t brought about enough madness.

Actually, today these other missionaries came over to do their laundry, and one of them brought a military-grade laser, which we’ve been using to pop balloons and burn holes through paper. Only the most responsible actions.

Well, sorry this week’s email didn’t have much lunacy, but hopefully next week’s will include some excitement. Hope everyone’s enjoying that locked-in life, keep it real.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• My Dad: My dad asked to be shouted out for one of his previous mistakes in life. When he crashed his very first car, while it was only a week old. And he did so because, in his words, he was “Driving 70mph trying to change the CD in my Discman player which was plugged into the dash radio via a cassette tape adapter”. So the moral of the story is: Don’t do that.
• Sister Field: She is in Arkansas, also being a missionary. She’s really nice, and is shredding it up over there like Tony Hawk. What a lass.