Caprs

Literally the most exciting thing that happened was us lighting the oven on fire. That’s pathetic. We can do better.

I mean, we’re working hard with missionary work, and it’s amazing, but like, the same exact email of me saying “we did missionary work” sounds like it would get a little boring. We’re having some sick lessons and helping people fix their lives, but that’s kinda what we do every week. Don’t get me wrong, it’s rad, and I love doing missionary work, but I’m also hoping for some more exciting things to write about in these emails.

Ok wow, I just found something that is more entertaining. So have you ever heard of the Capri Sun challenge? I’ll explain it anyways. So, the name of the game is: Drink 15 Capri Suns in 15 minutes. Sounds like an easy task right? And I don’t know about you guys, but I can down a Capri Sun in a matter of seconds. That’s some easy stuff.

But that’s where arrogance gets the best of everyone. And when you do some deeper research, you find that the average Capri Sun pouch holds 6 fl oz. Now, 15 Capri Suns, that brings us to 90 fl oz. And a gallon is 128 fl oz. Common knowledge. So we know that it’s not an entire gallon, and since the Gallon Challenge is a recipe for failure, the Capri Sun challenge seems like an actually achievable feat. But let me tell you: It’s borderline impossible. I was not the one to do the challenge, and I don’t know if I should be proud or disappointed with that fact, but we ended up telling another missionary about it, and he was so confident that he could do it. Now, his name will not be disclosed in this email, but he’s a shorter fella. Like, 5′ 6″. And he started out SO SURE that he could get this done, but then he started, and got to 11…

His confidence was waning faster than the moon. He tried to keep going, and he made it all the way to 14, which was incredible! But… it took him an hour and 10 minutes… so it’s still written as a failure in the book of life. And then he promptly threw up. And it sounded like a straight waterfall. I’m sure it was 95% Capri Sun coming back out of him. And after he ejected about 5 pouches, he proceeded to pound 2 more down, and finish at 16. But I say it only counts up until he throws up. You can’t fill a gallon bucket with a gallon of water, dump half of it out, then fill it to the top and say it can hold a gallon and a half. But still, it was quite entertaining. If anybody out there is finding their days not filled with enough excitement, I might just suggest it to you.

Other than that, I got news if I’m staying here or not, and I am, so that’s cool. Still gonna be with Elder Grace, so nothing new. He’s cool.

That’s just about it, I’ve got nothing else, and I’ll catch you guys next week.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

  • Classical Music Composers – Have you realized that the OG squad of the 1700-1800s wrote these MASTERPIECES that have literally just stuck around for generations. And like, nobody is making classical music anymore (at least that I know of). And most people know these champs by name. What a bunch of legends.
  • Sister Stephenson – She calls Capri Suns “Caprs.” It’s wild. But she’s way cool and really funny.

New Year New Elder Schroeder

Alright, so I don’t have much time. They’re onto me. Some cool stuff happened though, so I gotta make this grubby email.

  1. So we say the Pledge of Allegiance at 6:30 in the morning. Every morning, right after we get up, and we’re trying to get everyone else to do it too. Purely out of fun. Our voices are so groggy and we’re not mentally there, but we do it.
  2. Three high guys came to talk to us while we were in the church. It was quite the conversation. We might’ve thought we were gonna get jumped a lil bit.
  3. On December 31st, right before we went to bed, Elder Grace gave me a haircut with kitchen scissors.

That’s all we got time for today, hope you guys have a great week

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

  • Brittany – She got COVID
  • Elder Grace’s Mom – He claims all his haircutting skills came from watching her cut hair, and he didn’t do too bad a job on me

They Call Me Mr. Schroeder

So Christmas was this week, and I totally forgot to mention it in my last email. But that’s all good; nobody even noticed. Until now, because I brought it up. But let’s jump back a bit. Back to before Christmas, where some things happened. To make these quick, we’ll list ’em out:

  • Some other missionaries thought I was colorblind. (I’m not)
  • Got called “Mister Schroeder” by my mission president’s wife, who is essentially the second-in-command of the whole mission. And for those who don’t know, missionaries go by Elder or Sister, to respect their calling right? Because we’re out here representing Jesus Christ. But then she just full fire called me Mister Schroeder because why not? (She didn’t mean to, but I gotta get people to read these things somehow)
  • Talked to a guy who “worships Satan”, so that was quite the exchange.
  • Met a lady who claimed she was a witch over Facebook. (There really are some unique personalities in this world)

Alright, here’s the fun stuff:

So we were talking to these other missionaries, right? And I brought up how I am in desperate need of a haircut, but lack the necessary funds for said haircut. So these other elders were like, “We’ll send you some pocket change, then maybe you can afford a haircut.” And as pathetic as that offer was, I wasn’t about to turn down free money, so I was like, “Aight, bet.”

So cut to a few days after that. We get a package slip, and it says that an extra 45 cents are due to get this letter they sent, and we’re like, “Are you for real??” So we end up going to the post office and paying 45 cents for this little letter. It was lumpy and had something inside, so we were like, “Oh this is gonna be great.”

Yeah well, turns out it was a sock. A sock in a letter. They literally mailed us a sock. And we had to pay for it.

They did happen to include some change for us, but it totaled out to be a dollar and fifteen cents. Which we spent 45 cents on. Our net gain was 70 cents and a sock. But as a wise man once said, “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

Needless to say I still haven’t gotten a haircut, since those 70 cents couldn’t quite cut it. Maybe I’ll just take some scissors and give it a shot myself.

And then Christmas rolled around and that was a great time! Never a bad day when you’re thinking about Jesus Christ. Which should be everyday.

But other than that, nothing really noteworthy. Been working hard, bringing people some hope and peace, it’s a good time out here.

Thanks to all of those who took the time out of their day to read this. I appreciate it, even if I’m unaware of who really reads these or not. Have a great rest of your year!

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

  • Matt – My guy Matt is a legend. He’s in Utah right now, living life up. He almost died, but through sheer willpower, prayers and modern medicine, he survived. A really good guy and also a 2nd degree black belt. He can throw down with the best of the best, and could for sure put me through a wall.
  • Shoutouts – Shoutouts died for a little bit but now they’re making a victorious return.
  • Ryan – I knew this guy back in CO, before I bebopped out here to Oklahoma. He’s a missionary serving in Germany right now, which is sick because they just opened up for missionaries again, so that’s cool. He’s a really nice guy, and I just wanna let him know that I read his weekly emails. Keep killing out there, Ryan.

3 Days, 3 Hours, and 3 Houses

Well we had a foot of snow. That was vivacious. I loved it. It was all super light powder though, and you could literally leaf blower it off your driveway. (If Woodward was nice enough to have houses with driveways)

And remember the snowman we made in last week’s email? Well let me tell you what happened there. So we pulled up to the crib, after a good day of doing the Lord’s work, and we notice some movement where our snowman is. Or I should say was. There were these 2 FIVE YEAR OLD SAVAGES, DANCING ON HIS CORPSE. Literally half of the base was left on the ground as they pranced around our greatest masterpiece. I instantly jumped out of the car and drop kicked one of the– No, I’m kidding, I didn’t drop kick them. But we got out of the car and walked past his remains, with tears welling up in our eyes. Then we saw this other ball of snow on the ground, and Elder Grace was like, “That’s his head…” And then I ACTUALLY DROP KICKED THE LITTLE KID

But that was pretty cool. The snowman lasted what? 3 days? That’s good enough for me. Then we drove 3 hours to go to a missionary meeting, which was sick because that’s the first one we’ve gone to in person since LAST FEBRUARY. Also, what the heck is up with February. Everyone knows it’s pronounced Feb-u-ary. But for some reason there’s that schtewpid little r in there. February. Which we NEVER pronounce. English truly is the language of both geniuses and bozos.

Then we went on a big visiting escapade, getting in contact with people who have been off the grid. And we pulled up to THREE houses, right as the people were pulling out of their driveways. IN A ROW. We showed up, BAM. Then we get to the next house, BAM. And ALL THREE of them were down to meet with us. Oh man. That was a miracle. Then on that same day, some people threw snowballs at us, so that was rad.

But that’s the week. Stuff in between, but I try to keep these entertaining.

Thanks to the real g’s out there that read these bad boys all the way through, we’ll catch ya next week.

Over and Out

He didn’t reply….

THE RAFFLE:

Pics:

  • There was a really fancy gingerbread house on display in this museum that we serve at. It supposedly took them 6 weeks to make, and it’s entirely edible.

Snow Michelangelo

Not gonna lie, this week was a bit slower…

Now that 40% of the people reading this have left after that first sentence, let’s talk about what happened:

I got called out for wearing a skirt in front of the entire mission. Out of context, yes, that sounds pretty absurd, but it happened. And I wasn’t even wearing a skirt that day…

We got a bunch of snow! It was great, and during our lunch time, we went out to make a snowman. The problem was it was about 17 degrees outside, and after using your bare hands in snow for more than 6 seconds, it just hurt. So Elder Grace had some gloves, and he worked with the main body of the snowman, and I pulled a classic Michelangelo and got a kitchen knife. I began to sculpt his face into more of a ball, and then I whittled down his body to look more like spheres instead of chunks of snow. Quite genius, if I do say so myself. My hands didn’t get cold, and we made progress. Then people walked by and saw me holding a 5 inch knife in my hands and I swear they sped up a little bit. But you know, sometimes it takes centuries before art is appreciated, so they’ll regret passing up on an opportunity to shake hands with a world-famous snow carver.

We did missionary work. But it’s hard to make that sound exciting, when it’s more of a spiritual experience.

But it’s a good time out here in Woodward! It’s great to be a missionary. All of you who don’t get to teach people about the gospel of Jesus Christ… I feel bad for you. But I still appreciate you reading these emails. Have a great week!

Over and Out

The 18th is in 4 days soooo…..

THE RAFFLE:

Pics:

  • We got to help serve in a theater
  • Making stuff in the snow
  • My sculpting masterpiece

Hips That Tell the Truth

Well, I have Elder Grace with me now, so RIP Elder Miller. Elder Miller was a real one, and my favorite comp I’ve had. So I’ll catch him later. But as for the week, we’ll see what happened.

Tuesday was five and a half hours of driving, so that was real fun, then we’ve been doing work.

On a fun note, we almost spent $136 from the church on an ad, but we stopped it before it went up. So when the church is brought to its financial knees, know it’s probably because of me…

Then we had a bunch of video calls and meetings, so that was just a riveting time. It’s actually a blast when we have stuff to do, and we get to go teach people how to have a better life, but sadly that doesn’t happen 24/7.

ALRIGHT: So we went to this member’s house, telling them about Light the World (look it up if you don’t know what it is) and we asked them to pull up this church video on YouTube with their fancy TV, and the lady was like, “This one?” And OUTTA NOWHERE we started listening to the middle of “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira. Then the member panicked, and eventually started the actual video, but boy, I was not ready for Shakira to be the entertainment of the evening. It was pretty legendary though.

Then this guy we were talking to on Facebook went off about this “vision” he had, which just sounded like a really weird dream with Jesus in it. But we’re gonna see what we can do with him.

Other than that, just working as hard as we can, trying to tell people about how they could literally be happier in life… But people don’t listen, and that’s the struggle of a missionary.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who reads this. I’m very aware that most people who get these emails don’t read them, but hey, we’re all the masters of our own fate. You do you.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

  • Kierra – My gal Kierra (formerly known as Hermana Madsen) went home a few days ago from here. She was someone who we worked with a lot. She’s cool, and we had fun when we would call her for help with Facebook stuff. Just a good person really.
  • My Dad – So I’ve been having a lot of wack dreams with my dad in them, which is pretty wild. One time he was a doctor, and had to amputate my arm, but I was trying to convince him that I could keep my arm, and he was like, “Look I’m a doctor, lemme chop ya arm.” And another time he was the “Tag World Champion” and he literally had never been tagged before, so I was just trying to tag him in this giant game of tag. Needless to say, I didn’t catch him… But my dad is cool, I guess that’s why he’s showing up in my dreams.

Pics:

  • So I got to see some of my good friends when I went up to get Elder Grace, Elder Williams being the crowning jewel of that adventure.
  • The last pic with Elder Miller…

Thanksgiven

Well, it’s been a week. Indeed, 7 whole days. And things happened during those 7 days. Many things. None of which were noteworthy. So to save all of you from straining your eyes any longer, I’ll keep this short.

We had our own Thanksgiving dinner, which was alfredo, so it was pretty good. My only issue down here in Oklahoma is that people with their wacko accents call it “Thanksgiven”, instead of “Thanksgiving”. And it’s their accent, I know, but I think the thing that gets me is that what they’re saying is still something grammatically correct in English. “Thanksgiven” is like giving thanks, but past tense. As in the thanks has already been given. So they aren’t giving thanks, they’re saying they already have, and that’s not the move. The move is to always be thankful. Always be giving thanks. But yeah, these people are something else.

Then in the sad news department, we were going to have a baptism but the person had a family emergency come up outta nowhere, and we’re gonna have to push it off for a bit. But it’s cool because it’s all gonna work out. Eventually.

That’s pretty much it for me. I’m gonna be staying here in Woodward for 6 more weeks at least, and getting a new comp named Elder Grace. Never heard of him. Keep rocking it out there in the collapsing world we live in. There’s really no peace on Earth, but there’s peace in Christ.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

  • The Pilgrims – Let’s hear it for the pilgrims. These guys are chillin’ in North America, just trying to survive, and they get help from the Native Americans there, and then they’re like, “Yo let’s have a big ol’ party.” AND THEN THEY DO AND IT’S LITERALLY PASSED DOWN FOR GENERATIONS. Crazy stuff.
  • Native Americans – Those pilgrims would’ve gotten mad wrecked if it weren’t for my guys in America before them. They helped them survive and let them live here. What a bunch of real ones. Shoutout to my Native American friends.

I Had COVID.

Well, now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s talk about what happened this week.

I was peer pressured into trying Vienna Sausages, and what a ride that was. When you’re trying to get me to eat something, telling me it’s been in a can for over a year and it’s “just like a cold hot dog” definitely doesn’t help. But to make the whole thing worse, as I was reaching in to pull out a stick of “mechanically separated chicken” (which the can says is the first ingredient), I spilled cold hot dog water all over my leg. Oh my, it was rough. Everyone was laughing at me, and I was just a sad man covered in hot dog juice. And to clarify, this wasn’t an in-person audience, it was over a video call with some other missionaries. But yeah, it wasn’t a good time. Oh, and the “sausages” tasted like Satan’s toes. Definitely not a fan.

Other than that, it was Elder Miller’s birthday this week and for the first time in forever, members finally brought us food. It was a miracle! So we finally had something we could eat, which helped.

We’ve been inside because of COVID, but we’re pretty much cured, and we get out on the 25th. Other than that, just been working hard over technology with video calls and stuff.

Thanks for reading gang, and have a grateful week!

Over and Out

It happened again….

THE RAFFLE:

SHOUTOUTS:

  • Kenny – My man got his email hacked so now he’s got a new one and is back on the emails. Keep those pirates at bay, my friend.

Sick Boys doing what Sick Boys do

Well, I guess we’ll start with the latest and greatest news: I’m sick. In both senses of the word. One too many kick flips… So the last few days have been us lying in bed either sleeping or studying. And since we can’t access the internet, it’s a lot of studying. I was the one who got sick first, and I had a sore throat, which was about it, but then Elder Miller got sick and suddenly he had 4 Corona symptoms, so they made us go get tested for it. I would’ve gotten away with not having some hoodlum shove a 6-inch Q-tip up my nose, but Covid Boy had the symptoms and we got our noses excavated because of it. There are literally no other missionaries in the entire state of Oklahoma with Covid, so we might just be celebrities pretty soon. I still believe that we should all just embrace this stupid virus and weed out the weak. Just let natural selection take over and see who can pray harder.

But yeah, other than that let’s see what happened…

Not much. Some dogs started fighting at some person’s house while we were having dinner with them, and it was intense enough to draw blood, so that was pretty wild. Literally we’re just been sick this week though, so nothing really fun happened. Unless you count drinking water as an invigorating activity. I might– I’ve been chugging water for days on end and it’s off the rails.

But yeah, that’s pretty much it for me. I just want to get better so I can actually be doing something. You get so bored sitting around watching the same church videos. But we’ll beat this stupid virus, whether it has a crown on it or not. Then I can get back to having a blast running around talking about Jesus with everyone.

Hope you guys have a good week!

Over & Out

Rain or shine, sickness or health, the raffle continues:

SHOUTOUTS:

  • Dinosaurs: Once these big ol’ lizards walked the earth; now they’re just bones or juice that makes your car run. Pretty crazy stuff, thanks dinosaurs.

Serve City

Well this week rocked! Not gonna lie. It was a blast. The best part was this massive service project we got to do. Two weeks ago, when we got a bunch of snow (which I considered to be the greatest gift from God), others saw it as a wide-scale disaster. Which I mean it was, since it literally destroyed most of the trees in Oklahoma City, but c’mon, look at the bright side. But I guess I should explain how those trees got destroyed. So Oklahoma is just an indecisive little goober of a state, and instead of having either rain or snow, it has freezing rain. Which is just snow and rain combined, from what I’ve seen. And this rain falls, and then freezes on stuff. So it looks pretty sick, since everything gets encased in a thin layer of ice. But that ice adds up fast, and it’s usually too much weight for the wussy tree branches to handle, and they straight just break off the tree.

So it caused a bunch of trees to break, and then they finally decided to call in THE CAVALRY. We got 150 missionaries there and we got to do service for SEVEN HOURS. It sounds like a lot, but it was actually so much fun. We’ve been stuck inside forever and we can barely see other missionaries, so getting to see most of my friends around the mission was a real treat. Then yeah, we had straight 7 hours of picking up branches on Friday. Such a good time. I feel bad for the 100 missionaries that didn’t get to go to the service. That’s the biggest gathering of missionaries since Corona hit. The biggest group until then was about 30. And now we got over half of the missionaries in Oklahoma all together. Oh man, what a blast.

Yeah, that was truly the highlight of my week, if not this month, but you probably want to hear about all the other things that happened. Well, nothing really out of the ordinary. I was showering one morning and the shower bar just fell on me, so that was fun.

Other than those, that’s about all that’s happened with me. Just having fun teaching people here in Woodward.

Hopefully this week is filled to the brim with madness and wonders, but I can’t tell you for sure. Have a great one.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

  • Everyone reading this with the letter E in their name. Way to be.