Elder Schroeder's Mission Blog

The Power of Boredom

Alright, so we’ve officially hit PHASE 1 of missionary life. Which means we can now eat dinner at people’s houses and have lessons in person, as long as we wear those wretched face masks. Eating is difficult though, because we have to either fit the food through a straw we slide under our masks, or try to strain the food through it, which is a slow process.

But this week was a pretty good one. We got this kid we’re teaching to agree to get baptized, so we’ll figure all that out, but it’ll be good. We’re stoked.

Ok here’s the sauce: So we were recording a video to put on Facebook, and I made a smoothie out of the fruits of the Spirit, ya know, funny funny. And I had to squeeze a lime. But I had cut my hand on the stem of a pineapple about 4 minutes earlier. So I’m live on this video, and I’m squeezing this lime into the smoothie. Instantly, I feel the lime juice seep into my cut. But they call me One Take Wonder for a valid reason. I don’t even flinch. And as I’m trying to finish up this video, it’s like there’s an internal voice in my head just screaming in agony, as I keep the show going. That was a fun time, but we got it done.

Then, since we can have dinner in people’s houses again, me and Elder Horne went to this one family for dinner. So we were helping out a bit with them finishing up getting ready, and then I’m like, “Elder Horne, switch me ties.” And he’s confused, but I pop my collar and start to loosen my tie. So he panics a little and does the same, and we trade ties super fast, right behind their backs. They were facing away from us, and we finish pulling our ties up as one of them turns around, it was perfect. Then we did it two more times. Each time, right under their noses, swapping ties around and not getting caught. So the record is three, and we’ve been trying to get opportunities to break it.

Alrighty, now you gotta understand my mental state before I tell you this next tale. We were at the church editing some videos. We had to edit three separate videos, and we were nearing the end of this third one. But it had been around 2.5 hours now, so I’m looking around the room for anything to keep me from passing out. And I see a stapler. And I’m kinda just nunchucking it around, and then I stop to look at it. Now again, consider my mental state. Anything to keep me entertained now, because I’m just so done with doing this. So I’m like, “Elder Horne, what are the odds I staple my leg?” BUT THE WHOLE REASON I ASKED THIS QUESTION was because I thought that the only way a stapler worked was by pushing down on the other side, so if I hit it into my leg, I wouldn’t actually get stapled. But he’s like, “One in ten.” And I’m like, “One in one.” And I slap the stapler down into my leg. Now, for those who are aware, staplers can, in fact, staple something you slam them against. And I figured it out that night. The staple went through my pants into my leg, and I was in pain. But wow, was I no longer bored, or tired. I was quite awake from that moment on. And then I pulled the staple out of my leg, and made sure my pants didn’t get ripped. And it’s not like the staple went all the way into my leg, only a bit of it was actually in my leg, so it wasn’t the worst thing. But I highly recommend that you don’t try it, it was kind of a super bad time.

Then we also found out if I’m staying or leaving. I’m staying with Elder Horne, but we won’t be in Phoffer anymore… We’re getting a bunch of missionaries from other countries, and so rather than being in Fair Oaks and Forest Ridge, we’re just taking Fair Oaks, and some other missionaries are taking Forest Ridge. And we might end up sharing our apartment with them, so that’ll be fun! But we don’t know yet.

Thanks for tuning in folks, keep it real out there.

Over and Out

THE RAFFLE

Well, it’s another month. This week marks the 18th of June, and it’ll’ve been nine months since I left my house, so the raffle continues:

SHOUTOUTS:

• Sister Mauk – She was serving in this same part of the mission I was, but she’s going somewhere else for her final six weeks on the mission. She’s slick, and we call her “Mauk 3” because it’s pronounced like “mach”, so we had to.
• Dylan – My man Dylan gets a shoutout too. He’s living life right now, doing who knows what. I met him when I would go to lunch with all my other friends, and he was just there with us. So I got to know him and found out that he’s a cool guy.

Pics:

• We found this bus in front of one of our churches in this town called Wagoner, and they just have an entire church bus there. We asked the missionaries in Wagoner why they had it, and apparently the bishop drives it around to pick everyone up for church. What a champ.
• Chef Schredder, in the flesh.
• Masks, OH BOY.

Thrown to the Ground

New week, same stuff. Making videos for Facebook, calling people, and Zooming people. I’m gonna verb that word because it’s so much easier to say. But let’s see what else happened.

Oh yeah, the world is erupting into riots now? Dang, some people’s kids these days.
Well, all we did was the stuff I listed before, so I’m gonna share another story from my past that I still remember, because trauma won’t let me forget it.

So this is back in the days of my tumultuous youth. I was hanging out with two of my best homies, Patrick and Ethan. They’re the brothers that lived down the street from me all my life. And we were outside on their trampoline one day. And like boys do, we decided to fight. Not like full on “kill or be killed”, but just some good ol’ fashioned trampoline brawling. Now, I was the tallest of the group at the time, and Patrick was the shortest, and we’re bouncing around, pushing each other over like kamikaze dominoes, just having a good time. Now, the reason I include the height difference is because this would have been impossible had I not been larger in mass than him. So I’m trashing Ethan around, like I do, because I am the alpha male here, and I see Patrick at the edge of the trampoline start to charge at me. So I need Ethan out of my way for when I take Patrick down to his trampoliney grave, so I give Ethan a push to my right, and turn to face this barelling monkey. I thought he was gonna hit me head on, but Patrick was filled with the spirit of PURE GLADIATORIAL COMBAT, and he jumps at me, practically SIDEWAYS, wrapping his arms around my neck. It looked like he was going to run past me, when he jumped and grappled me, and I honestly don’t know how this happened, but Patrick swung around me, like I was some kind of pivot, and he brought both his legs into Ethan’s limp little body, sending him flying away. Meanwhile, I’m stumbling, trying to keep my balance while this mad lad is orbiting me like some kind of planet. So after rotating 180 degrees around me, kicking Ethan, and not touching the trampoline, Patrick finally gets his feet back down, and uses the centrifugal force of his attack to JUDO SLAM ME INTO THE GROUND. I was down, Ethan was probably dead, and Patrick was standing there, in total awe of what he just did. I still remember it today, and I’m sure they do as well. It was single handedly the coolest martial arts move I have ever been a part of, TO THIS DAY. Oh wow, I get chills just typing the story out.

But yeah, nothing story worthy happened this week, maybe this next week will be better…? I kinda doubt it though, we’re inside pretty much all day, and that’s not exactly SUPER CRAZY. But anyway, I’ll catch you guys next week, don’t go rioting, or I’ll mail you soggy bread.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• My Grandma: My grandma is awesome. When she saw that none of the people from my raffle were getting back with me, she offered to take it, because nobody else wanted it. Luckily Sister Jones actually did take it, but it’s the thought that counts. Thanks grandma, you rock.
• Nicole: She used to be a missionary here, but went home a while ago. She was slick, and so she got added to the weeklies. Who knows if she even reads these, but we’ll still give her a shoutout.

Pics:

• Imagine this room. Four of me in it. What would happen? What wouldn’t happen? Either way, I would love to be there.

All the time, people ask me, “How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?” To which I answer, “About 1 panorama”

You Cannot Get Rid of Me

Guess who folks? It’s me. The Schredder. Going after those dang ninja turtles again.

On a cool note, we had a baptism this week! You’re supposed to limit it to 10 people if you do it indoors, but we got to do it at this rich dude’s house in his pool. It was a good experience, despite being super hot in a suit. That was probably the best part of my week, but let’s see if we have any stories.

I mean, there was a guy pacing back and forth in the parking lot for a good two hours one day, and then we later found him playing what appeared to be invisible basketball. He’d just bring his hands up, and then pretend to shoot a basketball. We watched him take like 12 shots before we decided to get back to what we were doing. So, that was fun.

Oh yeah, at the baptism, the people that were letting us use their pool had a MASSIVE dog, so that was a plus. He was like a small bear, and of course I petted the dog, even at the cost of having hair all over my pants.

Alright, so who remembers when I made the shampoo of destiny? Well, before I unravel this tale, you need to understand something I do. So, I used to get up super early during the school year for seminary, before school. Seminary is basically a church class at 6 in the morning. And since my dad was the teacher, we had to get there early. So I was waking up at like 5:30, five days of the week throughout all of high school. Which I say is an achievement in and of itself. But you see, I was not a fan of getting up and getting into the shower, where the lights would blind me. I needed some time for my mind to calmly awaken. So I started to shower….. in the dark.

Now, you gotta understand, that this was one of the greatest ideas I’ve ever thought of. That and Chairables. You know if you know. But yeah, I started to get up, and have all my clothes in the same spot, so I could grab them in the darkness, and just walk into the shower. It was awesome. I got to the point where I could get ready in the morning entirely blind. I had the soap and shampoo in the same places, so I didn’t have to look for them. I was Shower Daredevil. But anyway, this habit of mine has stuck with me into the mission. I shower every single morning, in the dark. So now we get to the story.

We finally had run out of the power shampoo, but I didn’t know that until I was trying to get some into my hand one morning. So I had to find another bottle. Now, we still had some various bottles of shampoo, so I felt around in the shampoo section, until I got one. It had one of those handy little squirt things at the top, like hand sanitizer does, and so for two days, I was using that for my shampoo. Then one day, as I’m cleaning the bathroom, I notice the selection of shampoos, and instantly spot the bottle I’ve been using for about two mornings now. It was the only one with the hand sanitizer top. And no, it wasn’t hand sanitizer. It was freakin’ acne wash. I was using acne wash as shampoo. Oop. I don’t think you’re supposed to do that. But then I found a bottle that actually had shampoo in it and set it up so I could find it next morning. But yeah, that was a discovery I didn’t want to make.

Sorry, that’s the best I’ve got for you. I poured out all of my creative power into my raffle redraw, because nobody responds to me anymore. Oh, and shoutouts have just become me picking random people, since everyone is done asking for that. But I will persist. My weeklies shall not die off and become forgotten in the inboxes of my supposed friends and family. You fools still got 16 months of these things coming at you. Suck it.

Over and Out

SHOUTOUTS:

• Derick – This dude is like a living stick, but he’s awesome. I knew him back in CO, and he’s living it up with online school right now. We became friends under some wild circumstances, but I’m glad they happened. What a guy.
• Elder Archer – I met this guy in the MTC, and he’s actually from Oklahoma. He’s a super good missionary, killin’ it up in Idaho, where the nation vacations.

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.

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