Missionary Letters = Christmas Every.Single.Week.

Justin
Justin's a very funny guy; he makes me laugh.  And it's a good thing, because something needs to make up for the severe lack of pictures he sends.  And truthfully, some that he's sent are a little weak, but maybe you'll enjoy the white clock, on the white wall, showing he celebrated New Years; or the plate of lasagna showing me how well he eats. 

 

 He did explain that in this one he is pointing and saying: "Hey, it looks like my backyard in Oklahoma."

And in this one, he explains, is his new desk; with surprise gifts left from Elder Stoker, whom he was replacing.  Elder Stoker was his first companion and trainer.  He must have left the pictures for me, as he knows they're about the only ones I'll get.  What a great guy, huh?
 

The above picture is taken on the steps of his front door.
Good luck to us with the rest, as we have to puzzle them out on our own.

 

But, again, the real treasures are his letters.  Here are snippets from both boys:

*Yesterday we traveled to the other city of Lugo. We had 4 appointments scheduled and right when we arrived, to our horror, one by one they called and cancelled. Normally in such a situation I go get gelato to make myself feel better.  But, we had already gotten gelato that morning- and twice the previous night. 

*I cut my hair.  With scissors this time... It doesn't look bad actually- it just requires a little time in the morning for very precise placing of certain clumps of hair.  

*I've learned to manage the heat and sleeping at night by putting an ice pack under my pillowcase and then waking up at 3 in the morning and switching it. The only thing really bad is that the sun just beats down on our appartment making it super hot. Italians tell me to close all the (very cool) blinds that are everywhere in Italy.  They block out sun, heat, noise, zombies, and just about everything else, but they make your appartment seem like a cave (in fact the easy way you can spot a missionary appartment from the outiside is it's the only one in the whole complex to have all the windows wide open- always). So I'm having trouble choosing between heat or depression...

*After a while we tried contacting people in their vineyards (first asking directions) because it was something that I'd never done, and the whole time I was thinking of the clever parallels between scriptures and missionary work... 

*This week I've been making Anz Rango (his trainee) do most the calls- He does pretty well until the other people start speaking Italian back to him; then he just looks super confused and tosses the phone to me like a hot-potato.

*Today is a national holiday- Ferragosto- where everyone is not in the city- but on the beach. We were stopped by members from the rich part of SLC this morning (on a cruise from Jerusalem) and as we were in missionary clothes (because we had an appointment with a less active but then when I called- once, then twice she picked up the phone and sounded veeeerry hungover) I told them I could give them a tour of the most famous church with the mosaics because we got in free- it was on the way- and my comp hadn't seen them yet. I was kinda half hoping for a gelato for my efforts... but at the end she gave -actually threw- into my front pocket some money- later I checked and it was 100$

(Bless that random lady's heart!)

*I don't believe I have the capacity to make my letters home spiritually uplifting (or I believe they're too much work?).   No invitations to read certain passages of scripture or anything.   Let's just leave that part to Cache and say that I'm having spiritual experiences and expect my family to as well.  Though I do invite you to read into renewing my drivers license, as that expires come end of August.

Cache:

Cache has always been great at documenting.  He's doing really well!  Right now he is on the Thai side of the Laos/Thai border.

*Sakon Nakhon is going good.  It's so pretty here out of the city,  rice fields everywhere and cows and everything else.  The other day we visited a less active who lived way out of the city.  He had his rice farm and his house right by it.  It barely had any electricity in it and it was wooden on stilts with only a wooden floor.  It was way surreal.
  This week it rained for the most of it.  It's rainy season so it comes out of nowhere and will pour. 
  Elder Grover is awesome.  He's a great trainer.  We're in a small apartment, I mean small small too.  It only has one room and then the bathroom.  We're the only ones in our district also. 

 

*My personal advice for you Mom...?  Well, the thing we tell all our investigators is we're not advised to give personal council, but to just Pray, Read, Go to Church, Keep the commandments, and Trust in God.  ...And then we leave them to their problems and go get some ice cream.  =]   (side-note, they eat the weirdest stuff here some times-  A popular treat is: you get a hot dog bun, then put some sticky rice in and then put your ice cream on that.  Crazy right?  But it's grown on me and really good now.

  Speaking of food- I ate Dog the other day.  It's extremely good too.  One of my favorite meats.

 

*Also another first that I had on Friday- I did a complete phone call in Thai.  My companion's trainer never let him use the phone and so when he had to use it he didn't know how.  He's hoping he'll train me so I don't have that problem.  However, most of my phone calls I just greet them, ask them the thing I'm supposed too, and then they don't understand -so I ask it again and then they respond, but I have no idea what they said so I tell them to hold on- and throw the phone to Elder Grover.  =]  This time though he was using the bathroom, so I had to finish it.  I didn't understand her response so just kept asking her if she could set up an appointment with her friend- until she finally said yes.  haha.  Oh also today I saw my first elephant!  He was right outside our apartment.  Did you know an elephant blinks sideways?

*We went to the hospital quite a lot this week.  The hospitals here are pretty overcrowded and very open; meaning cats are everywhere. It reminds me of a civil war hospital.  Actually maybe it would compare to a WWII hospital.  I don't know, but it's got a ton of people on roll away beds just hooked up to I.V.s. 

*Here's the crazy place with all the statues.  I can't remember if I told you about it last week.   But this is the statue of the dragon the supposedly Buddha killed.   It's really popular in the Issan area and especially Nang Khai because supposedly he lives in the river that separates Laos and Thailand.
  More statues at the one place.

 

 

*Some days you have really good days and some days are just way bad. 

*So about the King's herd: they're closed to the public but one of the members works by there and we got in.  There was only about 5 of them, but they were pretty neat to see.  It was in the middle of the jungle and they were in cages, and helicopters kept flying above us.  Just think of a scene from Jurrasic Park, and that's where I was.  Pretty neat. 

*We have another investigator though who is disabled which makes it that he walks really slow and It's got to hurt pretty bad to walk also.  He lives really far away from the church too.  He can't ride a bike because he isn't able to but he still wakes up at 5 every morning and walks to church every week.  It's really inspiring.  This week he got a bike thing that he's able to ride though.  It's a lever he pulls up and down which makes the wheels turn.  It was a nice miracle that he was able to buy it, because he's really poor.  That was a really good thing that happened this week.

Because she's beautiful -

And she's a great photographer-

 And she makes me laugh-

Quote:

"I ran from one end of the dock to the other, in 5 seconds, in order to take this serene photo."

Lightening strike

Entry

Exit - Disappointed in size?  Tell that to Bert.

The UPS man knocked on my door yesterday.  He brought me a large package that I did not order.  I was confused.  I opened it and saw 'Ande has sent you a gift'.  Under the wrapping there were two, brand new, big box fans.  The message, "To help you limp by in the heat without AC.  Love, Ande and Joe"
You want to cry right now too, right?

I did.
That was above and beyond kind.
I sniffle just thinking about it.
I want to be Ande when I grow up.  


As the UPS man left he had to tip-toe and dodge his way through some 2 dozen mud pies drying on the sidewalk.  He made one little boys day when he asked if he could take one for the road.  After I'm done being Ande I want to be the UPS man.

Let me help you out

Have you ever gone to the beautician when you're feeling a bit discouraged?
Mmm-mm.  Don't.
They may be able to talk you out of the purple highlights-
but that seems to be where the good news ends.

"Reach for the sky!"

Dear Justin and Cache,

  We're alive!  And happy to be so.  We were struck by lightening.  Or, to be more accurate - Dad and the house were struck.  The neat parts?

1.  We have a very cool hole in the roof.  It is similar to a large bullet wound.  Smaller at the entry point, bigger at the exit (from the attics perspective).  The song, "There's a Hole in my Bucket, Dear Liza -Dear Liza" will NOT leave my head because of it. 

2.  Our mirrors -in your kids' bathrooms - have burn marks.  How does glass look burned you ask?  I don't know how to explain it.  But they are burned.  Pals has a cool jagged crack throughout it that looks suspiciously like lightening.  That wall (where his mirror is) sits right where the lightening rod cord runs down the house and into the ground.  He doesn't want to replace it.  He wants to keep it that way to show friends.  I'm glad.  I'm nervous to take it down and find yet another problem that needs fixed behind it.  Ignorance is bliss.  And it's a very good thing that none of you kids are in the habit of brushing your teeth at night, ;) or are overly concerned about hygiene in general, because if  any of you had been washing your hands at the time you'd be toast.  Mirrors may look cool burnt, but people not so much.

3.  Dad can truly say he's had high voltage go through him and lived to tell the tale.  

  Dad was sitting at the computer, Maddie was in the kitchen, Jesse and I were at R.S., Calder in the living room, Kate huddled in the entry way, and Hy and Pal... ? when it happened.  Usually we unplug all of our computers during a bad thunderstorm, but this one hadn't kicked in too hard yet.  Maddie's main memory of the event was that suddenly all of the windows went white with bright light.  Every window.  She said she felt she was in the middle of an atom bomb.  Calder's main memory was the sound.  He said it hurt your head it was so loud.  Kate's main memory was wiped out, as I'm pretty sure she fainted AND emptied her bowels.  Dad almost followed in Kate's footsteps.  The volt went through the mouse, into his arm, down his body, and out his privates.  I thought that little piece of information was funny.  Not to be crude by dwelling on it, but don't you think it interesting that it didn't go down a leg and into the ground?  I tease him that it took the shortest route out.  Hahahaha.  I still giggle thinking about it.  But, moving on - Dad couldn't move for a bit.  Then he tingled from head to toe all night.  It shook him up.  And, I'm fairly certain that if his heart had any middle age blockage, it's probably been blasted free and his ticker is good for another 40 years or so.  That's a pretty cheap bypass if you ask me.  He was praising Benjamin Franklin and the invention of the lightening rod quite vociferously when I came home.  Thanks to it (which by the way, once the bolt traveled down the lightening rod's path and into the ground it blew a plate size hole in the ground uncovering the rod), and the surge protector he is still alive -albeit tingly.  And I try not to let that worry me.  I like to think on the positive side and imagine it will have more of a Hulk, or Mr. Bionic effect -Ande even mentioned perhaps a Harry Potter effect- then say a James Otis one (remember the Founding Father struck in his doorway who was never quite the same in the head afterwards?).  Dad's only fear is that if he were ever to father another child that it would come out with three heads.  Fortunately, no children are planned at this time to suffer that fate.  But as for the rest?  Only time will tell...

  Dad blames me.  The day before we had a Living Scripture salesman come to the door.  I told him I hated the New Testament and wasn't interested (it sounds worse that it was.)  Dad mentioned at the time that he thought I should be struck down for that.  Apparently the Jokes on him... 

  Now for the not so fun part - dealing with after effects.

  Did you know that electric volts have a delayed reaction to some of your appliances?  Up to a month!  (The washer, dryer, and refrigerator have now been added to our prayers - second only to blessing you two in the field.) We're seeing the beginnings of this slow death already.  It took out the t.v. the day after.  It took out the phones and wiring.  It took out the electricity/wiring to parts of the house. And worst of all the air conditioner/heater took a direct hit.  Or we think it did- as it's right under the hole in the roof.  We're still waiting on the electrician to make the final call.  MAYBE it was spared, and just the wiring to the monitor is gone.  But he hasn't shown up yet to tell us definitively.  Which means we can't call the air conditioner repairman yet....  (The electrician is still dealing with the homes that were taken out in the freak tornado that ripped through Calera two days before.)  So we sit.  And wait.  And roast.  And sometimes we grumble.  (Because when we are roasting we can only remember how much money this will all take to repair, and not that we were blessed by being spared from fire, ....or say.... death.) But what's money, right?  And, since we're scheduled for some doozey thunderstorms during the next three days, maybe it's yet another blessing in disguise.  Maybe we'd just be hit again by another strike and all the repairs would be for naught.  But after MONDAY, if the electrician STILL hasn't shown up, I'm quitting the Pollyanna attitude for good.

  And that's where we are as of this moment.  Don't worry about the hole and the upcoming rain- Dad and Calders ingenious solution was to put a rubber floor mat over it until he gets time off.  Hmm. Kind of sounds J.Otis-y doesn't it....  

  Dad came home with another story to make me laugh last night.  He knows he has to have some good ones for me at times like this, and this one did not disappoint -

  A rancher called in at closing last night to say he had a cow that was struck by lightening "or something".  He didn't really want to admit what else the 'something' might be.  And Dr. Hardy assumed, since he was calling for help, that it was still alive and asked if the client could bring it in.  The rancher said, "I can't.  It's dead.  ....but it's eye still looks alive!"  It was kind of freaking the said rancher out.  Dr. Hardy said, "Sooooo, do you want a necropsy?"  "NO!  NO!  NO!", he did not want a necropsy under any circumstances.  That would require cutting it open, and that in turn may release something disastrous that could quite possibly infect all of Red River County.  He and his son had gotten violently ill just by being near it, they didn't think cutting into it was a good idea.  The man was VERY concerned that something unearthly was inside of it.  Dr. Hardy just kind of said, 'Uhhhh...." and waited.  The rancher decided he would just like Dr. Hardy to come out and 'look' at it to see what his professional opinion of the 'live eye' was.  He also asked if he was aware of all the blue lights that had flashed in the sky the night before. (And apparently there were many calls to the police station by different people about said blue lights)  So, what would you do??  I anxiously await the ending of the story as well, as this didn't happen until closing and Dad was on  his way out the door.  Kind of a cliff hanger, isn't it?  Truly just the kind of story I need to take my mind off of my own mayhem and disaster of the moment.  (And I don't dare laugh - remember Jesse, Maddie, Pal and I saw our own weird blue light just over a month ago- and who's to say 'never'?  Nobody thought we'd be struck by lightening either!)

  Alright then, until I have more news- your loving and ALIVE father says 'hello' -

Love,

Mom