The Silent Killer

A pretty cool occurrance occurred (is that redundant?) over the weekend. Basically we found a projector worth thousands of dollars on our hill. David tells the story much cooler than I do, so see his post here. It was pretty awesome though. All I can say is that it's a good thing someone who hates the U of U didn't find it before we did. I mean, I bleed blue, but that doesn't mean I'd destroy the U's projector. :) So anyway, go read the story, it's pretty darn cool!

Also, super exciting update! So I forgot my lunch today (this is a regular thing with me apparently...) and so I got me some Taco Bell. (disgustingly cheap, and not disgusting!) It was a miracle! I ate my beefy 5-layer burrito, and everything was perfect! Usually all the sour cream is on one extreme end of the burrito, so you're eating all your beefy deliciousness, then suddenly the rest of your burrito is merely tortilla and sour cream. The the cheese is all on the other side! So you're suddenly out of cheese! Well, today was a miracle! I ate the whole burrito, and was shocked to see that everything was perfectly spread out throughout the entire burrito!!! I was completely blown away! That burrito was delicious!!! And thus we see that there are tender mercies all around us! (don't think I'm crazy, that made me soooo happy to eat that thing! That was definitely a tender mercy!) Anyway, so that's my other cool story.

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So for my Mission Picture of the Day, I'll just have a cool picture, because I realized I never finished the final 911 story! So anyway, here's my cool picture!

Cool view from Apartment!

Look at that amazing view!!! Yeah, I know, I'm just so darn good looking! Ok, ha-ha, that was a really stupid joke and definitely false. I just thought I'd throw that one out there. :P

Anyway! To the story! This was the beginning of my third transfer in the mission. So this was three days after the big house fire! I had just gotten my first trainee, Elder Lima. It was our 2nd day together, and we were doing our morning study. Suddenly I hear this loud beeping. I'm confused, cause it's not a fire alarm beep, but I had heard it somewhere before. Well, I suddenly realized what it was, and ran to double check. Yup, it was the Carbon Monoxide alarm. So I got Elder Lima quick and we got out of there quick and got the family who lived upstairs out as well and called 911. (I'm sure they were like wait what? Didn't we just go over there a couple days ago?) :P 

So anyway, a fire truck came and they went in and inspected it, and I'm not sure what the problem was, but I guess they fixed it, opened all the windows and fanned the place out with a big fan, and said we could go back in! :) So that was our other adventure with 911! It was quite fun.

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I love Doctor Who!!! It's basically the best thing ever! I'm currently working on a pretty cool project idea. I'll reveal more as the details and progress come!

And I'm tired! And I have to work tomorrow morning! Not fun! But I'm happy that this week hopefully won't be NEARLY as bad as last week! :) Yay! All right, well, I'm off to go home! Tchau!

100% Chance of a Slight Possibility of Snow

So for the last one to two weeks we've been hearing over and over "Snow tonight, accumulation up to 4 inches" and "Winter Weather Advisory, big snowstorm going to hit, accumulation from 4 to 6 inches" and all manner of stuff, and it was always "This time, it's definitely going to happen!" Well... Let's just say we're still waiting for this extreme winter weather. I think it's rather funny, because so many people on Facebook from this area are saying "This warm weather is the build up to extreme winter weather tonight!!!" ...And it never comes.
So therefore I've decided that the world's climate has changed this year. We have summer on Christmas, and a wintry Fourth of July. The good news is that because of this, we'll be able to do fireworks at our house! The place will be covered in snow, so there is 0% chance of fires! That, of course, is contingent upon whether or not you can get the thing to go off in such a wet environment, but hey! No fires! :)

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Time for the mission picture and story of the day!

Our Beloved Home.

This amazing little house was where I lived in one of my favorite areas, Bowmanville Ontario. It's a cute little city (almost could be qualified as a town) located about an hour from Toronto, maybe a little more, depending on traffic. (which is always horrible on the highway known as the 401!) Anyway, my story for today is the time I called 911. :)

The first time I called 911 on my mission was one or two days before the transfer, which I would be training a new missionary. So my companion at the time, the one who was being transferred, pulled up to the house around 9:30 and we were filling out our kilometers for the day, when there was a knock at his window. An old man was standing there, and so we got out to talk to him, and he said "That house is on fire!!!" and pointed to the white-blue house you see to the left. So we looked up, and sure enough, there were flames coming off the top of the roof, and we could see the curtains glowing from the flame inside. Well, my companion ran to get the member who lived above us in the house, and I called 911 immediately. Being a small town, the fire department got there within minutes. During that time we pounded on the person's door to find out if anyone was in there. Because of our pounding and yelling, we managed to wake up the guy inside the house who was slightly drunk and had fallen asleep, and he grabbed his 2 year old son who was in there as well and staggered out. They were both black with the smoke and coughing pretty hard. We brought them away from their house, because the man wanted to try to go back in and put out the fire, but of course he was delirious, so we had to get him and his son away from the house. Three firetrucks pulled up and began hooking up to the fire hydrant. It was actually a little funny, because there were a bunch of people gathered who were watching across the street, and as the fireman hooked his hose up and turned on the fire hydrant to get water going, he accidentally turned on the wrong side and it shot out tons of water, completely soaking everyone who was watching. So that was slightly humorous. :) (you have to think of the positive side of things, right?)

So the fire department finally got their water going, and they entered the house to tackle that fire. (by this time, the flames were quite large above the house) They were able to eliminate the fire, though to do this they had to rip a hole in the roof to get to the fire in the attic and on the roof. They fought that fire bravely, and finally took it down. (I'm sure all the women there were swooning) We were finally able to go into our house though. They had told everyone in the houses next to that one to stay out, in case the embers got blown and caught on those houses. (my companion and I were joking, trying to decide what is of most worth in our apartment that we would get if it caught fire... Of course there was the typical missionary answer of the Area Book... Frankly, I think that was the thing of most worth... missionaries have lots of junk) Anyway, they put it out (they had sent the man and his boy to the hospital long before this) and we went inside and finally went to bed. Needless to say, it was a very exciting thing! It's just great though that we were able to pull up right at the time that we were able to help! Any sooner, and we wouldn't have noticed the flames and would have gone inside. So I'm glad we were able to help.

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I will say, I've got some pretty sweet stories. Missions are the ultimate jackpot of sweet awesome stories to tell for the rest of your life! I love it!

I am now going to go gorge myself on lunch. Or I would, if we had anything incredible for lunch. So I'll most likely scrounge up whatever I can find. There will be no gorging involved. Anyway, I accomplished that quite well last night at Brick Oven with three of my best friends! So I've done my gorging for the week. All right! See you all later!

Martin Luther King, The Doctor, and 911

I must say it's been lovely a lovely long weekend. I've done exactly what must be done during such a weekend... nothing!

Ok, that's false, I've done a few things. Actually, today I finally went shopping for new clothes! Yay! So I will hopefully no longer look like a hobo in his old mission clothes! :)  Anyway, so it was nice. I got a sweet dress shirt, an awesome hoodie, two excellent collar shirts, and 3 new white shirts. So I'll actually be able to dress well now! (I'm still working on the normal t-shirt business, so bear with me)

So for the highlight of my day (sorry, shopping for clothes just doesn't jump to the top of my list of fun things to do) I watch two most excellent episodes of the coolest TV show in the universe, Doctor Who. Ok, now disclaimer, for those who just clicked on that link to Doctor Who, I understand that to you it most likely looks very strange and incredibly weird. That's what I originally thought when I first heard of it. Well, I've now actually watched it, and I happily count myself among the group of awesome people who are huge fans of this show. (by the way, I don't mean that those who aren't fans aren't awesome) Also, another thing. If you want to become a fan of this show, whatever you do, do not start watching it from where it is now. You will be incredibly confused and most likely will not like it. Definitely start from the beginning!!! If you want to become a fan, get in touch with me and I'll hook you up. But anyway, all that aside, I watched two excellent episodes of Doctor Who! Now (as usual) I'm dying to see what happens next, but I have to have self control to not ruin my studies. :)  So I'll save the next two. (even though it's a two-part season finale!!!! Ah man!!!!!) Ok, moving on!!!

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Time for the Mission Picture and Story of the Day!!!

Look at the top number called...

Yes, that does read correctly. The most recently called number was 911. As a matter of fact, this was the third time I got to call 911 in my mission! I'll talk about the first and second times another time, they are both excellent stories! The first and second actually are technically part of the same story. Anyway, I digress...

So on March 5th of 2011 my companions and I were walking out of a less-active member's house, and we had just crossed the street. Well, behind us a lady in an electric wheelchair had also started crossing, and she had the right of way, but some crazy driver sped up and hit into the side of her wheelchair, also hitting her leg, and it made the wheelchair spin around and she was clutching her leg and was just crying very loudly and seemed to be in shock, because she wasn't getting out of the middle of the street. Well, the light was turning green, and while I grabbed the phone and called 911, my companion, Elder Lima, ran out into oncoming traffic to grab her wheelchair and maneuver it to the sidewalk. (in the past when we would tell this story it would be absurdly embellished with all manner of exaggerations... It made it exciting! I'll try to tell the events correctly this time though) So by this time a number of people had gathered, and while I spoke with the emergency people, Elder Lima talked to the woman to calm her, and my other companion, Elder Figueiredo, talked with the other people trying to see if anyone had gotten a license plate number. Well, funny enough, a car pulls up, and the guy inside gives us a paper and says "Here! I got the license plate of that guy!" (because it was a hit and run incident) So that worked out nicely. Well, the police and paramedics show up after a few minutes, and we were able to explain what we saw, give the license plate number, and then since we had done all we could do, we left to get home. (this all happened around 8:40 pm)

So it was an exciting adventure! Thankfully, we were able to see in talking to the police that the lady was not seriously injured, but was still in shock and in pain, and other than that, would be fine. So we were glad we were able to play a part in helping her! Also I hope some people there saw us missionaries doing all that and it touched their hearts, allowing them to be open to hearing the Gospel later. Always be an example and let your light shine!

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One of my best friends, Katy, got her mission call on Friday!!! It's so exciting!!! You can read her blog to see where she's going, so it can come from her first! But I'm so excited for her, particularly because I love love love that country and those people!!! And I'll be able to speak Portuguese with her when she comes back! (cause Portuguese is just so dang awesome!!!)  Anyway, that's way exciting!!! Plus, I totally guessed it!!! Although to be honest I didn't think I would be right, I just guessed it for the heck of it. ;) Oh well, I still guessed it!

Also of note, I went to the mission farewell of Ryan Crookston, an awesome friend of mine, as well as the brother of another awesome friend of mine! (so therefore the whole thing was doubly awesome!) He's going to California! He's going to have a great mission!!! (because missions are so cool, and he's just a ridiculously cool guy!)  So yeah, it's soooo exciting that so many of my friends are either on missions or going on missions!!!!! It's sad, because I'm here and done with mine, but soooooo exciting for them! So congratulations to you all!!!!!!

All right, that's just about all I had for today. It's funny, I always think these entries will be so short, because at the beginning I can't think of anything to say, but then things come! So hopefully you enjoy them! All right! Tchau tchau!