Typical...

The DAY that I post a post about how there is no snow, it snows... Typical... They've been predicting it and predicting it, and it never happened, then they don't predict it, I write a blog post about how it won't snow, and it snows. It's Mother Nature making fun of me. Again, I say... Typical...

Why couldn't this have happened on Christmas?

Sleepy. Very Sleepy.

Yes indeed, I am exhausted. Ok, maybe not quite that dramatic. I'm just very very tired. Let me tell you why. Every other day of the week and on weekends, I work from 5:45 in the morning until 9. Yeah, I know there are many people out there, some probably reading this blog, who work way earlier than that. I understand that. But as this is all I've known, it makes me beastly tired. :)

Actually, it's not that bad. It's a tiresome business, especially in school. However, the real issue is that on a Friday and Saturday night, I'm just not willing to go to bed early! The night is young! It's the weekend! I'm in college! Come on! I'll have plenty of chances in my life to work super early, but I've only got this time to be a university student! So therefore, I must take advantage of it, even if it means losing a couple of hours of sleep. Anyway, I can make those up in afternoon naps! ;)

So the point of this portion was to say that... I'm really tired right now. :) MOVING ON!!!

*****

Well, it's kind of sad, there's no more parts to the Broken Ankle Epic, but that means we're back to the MISSION PICTURE AND STORY OF THE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oooooh yeah!!!

This first one here is just for fun. This was probably the coolest picture I took off of our balcony. Click on the picture to see it in all its glory. As you can see, the CN Tower is towering off to the right, and the dark yellow rays are bursting through the clouds shining down upon Downtown Toronto. Also I love the smoke-ish cloud things that are in front of the buildings. That's just cool. Yeah, this was one of my greatest mission photos of Downtown... Ok, real picture and story.

Christmas Party

This was taken on December 11th, 2010 when I was in the Portuguese Area. The person in the middle is a member named Sidy. She's super awesome! She also helps out the missionaries a TON. She was baptized a few years ago and is a really strong member. The girl to the left is a person who was learning about the church, her name is Deborah. At this time she was being fellowshipped by Sidy. So she came to our Ward Christmas Party! It was a SUPER fun party! Lots of excellent food, a great message, and the "Christie Quartet" did a couple of numbers! The Christie Quartet was a quartet made up of myself, my companion, and my two Zone Leaders. We called it the Christie Quartet, naturally, because we were in the Christie Ward. But we actually sounded really cool together! It was awesome! I love singing, especially in a quartet!

Anyway, it was a GREAT party! Deborah loved it, and it left everyone feeling the Christmas Spirit very strongly! A most excellent day!!!

*****

So tomorrow I'm going to a missionary farewell of a good friend of mine and then to my singles ward. It'll be a busy day, that's for sure! I'm REALLY looking forward to the fact that Monday is a HOLIDAY!!!!! NO SCHOOL!!!! :)  Yeah, there are few things that make me as happy as that.

So now I believe I'm coming down with a case of the munchies. (for those who don't know what that is, that means I'm not exactly hungry, but I want to eat something. Or more like snack. Yeah, I just want to snack. :)  One of my favorite things to do!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!! I know I will! Tchau tchau!

Couldn't Think of a Post Title!

Even though I have the worst post title in the world, it's been a FANTASTIC couple of days!!! Saturday and Sunday were a fabulous Christmas Eve and Christmas! After two years of being gone, I was able to spend a great Christmas together with my awesome family! Life doesn't get much better than that! :)

Since then I've had another job interview (unfortunately they won't be able to tell me yes or no until two weeks from now... not cool) and went on a couple of Best Buy runs. A couple because the thing I went to buy was the wrong one because I didn't think to read the box first. So I had to go back and return it and get the correct one. Here's to my favorite store! Yay!

Best Store Ever!

*****

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

My Incredibly Painful Ankle

Yes indeed, this is the dreaded story of the Volleyball Injury. Most of you who read my blog (I assume) know about my ankle I broke on my mission. If you don't, however, I'll tell you! This is THE VOLLEYBALL INJURY PART I!!!!

I was playing Volleyball at a Sports Night the missionaries were in charge of, and let me say this. When it comes to volleyball, I'm definitely not a klutz. Volleyball is my favorite sport, and I'm actually fairly ok at it! (as opposed to basketball or some sport like that where I am the worst player in the universe) So I was playing, and doing quite well, when someone set me the ball, and I jumped to spike it. Well spike it I did (and I scored a point too!) but on the way down, another kid who wasn't so familiar with how you play, came into my space right under where I was coming down. So my left ankle slammed down really hard on the edge of his foot. Well, to make a long story short, I twisted my ankle so bad that I completely collapsed right there. I tried getting back up, but I could put no weight on it. So they carried me to the side and my companion ended up having to carry me back home on his back. (it was quite funny actually) So that photo shown above is a couple days after the incident, (when I finally thought to take a picture) and unfortunately it's not as swollen as it was the first day. Sure, that's big, but the first day it was seriously the size of a large apple! But I'll continue the Saga of the Volleyball Injury in my next post.

*****

So awesome news! I got a SWEET new phone! Unfortunately it's not quite a phone yet... I haven't gotten a SIM card for it yet or anything. That'll wait until I get a job. ;) But here's a picture of it!

Look at that AWESOME Windows Phone!!!

Yes indeed, it's the amazingly awesome WINDOWS PHONE!!! Not to be confused with the not so awesome Windows Mobile. This bad boy has the best mobile operating system available right now. (no argumentative comments please) ;)  But basically it's a beautiful phone. I'll happily show it to any who would like to use it in all its glory. Just let me know. It will convince you of its awesomeness.

Anyway, so I'm really happy about getting that sweet new phone. It made my day yesterday. Then I got to hang out with some good friends as well, which was awesome. But that's all for now! Tchau tchau!

Merry Christmas!!!

'Tis the Season to be Jolly! Christmas Eve and Christmas are always two of my favorite days of the year! They are days of much joy and happiness. (and incredibly good food!) ;) It's great being able to celebrate the birth of Christ, our Savior, and remember His life! I loved last Christmas in the Mission Field, although there is obviously something special about spending Christmas with your family. But it was most definitely an incredible day!

Hopefully everyone had a great Christmas!!!

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King!"

Awesome New Design!

As you can see I've updated the design of my blog. I believe it looks a lot better. (before I just had the very simple template... goodbye boringness!) So I had a good time doing that today.

Also today I've been reading up on the extreme awesomeness of the amazing Windows Phone 7. This bad boy is by far the best smartphone operating system out there. It takes a whole new approach to your home screen. Instead of pages and pages of icons and folders, WP7 has a beautifully simple start screen with large squares called Live Tiles. These tiles are always updating and changing to show you real-time information about the weather, how many emails you have, missed calls, to name a few. It also has perfect integration with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, which all come together in what's called the "People Hub." The operating system is brilliantly original, not copying from other well known smartphones. It's one heck of a beautiful phone.

Aaaaaw yeah!

I just realized that that paragraph turned into a Windows Phone review! Well, it's because it's a SWEET phone! So there! Also a very refreshing relief from the generic grid of icons in the iPhone or Android operating systems. (please don't post comments arguing about which is better. This is merely my opinion) :)

*****

It's time for the Mission Picture and Story of the Day!!!

Posin' for the picture

Yeah, ok, so I look kind of ridiculous. This was a super fun day, we were helping a member of ours to move from one apartment to a new one a few blocks away. Well, I found sunglasses and a cowboy hat, and of course had to put them on and wear them around. So it was pretty sweet, I wore those while we were in the house getting all the stuff out of the basement. It's just one of those weird things you do as a missionary just for the heck of it. :)  Ok, so the story was slightly boring, but that's ok! It's part of my mission!

*****

So I just got back from a sweet Best Buy run with my bro Davo. We do these Best Buy runs rather regularly. (or at least we will, now that I'm back) They're extremely fun. I also bought the last two presents for Christmas. It was a very fun trip! We listened to some sweet tunes during the drive.

We also dropped by Red Box (that movie rental place thing) and grabbed Kung Fu Panda 2! I haven't seen it yet and I heard it's really good! So I'm just waiting for my brothers to finish their Doctor Who episode down there so I can watch this great looking movie!

Ok, so this post was written yesterday, but I forgot to upload it... But it's supposed to be yesterday's post. So where it says "today" or something referring to right now, that right now was actually yesterday. :)  Perfect. Anyway, this is John signing off!