Re: OOOPS!

Wed, Jun 30, 2010

oh goodness. well well. yeah. I most definitely does sound VERY MUCH like you've been having a very interesting last two weeks. I had been wondering how bad things had been going on with you when you said that they were pretty... interesting... especially cause Steph has been having *ALMOST* as much of an interesting week as you... but wow. you win, for sure.

so, first things first. looking at that throat picture... its looking like the Laryngeal Ventricle would be the thing that I might have pushed on. which would correspond to what Sister Dewsnup said about it possibly being something connect to my larynx. So, If that's the thing that I would have pushed on, that would have explained the slight swelling and problems with my voice. cause it looks like they are quite fairly close to the "vocal fold and false vocal fold" wee! look at me pretending to know what I'm talking about! :D so yes. now I know to not mess with that, eh? ...yes.

so, for your question about Sister Krout. I'm not sure if I already said that she was from Washington, but I'm trying to think about where EXACTLY she's from... it might have been over in eastern Washington... but it might have also been down by Tri Cties... naw... that was Elder Brownie... yeah. I think that Sister Krout is from over in Eastern Washington. I'll have to ask her a bit later. but sister Vazquez is From Guatemala. :)

YAY, hump day package! :D the best part about having the moving Elders in our district is the fact that they pretty much have to go to the mission office once a week to take care of things, so we get hooked up with mail and everything every week at district meeting :D so I should be able to get my stuff at the latest by next Tuesday (heh, as far as I can imagine. things are just so ridiculously unpredictable in the mission that I've just really quit trying to make plans for things other than myself.) wait. you want to know if what you sent was LAME? whats that supposed to mean? like, you WANT it to be lame, or just ridiculous, or what? xD ha ha ha! but I should be able to let you know by next week. :D if it anything "lame" anyways, I'll probably enjoy it.

NUH UH! I got a shirt from Tomas too?! :D SWEET! gosh, now I feel special. it's really cool that we got victor's younger Brother as our new student. Victor's awesome-awesome. you gotta gets that to me. :D

So yeah. sorry about forgetting about the memory card... heh heh... I didn't mean to...? I promise I'll get that out the next thing I send. but I'm glad you enjoyed the nails. heh, Elder Ralston thinks I'm a dork for picking ém up. He just doesn't understand. geniuses (geniui?) are always criticized in their time. :P

wait. Seattle has a Rock and Roll marathon?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!!!!!!11111oneoneone!!1 When did THIS happen?! is it every year? do you know who played this year? if it was fairly recent... wouldn't that mean that I would pretty much be able to go right when I get back? :D

and Bryan came over for dinner? huh. any news? anything interesting?

so, for my socks and shoes, I'm actually... my shoes are actually doing quite nicely. the rubber on the bottom of these things is just super hard! so I might just get nice and lucky and not have to replace any of my shoes! :D that would be a bonus. especially since they are just so ridiculously expensive. :-/ and for socks... they are failry fine as well. I've... *sniff* I've lost one of my Sunday socks (you know, the day of the week socks?) and some of those are getting worn out... but other than that, everything is looking fairly fine. P-day clothes... well, lets just say I've ran into some new things, so everything there is covered. :D I might just have to toss you a picture of the piece of woven gold that I have. :3 plus, if you're EVER strapped for ideas about what to send me, just remember: Goldfish are my friend. ;) and for Annie's husband, heh heh. that's kinda funny that she put widow... her ex is NOT dead, but I wonder if she just "wishes" he were, or if she just considers him to be... ha ha ha! either one I would expect from her... but I couldn't say for sure. :D but he is American. and ex missionary of about... twelve years ago? Creo. I mean... I think. but he is CURRENTLY living in Mexico with his... new wife? I'm exactly very clear on that one anymore... so yeah... that would be about that. any other questions to stimulate my mind?

Heh heh, changes from the new mission president? hmmm... that's a really good question... as far as I can tell, nothing YET, but that might just be because the missions don't combine until the first of July...wait a second. isn't that my ONE YEAR MARK?! WHAT!? as you said. hump day for sure. (GAH, thats so weird. I've already been gone for a year? WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME?! :-O ha ha ha!) where does the time go? seriously. but we all keep hoping they're going to have a BIG new mission wide meeting to get all this stuff organized. however, we don't know anything yet, so we'll see. next week is possibly when things might start trickling down to us lowly foot soldiers.

OH! fun story. so, you know how we've been having those super heavy rains these past few weeks? well, since our apartment is on the second story, we've got ourselves this little balcony out the back of the apartment. well, this balcony has a drain for the rain, but it's just this little PVC pipe stuffed into the concrete wall. so, now that we've have this set up, last Thursday, we had come back for lunch. perfect timing, cause it just started POURING buckets. I was just so scared that I was gonna get hit with a bucket we ran back to the apartment to avoid getting hit. (plus I heard that it was going to rain metal ones that day, and I'm not a fan of those. they're kinda heavy :-/ ) so as we start making lunch, this rain is just EXPLODING everywhere, and it was so windy. then all of a sudden, water just starts pouring in from outside!!! turns out that little dinky drain in the wall was just no match for the rain. sooooo, as things went on, the water got deeper in the apartment to about... well, half a foot? it was definitely around my ankles. goodness... so we open the front door and we start sweeping the water out of the apartment down in the (concrete) stairwell that heads outside and we got ourselves a nice little river going out the door, heh heh heh! yeah... it was fun. the WEIRDEST thing was that it didn't get ANYTHING DAMAGED! neither of the couches, nothing paper. nothing! we definitely were blessed by the lord there. I don't even know how it worked out, but he helped us for sure.

hmmm... got a picture of that blown blood vessel in your eye?! :D

other news for the week? hmmm.... our searching continues ever still for a person that will actually even BE at their appointment... *sigh* so the apartment river is probably the BIGGEST thing thats happened in the last week. :-/

well... I actually got to use all my time today! :D YAY! plus a little bit extra... So... I've gots ta be bustin a move now!

to finish,

I LOVE YOU more than Elder Ralston likes to be sarcastic. :D
XO!!11one!11cheese!!!


~Brandon :)

oh, wo is me.

Tue, Jun 22, 2010

*sigh* here I am. sitting here in the computer lab of the library and there is just NO EMAIL from my family. *sigh* OH, WO is me! WO IS ME! whatever am I supposed to do? how am I ever going to be able to tell you about the crazy fight between Elder Ralston and the Gremlin, or that we got shot at by a paintball gun on Friday, or my trade off with Elder Burton last Monday, or our Zone conference on Saturday. *sigh* I guess I just can't, cause I just don't have anybody to ask me about it. but it's ok. *speeds up* it's whatever. I understand that no one wants to talk to me, nor do they remember that this week is transfers except STEPHANIE! WHY CAN SHE REMEMBER AND NO ONE ELSE!? *deep breath* WHHHYYYYYYYY?!

*normal* but yes. speaking of transfers: hey, guess what? *drum roll* I'm...................................... STAYING HERE! YAY! but really. I'm staying here. so we're having P-Day on Tuesday just like every other six weeks my entire mission. just throwing that out there. so yes. me and elder Ralston are going to continue here in Santurce. Buuuuuuut, Elder Burton my district leader, and Elder Mason, his companion are BOTH getting transferred. WOOO, whitewash in Hato Rey! so, we're getting some SISTERS! :D we're going to have Sister Krout (from Washington. WOO! go Washington!) and Sister Vazquez (from Guatamala) I've actually had sister Vazquez in my district before (back in Caguas) and I've met Sister Krout and had her in our district temporarily (complications with her old companion... family issues... :-/) so we're getting some awesome sisters to be with us.

as for the paintball gun, it's not as Dramastic as it sounds. (that's right. Dramastic) we had just been out tracting on Friday, and (I'm not really sure if they were REALLY shooting at us, plus it sounded like the gun was running out of air) but we just kept hearing this *thunk thunk thunk* and I saw some paintballs fly by us so we crouch down behind a car and wait. well, they stop and wait for about five minutes behind the car, but nothing else happened after that. luckily, none of us got hit. But, the weird thing was that about two hours later, I look at Elder Ralston's back and he had this HUGE glob of paint on his back. I was like, "what...?" he said that he didn't feel like he got hit or anything, and I didn't see any shards from the paintball, so it just kinda... I dunno, teleported onto his shirt I guess. xD

so yeah... everyone else is done now... cause they just don't write ANYTHING TO THEIR FAMILIES! GAH! I don't even know what they say! "hi, bye, I'm still alive" and that's it? what the heck?

I don't know... but I'm sorry I kinda dilly dallied away my time... but yeah. I'm gonna cut this a little short cause we also have to go pick up some Elders that are going home tomorrow ''cause their going to work in Santurce for the day. so yeah... I guess that would have to be all for now... okthxbai!

but really though. I Love you more tha-- oh NO! THE MONSTER!!!! AAAAAaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuggghhhhhh.......

~Brandon

Re: An anatomy lesson

Wed, Jun 16, 2010

OK, thank you very much for the photos of Victor! I remember him very well now. He was super nice. Victors sweet! so I gots ta get back to him! and we're getting his brother this year? :D and as for the neck picture... well, it didn't come through the email any bigger than the little thumb nail on the attachment thingie thing thing, so, he he he, I can't really see anything except this really colorful lump. :3 ha ha ha! so yeah... you think you could hook me up with a little bit bigger picture this next time? :D but it IS feeling better... part of it Ive discovered is how I sleep. :-/ I got a paper from a super nice sister back in Caguas about relieving neck tension and some stretches that you can do, as well as, like, proper sleeping, with a bunched up pillow under your neck for support and something behind it to lay your head on. so I've been doing that, and at first it was a HUGE relief, and now it's just getting steadily better every day. but then again, it all depends on how I sleep. ha, which... erm... has been kinda going downhill this past week... erm... cause I've been feeling some back pain in the same spot I did with Steve... but it's weird, cause I don't feel any other pain throughout the day. just at night when I sleep. so, since I've been to Santurce, I've upped my daily intake of water to at LEAST a gallon every day. usually I get in about a gallon and a quarter... but I talked to Sister Dewsnup about it, and she said it could possibly be residual healing pain... BUT, it could also be ANOTHER one... *sigh* so I don't know yet. she just said "oh no Elder Bryan... you better drink LOTS of water" ha ha ha, yes. lots... so yeah. dang it. so many problems! WHY?! :'( so basically all I can do at this point is just drink water. update next week? :)

gosh, I guess the people here are just so hard that they choose to look past my dashing good looks and my shining personality. *sigh* ha ha ha! but really though, sometimes it really does have to turn into the whole we just keep talkin'. unfortunately, people just seem to turn their brains off! :'( ha ha ha, you know whats funny? we usually say like TWO things and then ask them a question just so we can keep it brief, right? well the great thing is that they just sit there smiling and shaking their head yes and saying "exacto" (exactly) for like five seconds and then they're like, "wait, what was that?" gosh. people these days. you know what? back in my day, everybody listened to what you had to say. look what this world is coming to *shakes head and grins* oh well. that's life. :D ha ha ha!

oh, no, we don't have any AC in this apartment. even better? it's a metal roof! :D woo! so it gets super hot during the day and then the heat retains itself in our little room. concrete houses just are not the best for insulation, but it's not like we have any other choice, right? but the bed really helps the nights! :D Van Halen - "hot summer nights are the time of the year!" heh heh heh... that's a little out of context... but hey, it works, right? but yeah, you should totally get a new bed. you'll feel AMAZING! it's definitely worth it. and who doesn't want to feel amazing, eh?

oh yay, more showers eh? This'll be fun. that just means that contactin' is going to get 3 kabrillion times more fun! :D we also heard and zone conference yesterday that sister Dewsnup has done some asking around and it's looking like this year is gonna have a pretty active hurricane season. uuuuuii, this is gonna be fun! :D so probably TONS more rain throughout this whole summer. that's crazy that you guys have been getting hail and thunder out there! anything near home or just in the area?

aw darn! Donny didn't just narrowly avoid some rare form of cancer? blah! well, at least he got it burned off. that's what counts. but what the heck is Sebaceous Nevus? O.o ha ha ha! I have NO IDEA what that even means.

BLARG, no... I haven't had the chance to reply to Ehren yet... do you have his address so I can just write him? that's going to be way easier than anything else... that way i can work on it during the week. much more simple.

hey hey hey! that box should be there VERY soon, OK? :P gosh, I only got it sent out on Monday, so you calm down missie. :P

that's very good that you've gotten better at the editing thing. very relieving to know xD but yes. I've still got to have everything sent to the mission office, so If she gets something sent out soon it'll get there before transfers! :D woo! that would be nice. I don't I seem to have lost the ability to really express what I wanna say in English now... blarg! oh wells.

but yeah, it's looking like time is about up... I've gots to get myself some lunch! I'M STARVING! *crazy eyes*

so yes. I LOVE YOU more than I now love to drink water! :D

~Brandon
xOx0Xcirclexo

Re: Tamana, tamana, tamana!

Wed, Jun 09, 2010

well, news for the week. *sigh* still not much is happening around here. the people seem to be really really hard, and it's so weird, but it's like less and less people want to talk to us every day, so we're REALLLY scrambling for appointments. :-/ buuuuut, it's not like we can really do anything. we're trying and that's what counts the MOST out of anything. if people don't want to talk to us... well, it's really not our place to take away their agency. It's just really saddening that they don't want to even listen and understand the message. so yea. like I said, it's not like we can do anything except continue to try. SO WE GO ONWARD! :D

but yeah. nicely enough, the weather has decided to calm itself down a little bit. we've had a huge turnaround in weather. it's been really hot for the past few days, and even this morning was pretty toasty. quite toasty indeed. bonus is that the university here has some AC. mmmm, a/c. so it's better than nothin. plus the elders from hato rey come to pick us up and save us from having to walk around on P-day, which would be LAME by the way. but is the forecast for US looking like more rain? (oh, by the way, guess what time of year it is? :D HURRICANE SEASON! WOOO!!!! so now we get to stock up on water and food! :D doesn't that make you just excited? :D )

whoa! Donny's cancerous spot on his forehead was cut off? wow. right then even. did they send it out to the lab to find out what it was? plus it's a bummer that he had to stay home from the Tamana concert and Stake Conference... was he just feeling a little sick, or was it residuals from the "surgery"? Ha ha ha! I love how the doctor threw that in there. nice. so is Donny have a little circle scar from that then? or is it just gonna fade away?

OK.so for my neck, it's calmed down a lot, so I'm not sure if it was just a weak little inflammation that I caused or what, but everything is coming back stronger than it was, so I don''t know... but it HAD been on the front of my neck, right above my Adam's apple that I had bumped... I'm not sure what it was, bit it's like... a little bar right above it... but all I did really was just push a little bit on that "bar" thingie and it popped out of place then popped back in, so I dunno. but all this fasting and praying I've been doing for help seems to be paying off. :D but it would still be good if you could maybe get some info about it, just so I know what it is at least. you know. handy info. :)

and of COURSE I remember Sara Wilson! :D ironically... or strangely? she popped into my head the other day. heh, don't even know why, but I had been wondering whatever happened to her. Perfect timing, eh? :D

however, my shoe inserts should be on the way within two days. I've been really trying to finish up the letter from Annie so that I could send it with that. I've only got one more page to translate, so it should be done soon. either tonight or tomorrow, and I've already got the box ready. :) so yeah. there ya go! just remember: patience. :P :D

AH! quick question. I need to know this! what is the new show from Bill Nye about? it's called "the eye of nye" right? whats it about?! :-O

anyways, I gots tuh bust a move, yo!
I love you more than Elder Ralston loves skateboarding! :D <3 <3 <3

We now have your weather!

Wed, Jun 02, 2010

woo. so the weather here these past few days has been pretty horrible... :-/ *sigh* kinda puts a damper on the whole not having a car thing, you know. so yeah. CRAZY awesome lightning storms. CRAZY lots of rain, and long days with... well, not much going on, really. this past week we've been doing LOTS of finding, which unfortunately has not been bringing much results. most of the contacts we get are pretty much fake. :'( and some of the appointments that we DO get set up end up falling out cause they aren't there or the house just doesn't exist. Grr, angry. BUT, crazy story! :D so we've been having tons of lightning this whole week, and we had an electrical storm three nights ago. and then two days ago, the lightning kept up pretty strong, and so we decided to head back a little early for lunch. So, we're sitting there cooking lunch, and there's lightning all around us and just the HUGEST thunder (it's crazy loud, even when it's far away :3 ) and then all of a sudden, *ASDKFHWKAHEFIOEHWAIOFEHIWA* this huge snap of electricity *skidoosh!* HUGE CLAP OF THUNDER immediately afterwards. it almost sounded like it came BEFORE it! :-O so I look over to Elder Ralston and he had these huge eyes. he goes, "holy crap, dude. i freaking SAW that! it hit the house next to us!" :-O crazy, man. crazy. it was seriously so loud, too. awesome stuffs. that's crazy that you guys have been getting such bad weather, too. bummer. :'( but that's pretty sweet that we have all those froggies livin' behind us! :D Puerto Rico is kinda like that. they have the coquí (pronounced "co-key" with the co sounding like "doe") and every night, man. those things RIP. they are SO loud. and everywhere. it sounds like this huge jungle outside all the time.

AH! that's good that Annie finally got a new phone. ha ha ha, now tell her not to lose THIS one. :P :D

so, other news for this week before i get distracted. I don't know if i ever told you, but elder Harvey kinda helped me out with all that tension in my neck. but I think that tension that I had may have been in two parts: 1) from sleeping badly, and 2) from messing around and poking around with my neck, which occurred cause I had all that bad tension in the first place. cause the other day, my neck felt kinda uncomfortable, so I was massaging it a little bit, and then I pushed on something... It went out of place, and then went back again, but then it was SUPer super uncomfortable to talk or do anything. then like, it was super difficult to really change the pitch of my voice or anything. so I waited a few days to see if it would get better, which it didn't really, so I gave sister Dewsnup a phone call. I told her about it, and she said that she didn't know EXACTLY what I may have pushed on, but it might have hit my voice box or vocal chords and if it was really bad, i might have given myself laryngitis. great. so now I'm back stuck with this horrible inflammation that I've caused myself *sigh* so basically, the whole point of this story is this is part of the problem for all that tension that i had, and now, me being the super smart guy that I am, have decided to cause myself this nice little problem. again. so now that it's kinda uncomfortable to talk, the whole being able to contact 24/7 in this walking area isn't exactly a benefit anymore. so I was wondering. would you be able to take a look on the Internet for any instances of this or of laryngitis and what I could POSSIBLY take to help the swelling or whatever it is thats going on right now, to go down? or possibly would help in any way? because this really is horrible. :'( and it's really super frustrating, cause it never really goes away, either. it's always just this constant pressure on my Adam's apple... *sigh* gosh dang it. I couldn't just be happy with what i had. GAH. pooper scoopers. please tell me that you can find something to help with this. and if you could, get back to me with it by next week so that I can solve this problem. that would be superly duperly fantastic.

*sigh* so yeah. that's probably the BIGGEST thing that's happened in the last week. :) sounds fun, right? super much so. I can't even describe the happiness pouring out of me right now.

for my sleep? well, I actually am sleeping quite fantastic you know. I've got this SICK Seally mattress that the moving Elders hooked me up with. the "Seally back saver" is what it's called. really fantastic,. you know? I feel like I'm sleeping in heaven, and I wake up all super rested and everything. GAH, even a five minute nap feels like I've been sleeping for a couple hours! I LOVE it! :D I need one. I just do. I just think that last week I was a little tired cause I didn't get the chance to eat some breakfast. :) but yeah, I've been having like eggs in the morning usually, and I've been taking my vitamins ALMOST every day (I can't say every day cause then I'd be lying :) ) and I've picked ups some apples for the last few P-days to enjoy. but no, I just love pears that much. :) and eh, we don't get fed much by the members here... mostly because we don't ever really have to to just "stop by" and visit. that usually happens when you're walking around all the time and don't have a car for super sweet speedy transportation. @.@

poop... everyone else is done emailing... well, I'm going to try and get a package sent out this week with some extra stuff that i need to send home so it's not taking up so much space in my bags, so I'll be trying to get a letter to Donny and finish up this email in a letter too, stuffed in there. :)

bah, hump day. as far as i know, there isn't a tradition or anything, but I've heard that some people burn ties or a shirt, so I don't know if there actually IS one or anything. just heard it in passing... so yeah. I'll have to find out. the only problem is... I don't have anything to BURN! :'( it's all good stuff! ha ha ha!

on p day so far what we've done is stopped by a few skate shops/surf shop (elder mason and Ralston are big skaters and masons a surfer (he's from Cali)) and today, we plan on "playin' some b-ball outside of the school... ...when a couple o' guys that were up to no good, started makin' trouble in my neighborhood..." *ahem* anyways. sorry about that. so yeah. maybe hit up a few more skate shops today too. last week we went to this really really sweet place called "mega music warehouse" that I found. mmmmm, that was nice. got to play on some guitars. except that I can't play anymore. *sigh* lame. well, I'll have lots o' practice time when I get back, eh? ha ha ha. yeah. *sigh*

OK, well, I've gots to bust a move. hope to hear back about that neck stuff, too. please please please. :)

I LOVE YOU more than Washington loves to rain! :D

~Brandon
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooooooxxxxxxxexxxxxxohohohoh!!!1111oneoneoneone!!!