Re: Ya, right!

Wed, Jul 28, 2010

GAH! OK OK, I'm sorry! :'( I didn't mean for you to worry so much... but still. So... basically... *sigh* well, I mean, I don't even really have a problem with things being slow here. I understand that sometimes things just don't go overly fantastic and are kinda slow sometimes. (I also have been sleeping a little bit better, bit for some reason I still can't manage to sleep a whole night through...) but... how can I really explain the problem? I don't know. It's wierd, 'cause it's like, the problems this, or the problems that. but really, it's more of... this?

*sigh* well, basically I had been considering going home. I... I don't know. I've... past tense? I had? I don't know. just being stuck with people. people that, sure, they're cool... you know, I don't even think thats what the real problem is. is it? I don't know.

no, I didn't forget the WAY TOO OFT quoted "forget yourself and go to work". no, I didn't forget the whole, this is work for the lord, this is salvation for other people. I already knew that it wasn't an option for me to go home. besides the fact that president wouldn't let me anyways.

I'm sorry... this has all just really been stuck up in my head. I didn't even really tell president that, just a little skiff about that I had been considering going home. like I said, I already know that going home isn't an option. I think of all the people that have told me they look up to me. Donny, Hannah, Cameron. what would they think? how would they feel? what about you? and dad? and Grandma? what would the adverse effects be? and then it comes down to: am I being selfish by wanting this? *sigh*

but don't worry any more. I'm quite a bit ways away from wanting to go home as bad as I did last week. I know that I have the support of president if I need it.

so yeah. thats... thats it. kind of. but really, I need to write a little bit. something about this week. just something else.

well, two days ago I got the flu. still got a little bit of it, and it wsn't as bad as it was yesterday morning. (threw up a little bit) but I picked up some theraflu and stayed home for most of the day to get some rest. I'm feeling better now. my stomachs calmed down quite a bit and I'm not as stuffy, but the congestions still there. so hopefully I'll be better within the next few days.

I also wanted to ask: did Dad get my Fathers day card? I'm trying to figure out if people have gotten my last few letters that I've sent out, cause I sent one to Andrea like my second week here and I havent gotten a reply yet. so I was just wondering if things were getting where I sent them. :)

we've also found a person! :D he's a twenty year old Dominican. we contacted him just out on the street on his way to work and we stopped by to teach him yesterday. we shared a lot about the book of mormon. He seemed SUPER excited to read it and started right after we left. He lives alone, and NOT with his girlfriend which solves a few problems there. but we're going to be stopping back by tomorrow to see how his readin gwent and to teach a little bit more. :3

we also have two Elders staying with us in our tiny apartment. they came from the west side from an area that sounds like its going to be closing. so they'll be staying with us for the next week till transfers.

President is shifting the focus of the mission from baptisms more to retension and reactivation. thats one of the biggest problems that is going on right now, is that the church is shrinking here. :-/ people are going inactive faster than there is baptisms... like, in Rio Grande, 30 maybe active members. 350 on the whole member list.

poo... out of time. well, I've got to bust a move. I will be doing email on Tuesday next week, for the next week is transfers.

so yeah...

I love you more than the computers here love to take their time to boot up!

~Brandon

suprize! :D

Mon, Jul 19, 2010

hey, guess what? P-day was on Monday today. :3 turns out they have a mission-wide leadership training for all the missionaries that are leaders, so they had to re-structure the whole week. :-/ so I get to email you today. *sigh* which sucks cause nobody emails me until it's Tuesday. but it's OK. it's whatever. I'll just try to ramble on the most that I can so I can fill up some space. but we're also having interviews with the president today as well, which started at one and we're STILL waiting to get in.

so yeah. this week has kinda sucked. :-/ we only taught one lesson this whole week. and the only other lesson that we taught was to a member who invited us over for dinner. so yeah... kinda sucked.

I'm still having this horrible sleeping problem, but I'm getting better. it got really bad a few days ago, and I even took some of those Advil PMs, but that just made me feel tired ALL day, plus even then I STILL woke up. so I just was feeling like CRAP... goodness... this last week and a half has just sucked. it really has. I'm not really sure if I wanna talk about it just yet, but I more than likely will next week. we're still waiting for our interviews with president, so I'm just gonna sit here and type away till it's our turn to go. :D but don't worry. it's not a problem with Elder Ralston or a worthiness issue or anything like that, but I want to talk to president about it before I say anything. sorry to be leaving you hanging and stuff, but I just wanna grab some guidance from him first. :) so DON'T WORRY, and "don't panic"

my minds still super fuzzy though from all that lack of sleep, but it's getting better.

lemme see... our search still continues for new investigators. AH! we had a trade-off with one of our zone leaders on Thursday. heh heh, it was actually with him that we found that one person to teach. maybe he had a fresher mind than we did? :)

hey, hows dad doing? hows the job and everything? I sent him an email like a few months ago and I haven't gotten anything back so I had been wondering if he got it and all that stuff. but mostly it was just about like, his mission. how it went and if he had any stories or anything, 'cause I never really heard too much about it.

well, looks like it's my interview time!

LOVE YOU!

~Brandon

Re: pooped

Wed, Jul 14, 2010

well, it's alright if you're having a hard time typing... I'm just utterly destroyed right now... gah, I have had just the most HORRIBLE time trying to sleep this week... actually, it's been more these past two weeks... *sigh* I don't even know why, but I just have this inability to be able to sleep the entire night now... last night I woke up at 2 in the morning. blasted wide awake. so I'm like, great, what am I going to do NOW? so I try to go back to sleep. cause, you know, it's good to get lots of sleep. so, after I fall back asleep, I wake back up. five different times. and for the past two weeks, I've woken up at least twice if not more every night. it's seriously just destroying me, it really is. i forget what I'm saying halfway through my sentences in Spanish, I can't really think, I have to FIGHT to focus on what people are saying... I dunno, man. I had been thinking... i still have those advil... er whatevers PM pills... so I had been considering just drugging myself up before I went to bed... but I'll have to see how things turn out. I'm thinking about calling Sister Alvarado to see what she thinks... well, I should actually probably do that first, eh? yeah. I'm gonna do that.

yeah, it woulda been kinda inconvenient had me foot been broken... but I was blessed. and super lucky. good thing I put tons of points into my luck my last level up. helped me out a TON.

aw man... that's too bad that you haven't been able to find Luigis or Yoshis... gosh though. you've got to keep trying! cause YOSHI'S MY FAVORITE! :D but having all three would be amazing. :3 would you keep trying please?

wait... buy me pants? what do you mean? ha ha ha, I don't need any pants... the one pair I brought are doing me pretty good so far. :)

my goodness... I just read about cleverbot. I don't think you told me about it before, so I had to go look it up *hush hush* HA! that thing is AMAZING! I LOVE IT! I had to try it out a little bit. wow. I can see how you would be able to spend hours on that thing. I just love how sarcastic and joking it is. how did you guys FIND that thing? I LOVE IT! it's perfect for finding your own random generator inside.

oh my goodness. you have to show me all the videos when I get back. I'm losing all my "culture" ha ha. that one with the french guy dressed up like Mario sounds HILARIOUS! you have to just get a nice collection of videos to blow my mind with when i get back. I'm excited. :3 and maybe some other fun crazy websites. :D

*sigh* I'm just so whipped I can't even really think... lets see...

well, Elder Taylor, our district leader had been training Elder Perry, but then President Alvarado gave them (the moving Elders) the responsibility of cleaning up every. single. apartment. in the whole mission. so they got a new companion, elder Perez, and then about last Saturday Elder Perry got replaced! :'( they just took him away, cause he wasn't really getting the chance to learn or anything. all he was doing was cleaning... so now we have Elder... erm... Elder Holler... Elder Holles... I can't remember... this sucks. I can't even remember simple things anymore. plus, my teaching is just going downhill... I can't track where I'm going with things, I'm tired all the time, I'm getting even LESS organized... I'm just falling apart!

lemme see... OK. so like, the moving elders. they now have the commission to help clean up every apartment to spic-n-span cleanliness (which sucks for us, we have one of the worst apartments. no joke. (not that it's us or anything, it's just a crappy apartment) ) and then they have to teach the Elders about the doctrine of cleanliness. the moving Elders hit up one apartment everyday (excepting P-day and Sunday) so yeah. whelp, just forgot where I was going with that.

look at this, isn't it fun? :D

other than that... not much has really happened. we're still searching for people. every day. we haven't had any appointments set up ALL day for the past three... or four days, so yeah. that makes for a FUN day, especially because we have to walk and there's barely any members to visit... we've just been having some really long days the past little while. but we're trying. we've also taken up trying to discover how many people ACTUALLY still live here in Santurce...

but yeah. I'll probably have some more exciting news next week. maybe a bit more FULL of an email, but I do have to go email Donny really quick, so I'll go do that...

I love you more than the amount of sleep I'm losing! :D

~Brandon

wee wee.

Re: We finally have sun!

Wed, Jul 07, 2010

YAY! I got my package! :DDDDDDD thank you so very much. made me happy inside. that polo that Donny didn't wear? that things AMAZING! how could he not wear that?! well, I LOVE it, so I'M going to wear it. the only problem is, I would almost prefer to just save that for when I get HOME! that tie was pretty amazing as well... heh, I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything to it! :3 pears... AHHHH!!! the MARIO CART! did you know that those Mario carts COME OFF THE CANDY BASE?! :DDDD that thing is amazing!!!! did you happen to see any more? I was seriously not mind starting a collection of all the different people... :3 you know. just to have when I get back? like a little extra coming home thingie? ;)

OO! story time. ok, so the moving Elders came to pick us up for the combined mission meeting, right? well, they were lost for a moment (and a little late), so we told them that they would be able to meet us on the main road. well, we start to head out there, but then they found our house from behind. they come around and stop right next to us. we start to clean off the seats and everything, and of course my side had more stuff to clean of. so Elder Ralston finished before I did. So he closes his door, and Elder Taylor thought that I was already inside, so he jumps on the gas pedal and jets forward RUNNING OVER MY FOOT! AHHHHHH!!!!. but really, it wasn't so bad. our miracle for the week was that my foot wasn't broken! :D YAY! he only ran over my toes and my foot right in front of the arch in my foot. wow. that was a redundant statement of redundancy. anyways: *whew* any farther back would have seriously broken my foot. that would have put a damper on the whole meeting thing. boy was I blessed there. (man, that would have been a GREAT start to the new mission presidents term, eh? yeah. and great on my medical record, too. along with the four hundred dollar plastic surgery on my toe and my two thousand dollar (approximate) visit to the hospital with Steve. man I suck) so yeah. I thank everyone for their prayers for my safety. they REALLY helped me this week. :D

I like your spiffy text there, by the way! make me think of an old computer screen! :D now if it was only Green and black. ha ha ha!

that's a bonus that the weather was nice for the mariners game, even if they DID lose just like every year the students go, ha ha ha! but it's nice that you had some sun, for sure.

so, info about the CHANGES! WOO! so. first of all, we had a FULL mission meeting last Friday. that's right. east AND west side together. the meeting was VERY revolved around UNITY and WORKING TOGETHER, which is understandable if you have those "eastside purists" ha ha ha! but President was really focused on the unity thing, so all of us have a strong feeling that this next transfer meeting things are just gonna be CRAZY change ups all over the place. ah, one of the MOST fun things: district meeting now starts at 7:00 in the MORNING. yes. and we are to be in our seats at 6:30 studying till it starts. tasty. so yeah. we have that... and the best part. P-Day is remaining Wednesday. SWEET! that's perfect. it's so much better on Wednesdays anyways! makes your week go by much much MUCH faster. plus, Puerto Rican's have all kinds of random holidays that they celebrate on Monday, so lots of stores are closed including barber shops and things like that, so he kept it on Wednesday for us. lets see... those are the two major things that have happened so far. Anything else, we just haven't been told about yet. :-/ people just love to hoard their info! it's horrible.

ha ha ha, my P-day clothes? oh... well... you know. just some really sweet shirts... like a batman shirt, and a thunder cats shirt... they both looked just absolutely AMAZING, so I had to get them. but other than that, I'm still running fairly well on all the stuff that I brought. we don't actually get to spend TOO much time chillin in our P day clothes anyways, so everything's pretty well still fresh. except for my service jeans. those are getting a work out. :D

for the fourth? hmmm.... lamentably, nothing. *sigh* the fourth of July means NOTHING here! :'( it's probably the only thing that they don't celebrate here, ha ha ha!

AW MAN!!!! A ZOMBIE WALK!!???!! ha! that would have been AMAZING to go see! :D

sounds like shingles is just bundles of joy!

oh poo... sisters are out of time... gah! that means I gotta bust a move.

I love you with a love as deep as the ocean *cheesay!*

~Brandon