Future plans

11/24/08
congratulations on the condo. you will own it eventually right? its not like an apartment where you just throw fistfuls of cash at the crappy landlord? maybe ill come live with you and we can base camp from there for our travels. im trying not to be like corey and live at home forever... however, i could totally see myself getting home, getting a good job at a video store and living in my old room until mom and dad die and i get the house. that would be cool, girls like it. i went to the singles branch here in downey this sunday. 3 girls 6 boys, not much. im not gonna go to a singles ward i dont think. i would assume its similar to BYU, a mad meat fest of people trying to find a mate. not for me. im a bachelor for life. i just need to get a wrist brace so i dont get carpul tunnel from the video store. send me a ton of those pumpkin logs, those things are bomb. im confused by your frequent referrals to world of warcraft. i havent played it in almost a year and i probably wont be playing again for another, if not forever. i had to give up hitting on girls and warcraft, and now i have realized what i miss more. just one more year and i can finally unleash the mojo, make them go crazy. this dumb spanish thing has messed up my english spelling. im dumb now, i cant spell anything. i wrote yesterday about a crozz and didnt realize until i went back and looked at it again. now that im paying attention to it i realized im making a ton of mistakes, so i dont know how many i have missed... o well. mom im glad youre doped about a teenager book about vampires. sounds awesome. why do you assume i wrote a funny joke to allan? im funny all the time, i dont have to tell jokes. when we dont have appointments to go to we knock doors. missionary work is really quite dull, 4 hours a day knocking doors, ride to an appointment and theyre not there, knock another hour, go to dinner, visit less actives... however, we have had great LA success here, 5 of them coming to church every week now and doing what they should be. 2 couples and a recent convert whose hubby didnt get b'tized. never done that before, all the LA that ive tried to help in the past didnt want us to help, so i have had a badditude to LA work. its not too bad once you see success. papa smurf, how was the concerto? did you take any vid clips for me? i got some of the metallica concert from aimee, they are awesome. that reminds me, buy their new album, Death Magnetic, and have it ready for me to listen to when i get off the plane, i want to hear it. who did you go with? ok thats all i believe... bye

Dungeons and dragons

howdy foolios. with the fires, yes it was bad where we are. there were a couple of days where it snowed over night, at least it seemed so with all the ash, and where you couldnt see very far because of smoke and it burned your eyes and throat, especially while biking, but its over now. the skies are cleared (for LA at least, theyre still a healthy brown color) so were doing fine. nothing about prop 8, downey is too quiet of a place for anything major to happen. elder espindola and i have found a few good families (finally) that are doing well, so we finally have some appointments, the only bad thing is that we go all week with just a couple of return appts that dont show but everyone can only meet on our p-day, so yesterday when we got back from the temple we had to go to appts and we didnt have time to wash or email or get food or anything, thats why im writing on a thursday. we have some good investigators now, so things are picking up a bit, we havent had many people to teach for a long time, just 1 or 2 good appts a week, but were getting more now. we have been doing a lot of less active work, and have gotten a few people reactivated and going to church, paying tithing, etc., all on their own choice, we just helped them to turn themselves around so it didnt seem like we were pushing them but that they made the choice themselves. with one couple, we ate dinner with them and they were so excited and said "weve decided we want to start paying our tithing, where can we get envelopes?" hehe, it was great. things still arent too exciting, just normal missionary work, so ya... there was a member we were eating with who is just like me, sarcastically funny, gives a little, takes a little, and he said he had a dungeons and dragons meeting that night. i asked him if they were all going to dress up for it and he said, yes, but at least in this game there are no winners or losers, to which i had the best punch line in a week. "Ha" i replied with a smile "youre all losers" it was quite funny, he and his wife laughed harder than i did (she teases him about it all the time). theres your joke of the week.

Tie thief

11/10/08
howdy folks. we havent gotten any bad things from prop 8, all good (welcome to downey) but it looks like i got out of santa monica in time. besides, what are they going to do, limp wrist me and call me mean names..? big whoop. its been another week in downey, all the talk at doors and with members has been about prop 8, which drives me nuts because i dont care and its over with anyway. soon everything will return to normal, here at least, and we can get back to people just saying no instead of no but good job on prop 8. i went to a samoan ward this sunday on splits, which was awesome. i didnt understand anything, but samoans are loud, even in church. they would guffaw so much, just big ol belly laughs, especially after one kid got up for a program, didnt say anything for almost 3 minutes, then said (in samoan) in the name of jesus christ amen. thats the only part i understood because one of the members told me before what it meant. that was pretty cool, and as well i spent an hour in one of my spanish branches for sacrament meeting, which is only the second time i have been able to go in 2 months, and the first time to this branch. we cover 2 spanish branches, as well our english ward, in which we are the only missionaries, so we have to have at least one of us there, and its hard to get to the branches with one person. my tie collection is growing, im well past 50, and still adding. i recently swindled a member out of one of his ties and he didnt know it until i put it on and he said "wait, i thought i wasnt giving that to you, why did i? " hehe, so scandalous am i. we have a lot of investigators now, most doing pretty well, and we have a few less active families (4) that we have gotten back to church. we are doing very well. one of the less active fams, a hubby and a wife, just found out the wife is pregnant, so they are really excited about that. they found out 2 weeks after they came to church for the first time in a while, so it was pretty cool. Elder Espindola goes home in 30 days, which i remind him about every day so he doesnt get trunky on me. ive had one companion get more trunky than me, and it was a hard battle to keep him from making me more trunky. all my companions have been just about to go home, so i have had it my whole mission, being trunky. im been here long enough i might start getting companions younger than me, but who knows, maybe just soon to leave ones the whole time. eh, well see. im doing well, hope all is well there, bye.

Changes

life will be so wierd in a year. the house will look different, moms hair will look like a boys, corey will be too big to walk... so many changes. for halloween we had to be in our house at 6 and we couldnt leave, but i did the most dressing up i could do. i put on a huge black wig and wore it under my helmet to dinner and back, that was about it. nothing too exciting has happened lately, same old stuff pretty much. i got that package on friday, thanks. i have a huge bag of candy from like 4 months ago that i havent touched in forever, and now im adding to it. when i get back around to eating lots of sugar, it will be great. we were trying to contact a referral yesterday evening, we were supposed to be there at 6, so when we showed up, it turned out to be an apartment complex with 100 doors, and they had failed to give us a number. we spent an hour and 45 minutes knocking on doors until our bishop finally called and said he had found the number. it was one we had knocked already, they just didnt answer because they were watching a movie. they asked to reschedule because they had already started, so we have another appointment in a few days. thats pretty much it...