Thursday, March 21, 2013

3-3-13

Yoyoyoyoyoyo brothurs!!

This week has been like a slick 90's surf sesh.  My bones have been soaking in the sweet Samoan sunlight.  

First of all, replace my pants and a belt from Missionary Mall.  My belt is hagrid to the days and it's not even keeper of keys.  Just tell them it got thrashed.  Also, I don't know where all my pants went.  The guys who come to cut the grass steal my clothes if I have them hanging on the line.  Last week I saw one of the dudes wearing my high school soccer jersey.  Haha, good kids.  Nah, but I have one pair of pants that got a big rip in it.  I tried to patch it, but it's like all "stylishly ripped" just like the hollister pants.  It's a Robbins & Brooks charcoal grey, size 36x34.  But you can just send me some slacks that can zip off into shorts just in case it gets too hot.  Make them cargo as well, with the big velcro pockets on the side.  I could probably fit a whole bag of sunflower seeds into one of those.  

Also please send me some watermelon seeds if you can get your hands on any. The fertile Samoan soil would be for sure to pop out a few of those melons with a little effort.  Cause they grow tons of pumpkins here, but I've never seen a watermelon.  And since the storm hit, we haven't had any fruit cause it all got knocked off the trees.  Oh yeah, and those Samoan CTR rings if you can get them--that would be sweet.  (Also Old Spice Deodorant. 2% milk and Swiss cheese and that good turkey.)

This week we've been hangin' on a hookin' wire, hookin' wire, hookin' wire.  If Samoans had stairs in their homes, I would definitely laugh breathily as I ran up and down them.  And if it weren't for chu-chuheewa, I would have got discouraged and gave up a long time ago.  

This week was tons of driving to Apia and back, which is like a 1 1/2 hour drive one way.  We had transfers.  Me and Faitau are staying here in Lotofaga.  Looks like I'm gonna kill Faitau cause he finishes at the beginning of April.  I'll have to give him the ol' spankeroni and we'll shred the gnar until the end.  My comp is tight though.

We had a pretty cool experience actually this week.  On Thursday we had to pick up some missionaries in the zone to take for a training in Apia.  Well on our way back from picking them up, we were going through the top part of our area when we passed a house that was totally on fire.  So I stopped and looked at it for a second, but then the other dudes in the car wanted to just go cause we were already going to be late for the meeting and we'd probably get chewed out by the APs.  But I had the impression to see if they needed any help. So we go there and this guy walks toward us.  His shirt was all burned to pieces and his hair was all singed off and we started talking to him and he was telling us what happened.  I guess there was a wire or something that caught the house on fire.  They didn't have any phones, so we were able to call the fire department to have them come, but by the time they showed up, the house was just rubble.  But luckily no one was injured.  It's just that the house was destroyed.

So anyways, we went to our training, and then that night we came back and brought them a lot of food that we had bought and a copy of the Book of Mormon.  The guy came out and he was telling us that out of all the cars that passed by, we were the only ones to stop and help.  And then he told us that he took that as a sign that he should take his family to the Mormon church (the family is Catholic--including his wife and kids.)  Haha, I was stoked.  But the family is really in need of help.  The kids have no clothes cause they were all burned in the fire and they need building materials to build a new house.  We already talked to the Branch President and the Relief Society President about getting together some stuff to help the family.  So we're hoping the branch pulls through.  They have a tiny little fale o'o that they're all living in for the time being, but we're hoping to be able to begin working on their new house soon.

I'm really excited to see how things turn out for this family.  We've been fasting and praying for them that things are going to work out.  I'm glad I listened to the promptings of the Spirit though.  You really never know what will happen.

Also, our investigator, Senerita, came to church!  She is the one whose mom is crazy and asked me to marry her daughter and have white children while I was in the middle of teaching about the restoration.  Well, the Relief Society visited her and she came to church.  And we were able to teach her a lesson which ended up being pretty spiritual.  She was the one who basically told us to not visit anymore, but now she seems a lot more receptive.  Also, one day we were visiting  last week at their house to talk to her dad (who is a recent convert) and they were telling us how their mom drank all the baby's (Senerita's daughter's) milk and fed all the baby's food to the chickens.  I guess the mom is like legit crazy and does stuff like that all the time.  So, luckily, we had just done some shopping that day and we were able to give them a bag of groceries, which, I think, softened Senerita's heart cause she didn't have anything to feed her baby.  It was lucky that we had groceries in the car though cause usually we just buy packets of ramen or just hope that people will feed us throughout the day.  But the Lord works in mysterious ways.  

At one of our dinners this week I ate sea urchin for the first time.  That was pretty cool.  It's like that little spikey dude (here has a hand drawn picture of an oval shape with pointy spikes all over).  I think that's what it's called.  It was pretty good.  That was probably the only time I will ever it it cause my comp is Samoan and he had never had it either.

But yeah, just like it says in Abraham 5:17, this week has been the "bone of my bones."  

Keep blading,
"El Dare" Johansen
PS:  Sup in the hood brothers & sisters!  This is your long awaited memory card!  Sorry, I hate talking in the tapes, but I do like taking pictures and videos to enjoy.  Most of the pictures are of me being a skux deluxe.  I'd leave an explanation, but I don't think it necessary.  The beginning 100 or so are when I was comps with Elder Ofisa in Aleisa, but all the rest are mine and Faitau escapades in Lepale and Leavuaa.  I changed the memory right when I got transferred to Lotofaga.  I think there's about 900 pictures of my beautiful face--enjoy them.  There's some cool ones of me climbing the Banyan tree--I couldn't resist.  And then a billion pics and vids from the storm.  My Australian cousin, Mick Rodney, filmed some segments of his hit show "Storm Chasers" on my camera while he was visiting.  Eventually you get to the barbecued dinosaur that we ate, a Pteradon, I believe.   No--only fooling mother--just bat.  I ate the tongue to prove I was a man.  If you look at picture #600 with my comp and our mini missionary who is popping my companion's back, you can see the eerie floating orbs.  That house was legit haunted.  True story.  Anyways, it's all good stuff.  Have a hoot and a toot

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