Dirtiest car and Dr. Feelgood

July 12, 2010
Hi everyone!
Okay, so this week has been kind of an adventure, so I'll try the best I can to explain all that went on during the week.
First off, after I got off the computer we took a sweet little district activity up to Silver Falls park and had a total blast! We first stopped in at a place in Mount Angel and ate at a place called burger time which was sweet, and then went and burned off all the calories running around the park looking at waterfalls and running into about 20 members from different parts of oregon haha. We actually ended up teaching a first lesson to a park ranger as well which was entertaining.
Aside from that, we've shot a lot of hours this week in the shop getting our car fixed, which sucks because I didn't even wreck the car or anything! Toyota is total hosing us right now... and Elder Olmstead haha. We first had to take the car in to get an estimate on a bumper that's coming loose where it joins with the rear left quarter-panel, and it took FOUR HOURS of sitting there before they could take a look at it, and then to buy the retaining bracket to fix it, it cost $70 bucks plus an hour of labor to put it in! The worst part: they didn't have the part, so we had to come back the next day (Wednesday) after zone conference to get it fixed! AAAAAH!!! Zone conference is sweet and everything, but we're there from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, so it's a total day-killer. Oh well though... it must be done I guess. I was a little miffed at this zone-conference though, because okay... let me explain a little about what we're doing now. They have an award for the two cleanest cars and the one car that is dirtiest. This zone conference, I got the dirtiest car award, which is crap! I Washed it, waxed it, vacuumed it, and totally organized everything about that stupid car, and elder Olmstead (the guy who is in charge of the cars) total threw me under the bus because a box of materials in the back wasn't organized.... at least I use my materials. That's why theyr'e like that. Oh well enough animosity haha. I secretly kind of want to rebel and just not clean the car the next time I go to zone conference though just to spite him haha. We'll see what happens though.

So aside from zone conference this week, something sweet happened... Kyle came to visit me for a little bit! It was super rad! We went and got some dinner and got to talk for a couple of hours it was sweet (all this was approved by pres. Dyches, don't worry haha) but yeah... we got to talk about life for a while... it was trippy to think I hadn't seen him for over a year... it seems like just a little while ago! The last time I saw him, I was opening my call at the house! Holy crap time goes fast!

Okay aside from time going fast, I still feel extremely young for the stuff I have to do out here... for example: Training a new missionary after only being here for 9 months. Another example: Playing marriage counselor for persons in the branch that are having problems.... YIKES! I won't go into detail on that just in case someone from the mission is reading my blog, but yeah I'm not old enough to do that... although I think I have a promising future in opening up a show like Maury but I'll just call it "Marriage Counseling Moondogg" or "Dr. Feelgood" or something like that... good grief but I don't wanna have to deal with it right now! haha.

Speaking of marriages and weddings, I don't know if you guys remember Miriam my Cuban grandma from Salem, but if you don't you can pretend. And guess what... she got married! Oh my gosh I about freaked out! Not only that, but she's getting baptized this saturday and I'll be there for it! Ah I'm so excited for her!!! On that day of the wedding though... oh my goodness I thought we were going to die. My greenie got to experience his first triple-dinner... it was nuts! We first went to the wedding at 1 and we ate there, although we knew we had dinner at four, so we tried to eat light, but then Miriam got mad and told us to eat more and have a piece of cake... AAAH! Then we had dinner with the Perez family, and they total poned us with food... we had like two heaping bowls of posole, so I was ready for a coma afterwards, but we had been invited to the birthday of a recent convert and his two daughters, one of which we're teaching right now (Flor). When we got there, we were anticipating just dropping off a gift and saying happy birthday....but OHMIGEASH! They destroyed us! Chicken, Rice, Beans, Tamales, Horchata... I don't know why I capitalized all of those, but oh well haha it was a TON of food. After that we were about ready to cry haha but it's all good.

Now I've gotta tell ya about sunday.. it was the world cup if you didn't know, and it was shocking because there were actually people in church! About 80% of the branch was there, and we got invited to have lunch with a family after church was over. We went over with the family Cruz, and they made us tostadas... when they told us tosdadas, I'm thinking little maybe 4 inch tostadas... no... these were HUUUGE! like a foot in diameter if not more! Covered in beans, lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes with salsa... oh man they were good haha.

Aside from that, today we're headed out to do some golfing with the english elders and our district, and I've gotta bail, so I'll talk to you guys next week! I love you guys so much!
love,
elder Mooney

PS: I'm super jealous you guys went to fish lake!!!