"Sky High"

2011 May 16
Dearest Mom,

Well, it's been an interesting week to say the least haha. The highest of highs and the sickest of sicks (not myself though, don't worry!). Monday was a total party it was sweet! We went to the driving range in the morning to do a little golfing and chipping work... I'm getting rid of my slice which is nice for my golf game I guess, but man I think I threw out my back or something for a day or two. However, it might be a combination of what we did after the driving range... we went to a place called "Sky High" which is almost exactly like "Jump on It" in Utah. It was nuts! There were 39 missionaries there which definitely spelled trouble. We had taken ourselves and 10 other elders from our zone to play around, but realized that we had made a big boo-boo in that when we got there, the Spanish south zone was having their zone activity at the same time, so that brought us up to a total of 26 missionaries (that in and of itself would have been too many). On top of that, there was a group of what I would entitle "idiot elders" that had commandeered the mission van from the mission home, and picked up ten or so other elders from various outlying areas in the mission such as Scappoose, St. Helens, and Astoria... They. Are. Idiots. The funny thing is that they got what was coming to them. One of the R-tards from Astoria ended up breaking his ankle. I would venture to say that's because the Lord can't protect you when you aren't being obedient. Anyway, it turned into a big fiasco where we ended up attending a 9:00 at night meeting with pres. Dyches and got Sky High banned from missionary entertainment forever. It's kinda sad too because I learned how to do a back flip (now I can actually do it whenever I want) and I also learned how to do a gainer... guess I'll just have to wait to utilize those skills 'til after the mission haha.

Tuesday was kind of a fun day. We had a really good district meeting where we had a funny getting to know you game. Elder Gossett was in charge of it, and here's what we did: he had a big bowl covered with a bandana. What we had to do was pick out an object (without seeing it) from it, and then you had to describe your companion by likening him unto that object. There were such items as a magnetic fridge clip, a zipper, a pregnancy test, and I don't even remember what else. Anyway, it was just really funny and kind of a creative way to get the elders of our district to know each other.
After the district meeting was over, we headed back to Sis. DeLong's house and did a little bit of service. We noticed the other day that when it rained, her gutters overflowed along the front of the house, so we figured we'd clean them out. Holy Moses it was a good idea that we did... those things were chock-full of filth! We ended up cleaning out not only along the front, but also along the sides and back of the house because ALL of the gutters were full of probably 5-10 year old plant litter, moss, and sand from the shingles that had eroded off. Ridiculous. That's all I can say to describe it is ridiculous. The good part is that now they work like a charm haha.
After we had entertained ourselves sufficiently with that, we helped one of our investigators (Mark) to empty out his old apartment in McMinnville which took a good chunk of time. It gave us a great opportunity to talk to him for a long time as the drive from Sherwood to Mac is about half an hour. That night, we had a lesson with him and his (hopefully) soon-to-be wifey Alex where we helped them make a list of things that they wanted to put in a box so that the spirit would be unrestrained in their lives. We did so, and holy cow it was really funny how much stuff they put in there. We had originally planned to take the box with us so that they couldn't be tempted by it, but then we realized that we couldn't. I'll tell ya why. Turns out that Mark smokes weed... A LOT of weed. We ended up putting about an ounce of weed in a zip-loc gallon bag inside the box along with a coffee maker and a plethora of other random objects haha. Long story short, they're in for one heck of a week!

Wednesday, I had to roll my eyes as for the first time in English, someone pulled out Revelations 22 on me to tell me that we add to the bible, so I proceeded to give her a history lesson on the bible. She's reading the Book of Mormon now haha. Her name is Tia, and she's the sweetest old lady ever... it's not her fault that she grew up in a Christian church.

Thursday, we studied, planned, then tracted for a couple of hours before dinner. We ended up only talking to two people... each of them for about 45 minutes haha. The thing that's sweet is that at first, they wanted nothing to do with us, and then we ended up talking to them for a good while, and found out that they both have good friends that are LDS in the area, and that they even eat dinner with them once in a while. Golden contacts. I'm excited to see if we can teach them in the future :-)

Friday, I went on an exchange with a greenie in a bike area for the first time, and I have to admit, it was pretty exciting! I actually really like riding a bike haha. I know you're all gonna think I'm a dork, but I plan on getting a road bike when I get back because 1: I really do enjoy riding a bike (and I miss it a lot) and 2: because I've got more of a biker build now... I'm down to 185 as of this morning :-) The one sad thing is that we had to end the exchange early because we found out around 6:00 that elder Wilde was sick, so I cruised back to the house and that's where I've been for the past few days. We couldn't leave to go anywhere because it turns out that Wilde got the flu bug. I passed the time catching up in my journal, studying my scriptures, and writing letters. Oh and I picked up a new "for kicks and giggles" hobby... sewing haha. I spent a good chunk of time tailoring up my shirts (not destroying them, don't worry) and dinking around experimenting with different cuts and seams... I'll have to take some pictures of it or something. anyway, that was about all of the excitement for the weekend. That and lots and lots of talking with Sister DeLong as well as flying a toy helicopter that elder Wilde bought last P-day haha.

Anyway, I love you guys a lot and I hope that you have a great week. Say hi to Jess and wish her the best of luck for me.. I hope that things turn out well for her wedding.

Talk to ya next week!

-Elder Kurt Mooney