[S5E4] Christmas and new years!

Well, I would like to First say sorry about not sending an email last week. But Christmas Eve was kinda wack. Christmas was awesome though! Thank you all so much for what you sent me! The sweaters are great, and the blanket is really cool! Unfortunately I can’t really use the new pan, because it needs to get seasoned, and we don’t have an oven to season it in. Or even a hot plate that works well enough. Oh well, that’s fine.

10: We helped clean up Tim’s computer, and helped him set up his VR headset! After seeing how nasty his setup was, Elder O’Bannon spent the next 3 days deep cleaning Tim’s computer, and whole desk. We got to watch him play with a first gen VR game called GORN. It’s really funny to watch him just swing around yelling.

9: I filled up another notebook of twitter thoughts. So to help me cope with my lack of social media, I have 3 character-capped notebooks full of stuff that I’m going post on twitter. As you can expect, it’s all garbage.

8: Jim and Darla are feeling better, and shopping! We haven’t been able to meet with Jim and Darla for the past couple of weeks because they have been sick. However, they got better, and we ran into Darla while shopping!

7: We are going to see Elder Quinton L Cook!  On Friday, the whole mission is going to be gathering in Eugene to hear an Apostle of the Lord!!! I’m also going to see my mission buddies after other Zones!!

6: Deep Fry Night!!! Elder O’Bannon has a deep fryer, and so tonight we are going to be getting FAT!!!

5: I took my first trip the the Dry Cleaners, it was uneventful.4: We had 3 day splits with the Zone Leaders! On the days leading up to Christmas, and after we didn’t go back to our own beds for 3 days. I was running out of new clothing, it was great to get back to our Christmas decorated apartment! (Thanks Seevy’s!!!!)

3: I got Gay Cheerios for Christmas! From some members that we had breakfast with, (in the Zone leader’s ward) gave me these unicorn Cheerios that don’t even taste good. So they are gay.

2: I got a sore throat from all the Christmas sugar! So I got permission to take a nap to get better, and that, along with Vic’s Vapor rub helped me out.

1: I realized that I really don’t want to be in Leadership After hearing about some problems with the sisters in this zone, and in being a small part of the decisions there, I realized that I don’t want to be in Leadership.

I love you all, and hope you have made some good new years resolutions. 

Elder Berky 

Sorry i don’t have more pics, but my phone had been weird.

[S5E2] Exchanges for days!

10: We had a 48hr exchange! We had a 48 hour exchange with cave junction. Usually it’s only 24 hours, but they came in to Grants Pass for a tire change, and it was interviews the next day, so they decided to stay! In our small, box on an apartment. It was good, we went out and did some tracting, and the other elders did plenty of contacting. It was super fun.

9: Christmas party was very rushed. The Christmas party was quite obviously rushed. There were also dad jokes aplenty courtesy of the Bishop. Luckily we left early because;

8: Chopping wood! We went over to the Becks house to chop wood. We almost go through their whole stack of wood, but we had to cut it a little early. We went to our Christmas party, stayed there for long enough, then came back to the Becks to keep chopping wood, and have Tim cook us up some nice cubed steaks.

7: On exchanges we played Axis and Allies, over the course of a couple days. So we were talking with Brother Seevy, our landlord about board games for some reason, and so we played Axis and Allies for a whole 2 days. That was not fun. We stayed up till 2 playing that.

6: Interviews We had interviews with President Orton, and it went really well, except everything was a whole hour late. 

5: Helped move a lady from the ZL’s ward That’s why this is coming out later than I wished, but that’s okay, we helped someone out.

4: We had a district council about Blacks in the Priesthood. Elder O’Bannon has studied the crap out of the whole issue of the Blacks in the Priesthood. So that was really cool. Putting it really simply; Everyone was racist back then, and hated the church even more for treating black people well. So if the church kept treating black people well, then the church might not have survived because of people’s hate and anger.

3: Crockpots are easy I made one of the soups that could be done in the crockpot and it was really good. But no one wanted to try it. That was sad. But I got to enjoy all of it.

2: Morning basketball Very fun, especially because the church is right next to us. I might be getting really good at basketball.

1: Christmas is coming!!!!! Christmas is going to be really fun! We are going to be watching Incredibles 2!!!! We are also going to be getting a ton of ribs at the Becks!! Smoked Prime Rib, here we come!!!!

Love you all, merry Christmas, remember the reason for the season, but more importantly, he’s the reason for life.

[S5E1] A new Challenger approaches!

10: Elder O’Bannon is my new Companion! So Elder Sant went back to the coast, in the area that he wanted to serve in. (Good for him!) And I got Elder O’Bannon, who just came from the coast! When he walked in the apartment he said something to the effect of; “this is a significant downgrade, but hey, it’s clean!” He’s a great guy who wants to work hard, which is what this area needs. Someone who will work hard and not waste time, which I am prone to do.

9: The whole zone changed! Only one companionship stayed the same. There is a whole new dynamic in this zone, nothing really stayed the same. (except the Riverside sisters, but they are in Leadership now.) Cave junction got Elder Randall, my buddy from Central Point, and Elder Palesh, my Buddy from Central Point is my new Zone Leader! We also got my buddy from Central Point, Elder Seegmiller! Yeah, a lot of Central Point blood, just about 40 minutes from it!

8: WE made dinner for some MEMBERS. Yeah, in a little bit of a regime change, we made dinner for The Becks. Once on Wednesday (Steaks) and once on Saturday (Burgers). The reasoning behind it is; Since they are lazy, they don’t make nice, good dinners unless they have company over. We are usually that company, and because of the dinner change, they haven’t had a nice dinner in a while. I forget the reasoning for why we made them dinner, but we just raided their place, and found what we could do with what they had. It was fun, and I learned that burgers shrink so much on the grill. We started off with about 15 plate sized patties, and ended up with 15 burgers no bigger than a flip-phone.

7: Elder O’Bannon really likes his Gospel music. A LOT. So this whole week, I’ve been listening to the good music about the good Lord above (HallELUJAH!!!) Everything from Kirk Franklin, to Stevie Wonder, to The Winans. 

6: Finally, some good solid tracting. So after about a transfer of not really doing tracting, Elder O’Bannon is ready and kicking to go out. So we used the information that Elder Sant and I gathered. We have been tracting as much as we could! I’m so pumped to finally be doing something.

5: I found our Nativity! Our stake had a big Nativity festival, where a bunch of people brought their different Nativities. There were over 400! Everything from Fisher Price Nativities to a whole table spread, with  buildings and everything. It was really cool, there was a jazz band, an acapella choir, and all sorts of confections. It was great, I found our Nativity!

4: Elder Holland stayed my Zone Leader! So we are going to carry on the tradition of playing Cataan for weeks on end.

3: Elder O’Bannon does NOT play around with big dogs. Of course, being a missionary means you meet a dog or two, but being a missionary in Oregon means that EVERY HOUSE YOU GO TO HAS 2-3 DOGS!! There must be a law here in Oregon that everyone needs to have a big dog, and a small dog. Elder O’Bannon is not a fan of that. So whenever we hear a big ol’ WOOF on the other side of the door, he flinches. It’s kinda funny. Except when a Pitbull tears around a corner and he’s going to leave me in the dust to fend off “sweet Peaches”.

2: We got to teach  Young  Mens! Elder O’Bannon loves teaching about Blacks in the Priesthood, but has rarelly gotten a chance to, so he will JUMP at the opportunity to explain that “anti”. It’s ridiculously easy to disprove/explain.

1: This Transfer is going to be super wack. So this Transfer is going to go like this;Week 1: Transfers, a very weird week, still getting into the swing of things with a new CompWeek 2: Interviews with President, throws the whole week off Week 3: Scone (Zone) Conference, throws the whole week out of wack. Week 4: CHRISTMAS!!!! I’m not going to think about anything else that week, except for Christmas, getting to call home, zone activities, and watching a movie Week 5: New Years, not that special, but we get to watch a movie, so that will be fun.Week 6: The only Normal week.
I love all of you, and wish that you’re applying the #lighttheworld campaign that the church put out. It’s really cool, and people like it, or rather the friendly ones. 

Merry Christmas, Elder Berky

[S4E6] Transfers!

10: Elder Sant is getting transferred, and I’m getting Elder O’Bannon! Yep, I’m getting my 4th Companion. Elder Sant is going to Coquille, and Elder O’Bannon is coming from… I forgot to find out. Oops.

9: I smashed my Pinky in the car door, ouch. I don’t even know how it happened, I shut the car door, looked over, and my pinky was sandwiched in between 2 doors. I looked at it for a solid couple of seconds, then pulled it out. It hurt a lot, but luckily the lesson that we were having went short enough that I could get back and ice it.

8: Got to look at some pretty sweet guns!  When we went over to Jim and Darla’s they offered to show us some of their SWEET guns. As any good American, they had enough to defend a small village. Anything from a 60-yr old .20 gauge shotgun to a ceremonial Browning .22 that Jim got for $300 when it’s valued at over $3500, to a small 1-shot Ruger (I forget the caliber)

7: We helped set up our landlord’s Christmas Tree!  That title is kinda misleading, (I should be a mainstream journalist!) they’re not really our landlords, They’re members that we live with. That was kinda confusing, but on the real point, we set up their Christmas tree with them! Then we had dinner (Frozen Pizza, salad, and Ice cream).

6: I get to drive now! So after 6 weeks of not driving, I finally get to drive the Rouge! It has some features that make it feel like the Enterprise! There is no ignition, I just get in, the car senses the key fob in my pocket, and off we go! (Not sure how I feel about that.)

5: There is a weird crack in our window. So even though our car is very new, we have developed a crack that keeps growing. We’ve alerted the vehicle coordinator, but that paperwork takes some time. Hopefully the crack doesn’t develop too fast.

4: Elder Sant and I weren’t getting along (See pic)So that’s kinda a lie, he was just reaching across me while I had the camera open and I took a picture. 

3: We  had a great lesson with Emily’s kids! Even though they were kinda all over the place, and asking all sorts of questions about prophets and the like, we got through the Restoration lesson. It was a lot of fun, and 2 of the kids (Peter and Erin) are baptism age! So we’re going to be putting them on date this Saturday!

2: We watched the Christmas devotional at our landlords! The Seevy’s had us over for dinner again, and we watched the Christmas Devotional on their ceiling! Brother Seevy has a cool attachment on his phone that turns it into a projector, so we angled that up at their ceiling, and enjoyed the Christmas devotional while eating M&M’s

1: We played Settlers with the Zone Leaders in their apartment Because this p-day is going to be basically void, seeing as we are going to be shopping tomorrow for transfers. As a result, no one was at the church for the longest time. We got bored of waiting at the church, so we went over to the Zone Leaders, and played Settlers of Cataan. We have played that game so much this transfer, I legit had a dream about playing it a while ago. I’m going to be buying one when I go home.

I love you all, and would love it if you checked out the Light The World video for this week, and sought out how you can apply it.

– Elder Berky