icicles in your nose

From the Ninows - Thank you to everyone for your prayers for Stephen – he has been back in Russia for about 4 months now and is doing really well.  He has recovered from his surgery and is grateful to be back doing what he wants to be doing – being a missionary in Russia!  Here is some news from his recent emails:

Well, it’s finally to that point when you breathe in and you form icicles in your nose and there are ice crystals on the inside of windows and buses. Yesterday the high was -5 F. and the low was -20 F. This morning we went out and did our grocery shopping like we usually do at 5 in the morning... AND IT WAS FLIPIN COLD!!!!!! man that was fun! uber refreshing, and very fresh... it was about-25 F. It was way cold! We found a lady when knocking, IT DOES WORK!!!! I FINALLY FOUND SOMEONE KNOCKING!!!!! We have taught her twice already and she is way open! She took the Book of Mormon and was like "oh, this book just goes right along with the Bible and supports it! It’s just more of the Word" I was like DARN RIGHT IT DOES!!!! We had a former investigator call us and said "I finally got an answer!!!! I want to come to church with you" and we were so excited! the only snag is that she is sick right now. But it is great that she is coming back!

Are you ready to be jealous.... and I mean... really jealous!?!?!? This last Friday the OLYMPIC TORCH RAN THROUGH PENZA!!!!! and what did we do?! yeah... we got a picture with it! OH YEAH!!!! how cool is that! once in a lifetime opportunity!!!!! I got to see and get a picture with the Olympic torch…IN RUSSIA!!!! it was so cool! the atmosphere was really fun, the whole city was outside to see it and battle for pictures and a good view... it made contacting very difficult... nobody cared to listen to some American boys talk about God when their Olympic torch is running through their city.. .which is too bad, but we did run into the son of a member of the branch here and had a great talk with him and hopefully we can start to work with him!  :) AND we went contacting and met some kid on the street, maybe 21 years old, not super interested at first but then opened up and said "I’m a sinner, I’ve made too many mistakes" so we testified about the atonement and that he could be cleansed from all his mistakes and sins, and by the end of it he was like "HOW HOW???" and we set a baptismal date with him on the street for the 25th of January!!!! SUPER SWEET! and his name is Zaur, but people call him Zoro!! how cool is that! 

I am loving it here – I love my companion, he is awesome – I love the people and I have never been HAPPIER!

love you all! 

I pray for ya!

Elder Sven :)

good group of friends

Hey buds,

It has been a good while since we have been together. But I think is has been for the best. You never learn to appreciate something until you don't have it anymore right?  I know that we had a good group of friends and I am forever grateful for all the time we spent together. It doesn't matter if it was playing ball or just laying around eating something. These times rocked. 

these short months in Chile have been so awesome.  I love this country but I think we have all changed a ton. I have had a ton of experiences that have impacted my life forever and changed me. Change is always there, we can't stay the same-- it just doesn't work that way. I have learned that there is nothing more important than my family. We all have our families. But do we give them the time they deserve? We are a famliy right? I love you guys. I know that if we think about our lives and we can really see and make a vision of our lives we will know that all we do in our lives is to benefit our famliies or our future families. I know that God is our Father and we are his children and that he sent us here to be happy. 

Lets find out what really makes us happy! I know that we will shortly be back together and I am stoked for it! I love you guys 

Elder Christensen

Andrew

Dear Homies,

 Andrew has been serving for over 13 months now.  The year has flown by.  He is really happy and has been serving near the center of Santiago for the last 7-8 months.  He knows he is there for a reason and an investigator who left his area is now back and is going to get baptized on Nov. 16.  He thought he would be long gone from the area when she left, but now he will witness the fruits of his labors.  If you didn't know already, Andrew's sister Sarah was just called to serve in the England Manchester mission.  We will have 3 missionaries for about 4 months until Eliza comes home from Boston.

We hope you all congregate at our home again when the missions are done.  We also hope everyone is well and happy.  Keep working hard.  We miss you all.
--
Christine

Sarika and Shilpa

Heya Cowards!

Yeah G’day from Indjuh! Just outchea helping orphans and such.. and having the time of my life! Jake-Hawk’s post got me thinkin about ch’all and I figured since all I’ve been doing is running to the toilet the last few days, I better drop a line to the Homie Blog. I’m a greenie round these parts and although we’ve been here for about 6 weeks the constant stares and jaw-dropping reactions still make me weirdly uncomfortable. I had a guy come up to me today in the market, and all he said was, “For Obama!”, and with a double fist pump we both continued walking like nothing had happened. Haha Chambialys’ are some crazy people man. Ripped a bowl with some local farmers last week too.. not really but definitely been offered it dozens of times hahah!

We spend our mornings out at a rural school that YMAD has been to before, with the occasional trip to some new undiscovered school that we have heard about from our college students that we teach in the afternoons. The schools that YMAD expeditions have been to are great to go and visit and work at, but the schools that we have found out in the boonies of the Himalayas are real special. My buddy Josh and I are without a doubt the first white people to ever have gone to these schools. I compare them to like an interlodge day at Alta when you got to stay the night, and the canyon is still closed, but you get those untouched, dreamy laps in the Ho. They are completely unspoiled and the children have this starry-eyed, glazed over look to them the first time we arrive. It is an unexplainable feeling to be able to teach and bring hope to these impoverished children that have no knowledge of what a toothbrush even is.

The high school expedition along with BROOKE LANGE get here in about a week so Josh and I are driving out to Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama lives to pick them up from the airport. We’re spending the weekend out there and I am so stoked to peruse through the Tibetan markets and see the colors of the city. It’s like a Tibetan hippie village dude, so stoked! Sounds like everyone is doing well and enjoying their very own special adventures. We are all lucky enough to travel the world and experience different cultures and give back to people who are not as fortunate as us. Everything from missions to serving our country to getting a higher education, we are so lucky to have the opportunity to do all of these things! That’s my philosophy as to why I try and help others as much as I can, because I didn’t do anything to be born into an awesome, caring family and have all the modern amenities, just like these orphans didn’t do anything to be cursed with the burden of having no one to guide them and help them through challenging times and everyday life.

NZ was a trip and a half too.. but I’m not gonna get into that. Just know there was a whole lot of hunting, spearfishing, playing rugby, and working on the farm.. All things that make for a dream summer for me hahah!

Love you brothas! I can NOT wait for us to all be back kicking it and just enjoying each others company. MANDATORY: everyone has to pitch 5 grand in 2017 and we will buy a beach house in Costa Rica and have the time of our lives! (That means you Jacob, you can’t flake out on this time too!.. or so help me I will bring the pain train!)

Peace out from good ol’ Chamba, Indjuh!

Matty T

The first picture is of Sarika.. who is the absolute cutest little thing there ever was. And the second one is of my newly dubbed little sister, Shilpa. 2 of my favorite crazy little goons!

HOMIES!

How y'all nerds doing?

So many of you probably have a lot of questions for me like where did you get those burns or why I keep forgetting to take the garbage out, but I'm not here to talk about that stuff. I'm going to tell you guys about my trip to California with chase!

     So to start off we went to LA first to visit chases father, we spent about two days or so there which was nice, we ate some dank food and saw some dope stuff like a lego store where you can buy lego blocks in bulk... then we made our way up the coast to carmel and monterey... really nice place to retire when you are 85 and just want to walk on the beach at 5 am and sample wines and paint the same bush in your front yard. But actually was nice and calm. they have an awesome cheese shop in carmel, and monterey is more or less an aquarium and cannery row. 

    Next stop! San Francisco! San Francisco is probably one of if not the best city in america, i absolutely love it there and every time i go there I have nothing short of an amazing time. the saturday of out last weekend there was honestly the greatest day of my life but ill get to that later! So when we  first got into the city chase and i walked around the city down by market and powell, it felt great to be back there! so later that night if my memory serves was the night we went and saw Harry Connick Jr play at symphony hall in downtown SF and he killed it! I dont know how you could go wrong with Harry Connick... The next day we drove north across the golden gate (which i attached a sweet photo of that i got during a catamaran ride through the bay), to go see the red woods for a little day trip. I put some of the more memorable photos form the red woods. they were really amazing, i had never seen them before so if was definitely an experience for me... on our way back into the city to explore haight ashbury, we stopped by golden gate park to see where we were about to have the greatest weekend of our lives! 

    So now we come to friday, day one of the outside lands festival. friday was great we saw some awesome people, it started with Zedd, an awesome DJ, and then Yeasayer, super awesome live. to finish off the night we caught a little bit of Sir Paul McCartney which i attached a photo of from the back so you can maybe get and idea of the amount of people there. Then we finished with pretty lights, a killer DJ that tenderized everyones insides with some kickin bass. so ill skip to sunday real quick, sunday I saw Hall & Oates and Red Hot Chili Peppers! amazing! both of them! i saw some other bands that day but i could go on and on about everyone i saw so i wont...

     Now its saturday... so saturday started early for chase and i, we had to get to festival early to make sure we were able to get all of the necessary t shirts and foam hands for all the homies. we then saw a local band that killed it! and then we went to go see atlas genius... they were real good but its safe to assume that every band there was amazing. we then saw young the giant! and yes glange i screamed for you! and then shortly after young the giant, the two greatest DJs in the world started setting up there stations. DJ numark and Cut Chemist because next on stage was J5!!!!!!! if i could make confetti shoot out of your computer and make it explode i would, but oh well. i have attached some photos of this! hopefully they suffice for now, i have more, and videos dont worry. But yes they were more amazing then i ever could have imagined, and i would have given up a testicle to have had you there with me glange! i cried several times and joined 2na in every single verse! there's too much to say about it so i will save it for later. but i went on to then see the yeah yeah yeahs and phoenix which were equally as mind blowing for me... it was constant ear orgasms for about 6 hours. 

   hopefully thats put some light on what happened during the trip, i know you were probably waiting to hear about it glange! 

adios for now homies! love you all more than life itself. hope you enjoy all the pictures. 

-- 

Riles Per Gallon

I've been reinspired...

 

Alright guys, with glanges recent post after a long hiatus, I've been reinspired to write something, so....leggo! Im gonna focus on whats happened recently for now instead of trying to go back all the way to the summer and my euro and Guatemala trip (cuz then i feel obliged to write EVERYTHING haha). Im back at Pomona, ive got a sweet dorm thats a single in the same building as I was last year. It has a door straight outside which is killer, and the building is the nicest of all the ones on south campus (mostly freshman and sophomores). Only problem was that for the first week (until about two days ago) it was SCALDING HOT! ;) But seriously it was consistently 88 F in my room, needless to say Amy and I got the biggest, best fan we could find, and i still nearly died. Oh also its a decent size room, plenty of room for a bed on the floor or whatever...at home homies, im looking at you over a break...or away homies, maybe shoot over for a weekend from NY, FL, BZ (whatever, yeah i made up that shorthand for brasil), CL (CH is taken by switzerland, ja, pretty sure they dont know how to spell), USSR...;) and of course CArifornia, etc, that would be totes cool. 

Im taking Organic chem with lab (shut up Roach, i dont even want to hear about how great/easy it is, its not!), Sociology, Psychology, and German film and media studies. I thought my schedule would be kinda garbage, but I actually really like all my classes, expect maybe that first one, although its not awful just yet--too early in the semester. Im also signed up for intermediate tennis which has been super fun, despite the fact some people are a little better than intermediate and idk what theyre doing in that class haha. Im trying to get into friday soccer, but the best thing Ive been doing with my time has been rockclimbing! I got a pass to a nearby gym for $80 for the semester including equipment rentals, so needless to say, pretty dank deal that I didnt dare decline (POP QUIZ: which rhetorical device was just used? if youre an english/journalism potential major serving a mission in FL you have to answer!!). And my good friend who lives right next to me, Luke, has a car so we can drive there. Its supa fun, highly recommend when yall get back home soon!

for J-COBB: on my cruise in the Mediterranean I became good friends with these Brasilian girls, so now I know how to say some stuff like mea nome e Pelle, boa noite, amanhã, beijo Oh yeah! and i really want to visit Brasil for the world cup this next summer... and ive got an invite to visit those friends...who happen to live is são paulo...where someone else I know might live...so....!!!!

Take it easy boys, you know I love you all dearly!

Pdub

First three pics--my dorm room. Second to last picture is how i do reading, in my fully reclining lawn chair, in my room. Last picture was in our guatemalan hotel, it was everything I had to not 'deface' the picture by finishing the signature!