The Event....(did that show ever make it?)

This week was interesting to say the least... It started out being one of the worst weeks I've had in a while.  It all started with that temple trip to dc...  Now the temple trip itself was grand but on the way home from the temple something rather tragic happened.... My ipod ceased to exist... well the button that woke it up ceased to exist.  Now music has been one of the only things to keep me sain on my mission and especially while serving in the office.  Its a great way to just relax a little bit and let out all your frustrations. something not very good to loose.

With that going through my head I call tech support and see if they can do anything and of course it is 2 months out of warrently so they want  70 dollars to fix it... Now if any of you remember how I am that wont do... I would much rather just fix it myself and so I pull out the hair dryer that I got from a member and start dissasembling (the hair dryer is to melt the glue so you can get the screen off).  Well we came across a problem of I couldnt turn my ipod off while i was working with it because the power button was the one that was broken and I fear I might have messed it up even more.  But I have to wait tell I find a good spacer for the button (all that was wrong with the button was a little black dot that acted as a spacer was missing. Piece of crap Apple making there buttons cheap)  Once I find an effective spacer I will cut the battery and reconnect it, giving the system a complete restart.  Which will hopefully be all that is needed to get the pod rolling again.  On top of that my blender broke which was rather tragic because most of the food I have is ment to go through the blender to make a shake.... Granted I know what is wrong with the blender (its the same thing that happened to the tredmil a while back) I dont have the time really to rip it apart and find out what piece i need to buy.  And also that will only delay its failure from happening again so I'm considering buying another nicer blender to get me through the day.  Right now I am using my roommates :p.

Enough of the bad I'll just skip to the good now :)  Yesterday I had the honor of attending/speaking/confirming Autumn Car!  Autumn is one of the coolest people you will ever meet and belongs to one of the best families ever! the Carrs.  Elder Meitler and I tracted into them when we were together in November and after a few great months spent over at there house Autumn decided to get baptized.  The baptismal service was excellent and she was as happy as could be.  One of those moments where you complain that your check muscles are tired from smiling type happy.  -Man we sure had some fun times with her and her family.  When I left the area I brought over PVC pipe to make marsh mellow guns and we just had a huge Marsh mellow fight for a good hour or so.  When I saw the mom yesterday she said that she is still finding some mellows to this day. He he :)- The picture you see above is at the end of our top secret handshake.  I'm not allowed to show you the rest of it but i can tell you this much... It is pretty epic :P

Overall it was a great week! despite the death of my blender and ipod.  We has a few amazing lessons and I found one of my new fav Mormon Messages.   Which, after watching it 4 times the day I found it,  was used it in a lesson we taught that night as well. One of those tender mercies that the lord blesses us with daily.  This week was full of many more similar to that. Also without this video I the loss of my ipod would have been a lot more stressful but it reminded me of how much an ipod doesn't matter.  Still pretty ticked about it though :P

Well I  hope everybody is having a great week!  I could probably ramble on some more about things that happened this week but I will leave it at what I've got now.  touched on the main points so that should be good enough right? :)

I'll end it off with a glorious shot of me working on my ipod 

-mat

On a more enjoyable note

"its a new day, and it all gets better. Its a new life, thats what I'm told." It seems as of late I have become rather lost without the music I had back home... and sadly enough the music i have out here will be put on a stand still as my ipod just broke this morning so I am going to go pick up some tools that will hopefully allow me to fix it and keep my mind sain enough to function.  It is rather sad how reliant I am on music but it sure does help get me through a long day of office work :P

So in response to the few comments I've had a letter is the best way to get a hold of me but if you are super extreamly opposed to it then I will see what I can come up with... I'm sure we can figure something out.  As for the comments its hard for me to respond directly to them but I do get them in email form so I will be able to read them but wont be able to reply.

So today I got the unique opportunity to drive a bus full (I say bus because I currently drive a 12 passenger van) to the D.C. Temple which was awesome!  It wasn't even my zone but a good friend of mines Elder Johnson.  The reason I got to go was because they requested my van and so I told them I come with it :) but it was pretty fun.  The GPS that we used (elder bays) took us on the most random route which ended up with us going through just about all of DC which was rather interesting driving the beast through the city but it was pretty fun.. I grabbed a picture but I'm sadly not in it for I was driving but I will eventually edit this post and put it in here so it looks more pretty.  After we went to a childhood favorite of Chilis and I got some Chicken Crispers.  Overall a fabulous day and was much needed!  Oh today was our stake temple day so just about half of the ward I am currently serving in was there which was kinda funny.  They were hoping to get away from me but I sure fooled them. suckers!

Well I hope everyone had a great V-Day.  I'm a little out of the loop so thats about all I can say.

Love from the east

mat

A Time of Solemn Serenity

Well it seems that the title I used for last time could very well be the title for many more but this time around it is a little different... This week was pretty uneventful to me personally.... but as for the DC South mission and to a very sweet lady it was tragically eventful.

There are but a few moments in life that will remain trapped in your mind and be carried, or dragged depending on the memory, with you for the rest of our time here.  The majority of these moments are ones that you will hold dear to your heart and enter into a sweet serenity when you ponder them.  While there are many others that you try to bury and hide away from.  It is of one of the later that has happened this week, or so that's how I view it.   One of our senior office couples Elder Plummer passed away from an unexpected stroke on the 15th of February.

It is with these moments that, at least for me, you remember the most detail.  If someone were to ask me about my baptism or about when I got sealed to my sisters I could tell them small points of each... Nothing in a large.  But if someone were to ask me about the morning I found out my brother had passed away I could give detail enough to make it sound like it happened just last week.  One of the fondest memories I have after that experience, and is most certainly one I will never for get,  is in the days after my brothers passing I had a friend and his mom come over and give me a gift -  Something that I will always hold dear -  With that gift they told me that this isn't the end and that I will be able to see him once more.

 So after the passing of Elder Plummer the mission, or at least the office, has entered into a state of solemn serenity.  It is at this time that I am truely great-full for the chance that I have to teach people that this is not the end.  That these harrowing memories don't mean anything because we will get to be reunited with our loved ones.  The best thing that we can take from these moments is that the little things don't matter... What girl you should take on a date or what you should do for the rest of your life doesn't matter.  But rather growing close to the ones you love dearly, lifting them up and moving closer to our Savior.  Charity truely does never faileth and so why do we insist on placing the focus on ourselves.. When with a simple gift or a simple act of kindness we can impress someones memory for the rest of their lives and give them hope and peace.

I will never forget Elder Plummer even though I only shared but a few weeks of time with him serving here in the office.

Much love from Virginia

-mat

Pretty uneventful this time around...

Well this week was overall uneventful this week (in case the title didn't give that part away). Seems like it is still Monday or something of the sort but alas here I sit on a Saturday morning sending out my emails.

I suppose as I think on it this week wasn't entirely uneventful. I had the opportunity to go see a GMU basketball game on Wednesday with the some people in the mission which was pretty fun. Felt kinda odd to be at a game but it was good. No tee shirts or injuries though so I must say it was a let down :P he he. A couple hours before the game I was asked to throw a little business type card together for Leadership meeting which was taking place the next day and so below is what I was able to come up with. Front and back of the card.

It was pretty cool because I never thought I would have to do mid-night runs to fedex while i was on my mission so hoo ha for that. I think this card turned out a lot better then the sheep you saw earlier. Well I guess they aren't even really the same style of design but as far as coming out of the printer. I was worried about how i was going to tie in each zones goal for the month but I think the solution that I can up with looks pretty good but toss some feedback my way. For the record I would have never put that logo on the back but I was forced to. They tried to force me to put some other things on it but it would have completely ruined the design so I did what my parents are so familiar with me doing... sure (i'll leave it at that he he). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out overall though aside from fedex only having 100lb paper... that was a let down.

Another slightly exciting thing happened yesterday. I got to go spend 800 dollars and while doing so I got talking to this guy in the store for 30 min or so about his religion as well as ours and we left on rather good terms. He gave me a cooly little pen as well as advice on buying watches as well. Oh the reason for spending 800 dollars was on some mattresses for the mission but thats not nearly as exciting as just saying I got to spend 800 dollars... The guy was also nice enough to leave us with his cell number in case we ever need anything to give him a call. He said he would hook us up with 50% off a pillow that I liked he he. Was a nice guy over all though and says he wants to go to the visitors center sometime so we will see what comes of it. He said it would happen probably in the summer so I might not be here but that doesn't matter much.

Another thing worth mentioning is that it was my sisters b day this week. Happy b day! hope it was a good one! That little one is a blogger to the end, or at least she was when I left. I am often congratulated by her on being able to keep my blog up to date which I more then not fail at. Also I forgot to mention last time but my sis had her first baby as well so that makes uncle x4.

-mat

Well here it is

This week was Zone Conference week which normally isn't too bad... but the difference for this week around was that I was going to all 4 of them and so by the forth one I could quote just about every thing that was being said... I finally gave in and started another little sketch/design book that kept me mostly entertained and you might see some samples of it one of these days... no promises because I don't have a heck of a lot of time but maybe on one of these p-days I'll throw it together.

The point of talking of all these zone conferences is that Sister Albright had me design some things for her to pass out and my favorite one was this one. She handed me this quote (which i thought of as 2 quotes) and said she wanted a magnet made out of it and to have at it. So off i went and this was the end result. (mom if you want one I'll see what I can do :P) Overall I think it turned out pretty well but I'm open to some critiquing, granted they are already handed out so it wouldn't matter much but would increase my design skills.

This week has been pretty crazy though... Both my comp and I are rather brain dead from hearing the same meeting 4 days in a row. but aside from that there have been some fun things happening. One of my friends got her mission call to Kobe, Japan mission which is pretty darn sweet and I am slightly jealous but mostly excited for her. The other thing that is worth mentioning might take a while so i will start a new paragraph (if you cant tell I'm still pretty horrible as far as writing goes :P)

So we were leaving home from finishing up a power point in the office for the next zone conference and it was about 9 30 or so and right when we open the door we hear this chanting going on across the parking lot.... "we love you! We love you! We Love you!" so first thing that goes through my head is welcome to virginia (the reason for that is when i was training whenever something odd happened thats what i would tell my greenie) but as i walk out into the parking lot i see these people standing in front of a parking spot as someone is backing out saying that chant. Once they are finished backing out and were ready to drive off they start screaming and waving there hands in the air and then they walk back inside... By that time my comp and i our in the comfort of our car laughing our heads off wondering what on earth is going on.

Well on that note I must be leaving now

We love you!

mat