Harry Potter? More like Harry LAME!!!

Ok, anyone else think the new Harry Potter movie was ridiculously STUPID? I sure did, and so did my wife, so I know Im not out of my mind. Basically, the coolest and most exciting part was the music in the trailer. I mean seriously, who mysteriously abducted the previous director and replaced him with a mindless ape who has a knack for the uneventful and unimaginative (and not to mention disjointed)? Bah, I was waiting for some real action like in the first 5 movies, but alas, I waited, and it never came. Woe is me, woe woe is me.

Three Cheers for Missions!

Three cheers for missions!  Well, in this case, I guess there should just be two cheers.  But anyway, I recently applied to a genetics testing lab as a data clerk/sample processor.  I got called back for an interview, and I interviewed with two people, one at a time.  The first one told my that the only reason that my resume stood out was because he noticed that I lived in New Caledonia, and he remembered a TV show that he used to watch called McHale's Navy.  From what I understand, it is a old TV show kinda like M*A*S*H, but part of it took place in New Caledonia where they went to party often.  So, because of my mission, my resume stood out from the others!  Cheer #1

The second person that I interviewed with was a woman, and she was SO excited to meet me.  Why?  Because on my resume, I wrote I spoke French.  She is from Belgium, and therefore French is her native language.  She was so excited that I spoke French that she called the first guy that I interviewed with while he was going home, just to tell him that I spoke French and that she was excited to meet me.  So, as she comes in to interview me, she asks me if we can do the ENTIRE interview in French!  (I guess its a good thing that I wasn't lying about that hu?)

  So we had the interview, and it went quite well.  I was a little worried since it had been a long time since I had a lengthy conversation in French with someone, but I did quite well.  The only word that I didn't know was paysagiste which means a landscaper.  So that was great and I left a great impression on the interviewer, seeing as how she was so impressed to find an American who can accurately and clearly express how he feels in French.  Cheer #2.

So, I owe all that to my mission experience.  I really think that there is no end to the blessings you receive from serving a mission!

Petting Zoo Llama

Wow, two blog posts within one hour... and I've been in class for both posts. But, this is what happens to llamas at the petting zoo when they are touched just a little too much:

Courtesy of Katie's blog. This may also happen to pregnant ladies if you touch their belly. (Don't keel over on us Mikensi!)

For those of you who think universal heath care is a good idea.

Read this, and think, "Humm... free health care is great... if I want to watch my loved ones die a slow death." And, if you don't want slow health care... you could go to.... Mexico?

Here's the article:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/06/canadian.health.care.system/index.html

The first-fruits of our labors!

Well, after much toil and work, sweat and blood, we've finally seen the first fruits of our labors. BLUEBERRIES! Yup, our blue berry bush is beginning to give us some fruit. Pretty cool!

Guns and Gardens.

So my elders quorum decided to have a few lessons on self efficiency, and one of the lessons were about gardening. Probably 1/2 of my elders quorum seem to be engineers of some sort, and they knew of this new way of having a garden using pete moss and mortar sand. (No soil). So I decided to jump on the band wagon and plant a garden just like they said. Well, I commandeered the sand box and transformed it into a beautiful, miniature garden of Eden. Here's the proof:

Also, Debbie, Lianna's sister came to visit us. So what did we do? We hung out, went hiking, and also SHOOTING! Yep, we took Lianna and Debbie shooting for the first time in their lives. We all shot .22 hand guns and a .22 rifle, as well as a 9mm hand gun. Then I shot a more powerful rifle, and I was the only one since I was the only one physically capable of shooting it. (It had a lot of kick, and my dad wasn't shooting with us... he was just teaching.) So here are some pictures:

Here is my wife shooting the pistol

This is her shooting the rifle.

Here is her target. The outer holes are from the rifle, and the ones closer to the bulls eye are from the pistol.

This is my target with the high powered rifle from 50 meters away.

This is my target from 100 meters away. Pretty good shot for having been my first time shooting this kind of rifle. And, I wasn't using any type of support or shooting block. I used only my hands.

I DID IT!

Ok, for come clarification. Yes, I did make crepes, which are those thin french pancakes... The recipe came from the book pictured. But to explain, I did make them, and I did it successfully. I literally tried probably 100 times from the start of my mission (most of them were on my mission), and I would always fail horribly. They would be too thin, too think, stick, or just not work out some other way. But this time, I made them, and they were almost perfect! (They would have been perfect if I were a little more patient and had an actual crepe pan.) So, as Lianna said, I came, I conqured!