America's Finest

7/24/17 Email:

Ya'at'teh everyone!

This past week was pretty chill.  Like I said last week, I went on a couple of more exchanges this week, and they were amazing!  So I wasn't in my area for a good amount of the week, but I got to meet some new people, and that was fun.  It has rained about every day for the past week.  It isn't constant rain, it is like once a day, and isn't very long, but monsoon season is starting up so this will be exciting, I love storms!

Anyway, not much else happened this week.  But on Sunday we went and had a weenie roast with one of the less-actives we are teaching.  She is a single mom, a firefighter, and her daughter is pretty stinkin' funny.  But anyway while we were having our roast, it started raining.  Anyway, we were having this roast in the rain, and she gets a call on her radio about a fire, so she quick threw her firefighters uniform on, and since she lives right next to the fire station she started walking over there to get the truck.  Well she had a stereo playing hymns, and while she was walking away "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was playing, and I was just like, how appropriate, the only thing that could have made it better was an explosion.  So #Lit.  Yeah I've never seen stuff like that in action, I was impressed.

Anyway that's about all I have for this week other than I think I broke my left big toe during exercises, haha, but oh well.  Anyway, I love you all, and hope you have a good week!

Love 

Elder Takis 

Bad Social Skills

7/17/17 Email:

Ya'at'teh everyone!

So this week has been really crazy and interesting.

I ended up going on 2 exchanges this week, so I was pretty much out of my area as long as I was in it this week, and I will be doing the same thing this coming week.  One of the exchanges was with the Zone Leaders.  It was really fun, and I enjoyed every second of it. My Zone Leaders are amazing!  We taught this one 9-year-old girl named Riley, and she was really smart.  I really enjoy teaching kids, it is so much fun!  But the funniest part of that whole exchange was when we were in bed.  It was pretty hot and we couldn't get to sleep, so we just quoted movies till we fell asleep.  We pretty much quoted all of Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, most of Hot Rod, and a little of Shrek.  Man I haven't laughed that much in a while!

Oh and last P-Day, when we played softball, we actually did a lot of things. We played volleyball, basketball, and baseball.  When we played baseball I batted lefty cuz I can't hit the slow loopy stuff right handed.  And for some odd reason everyone parked their trucks behind the right field fence.  Yeah, I almost drilled our truck, haha  But it  felt so good to hit a baseball again! I really got into this one and it went about 200 feet over the fence, across the road, and hit a van that was driving by, haha. That felt so good!

But about the title: a lot of the people we meet around here lately have not had any social skills...  Like you thought I was bad?  I have improved a lot, but some of these people take it to a whole new level.  Anyway we did meet this one really nice family and they were very sincere, had questions, and wanted to learn.  So we are hoping to see miracles with them.  Well that is about all for this week.

Love you all,

Elder Takis

Finding Feces on the Fourth

7/10/17 Email:

Ya'at'teh' everyone!

Happy Independence Day!!!

Alright so last Monday, after emailing, we ended up getting lost again only in Gallup.  Then we played some basketball, which was pretty fun.

Now on Tuesday, the 4th,  it was a bit different for me than what I am used to normally doing on the fourth of July.  In the morning (this is where the title comes in)  we went over to our senior couple's place to do service for them.  Well we moved firewood, and fixed up their fence.  Then they told us that we needed to dig up their septic tank, because they needed it cleaned out or something, and when the person who was supposed to do it came out he said he couldn't find it.  So it was our job to locate their septic tank.  So we had to dig around and uncover it.  We eventually did, and it wasn't smellin' too great, but turns out they  needed some work done on it because there was some damage done by some rocks that were on top of it.  Then later we went to a family party for dinner, and we only saw about 5 minutes of fireworks before we had to head home.

Wednesday I was on Exchanges with Elder Adams, who has only been out for 3 weeks. He is being trained by our Zone Leaders.  It was fun, we did some service for this lady named Stanna, who is part Irish. We helped her with her garden, which I enjoyed.

Later in the week, I can't remember which day, we were headed home because it was time for curfew, and we got stopped by this group of drunks.  You can usually tell when they are drunks, because the Spirit just like completely disappears. Anyway they come out and they want to talk and they stop us, because we were walking. One of them looked like a shorter, older, meaner, native version of Jamie Fox, and he was getting all up in my face and cussin' up a storm and saying all sorts of stuff that was absolutely crazy, and like the spit is just flying from this guy and hitting me when he talks.  Anyway we tried to leave several times but they wouldn't let us, and the one that was in my face just seemed to get more mad by the second, and I was like, oh boy, something's about to go down! But luckily nothing did, and we were able to make it out of there. They did force a hug on us though, which was weird, but oh well.

Then another time we were talking to this other guy, who has some crazy beliefs. His name is Richard.  He just went on and on about giants, and about how we haven't made it to the moon because the sky is glass, and that the sun isn't very far away, and how the flood happened because we are in a bowl and God just opened up the glass bowl in the sky to flood the earth.  I was just trying so hard to not laugh.  Like he really believed everything he was saying, and I almost started laughing. But I shouldn't laugh. Anyway that was interesting.

That was about it for this week.  We are going to go play a softball game later today though, and I am beyond excited!!!!!  Like People coming closer to and following Jesus Christ is the most exciting thing, and baseball is second to that, but softball is a close third for me right now! :)

Love you all,
Elder Takis

Flat Tires

7/3/17 Email:

Ya'at'teh' everyone,

So first off there are a couple of things that I forgot to mention about last week that are kinda funny, and I don't know how I forgot about them but here they are.  So the day after we got to our area we got up and went out on a run.  When we came back we realized that we had locked ourselves out of our trailer...  The Elders before us were supposed to leave a key to the trailer behind but there wasn't one, so we spent like half the morning trying to get back in.  We went to the Post Office and borrowed their phone, and tried calling some people, but that didn't work. We walked to one of the member's houses, Brother Eby, who has a key to the trailer, but he wasn't home.  What is also funny is that while we were out we got lost trying to find Brother Eby's trailer, so we walked to this group of people to ask where he lives.  Well one of the people was this really rude lady, maybe she just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I don't know, but she was threatening us and stuff while one of the other guys was being nice and giving us directions, so that was fun.  But we eventually found his house, and he wasn't home, so we went back, and long story short we managed to get in.


Now this week.  Not much happened on Monday and Tuesday, but Tuesday night we found out that our tire had been losing air for some time, and almost got completely flat.  So we went and filled it up.  The next morning we had to go to Gallup for Zone Conference, and we were supposed to take our truck in to get it fixed before Zone Conference, but that didn't happen because we were late to Zone Conference.  But after Zone Conference we walked out to the truck and were going to take it in, but the tire was completely flat.  Now the only people around are missionaries in their suits and what not.  So nobody really wanted to change the tire.  So I did it because I really didn't care if I got dirty or not, my suit pants needed cleaned anyway.  So here are a couple pictures of changing the tire...

As you can see I am pretty dirty, haha, but I love it.  It was also really hot too, and I have some burn marks on my arms from touching the pavement, haha. Whoopie!

Friday we went out to try and find someone, got lost (again), and ended up running into this guy named Paul.  He is 18 and lives by himself, and is a pretty cool guy. Apparently we saved him from some drunks, because when we pulled up they left, haha.

Then Saturday we were out doing some service, and I was pulling weeds while a member was mowing, and out of the blue I got smoked by a rock!  It came from the lawn mower, and that sucker hurt.  Luckily it didn't break the skin but it did leave a nice mark.

Other than that I tried an interesting combination of food that wasn't half bad.  Pork Chops with applesauce.

Love you all, 

Elder Takis

Dr. Strange

6/26/17 Email:

Ya'at'teh' Everyone,

So, umm, this week here in my new area, Red Cliffs, things have been very crazy, and interesting.  I really can't think of an adjective to describe it, so I will just start from the beginning.

Tuesday Elder Huff and I drove to Holbrook, AZ which was about a 2 hour drive from Tuba.  Elder Huff said he knew which way to go, so I trusted his judgement.  Well about an hour in we got lost, but after driving around for a few minutes we finally got back on the right road and made it to Holbrook.  Well we arrived about an hour and a half before the transfer van, so we just chilled at the church for a while until they showed up.  Then we separated and stuff and we took another 2 hour drive over to Gallup.  When we got there, we had to wait for the trailer to get there with all our stuff because it fell behind somehow.  Then my new companion, Elder Henderson, went and did a little training with the Zone Leaders, and then we left for our area.  When we got to our trailer we opened the door and I kid you not the trailer was an absolute disaster.  I'm not complaining or anything, but it was just bad.  Then, literally 30 seconds after us walking in we get a knock at the door and we meet Brother Eby.  He was a former bishop here, and was in charge of making sure church property was taken care of.  Anyway he came in and he was not happy with the way the trailer was, and he is a loud man, and isn't afraid to say what's on his mind.  After that we went to go have dinner with the Bishop and so he could show us around a bit.  Bishop Cothran is his name, and he is a great guy, and he has a great family.  His wife is Brazilian, and she is just a fireball with attitude as well, she was pretty funny.  So that was pretty much it for Tuesday.


Wednesday, because it was so filthy we got permission to spend as much time as it would take to clean the place.  We spent 9 hours cleaning and we didn't even finish... We had to stop because we ran out of cleaning supplies.  Here is a picture of all the stuff we had to throw out.

Yeah, the garbage was about half full before we put anything in it.  But between all the mold, grease, dust, dirt, and heaven knows what else was in there it was really gross.

Thursday we had district meeting, it was good, and I know most of the people in my district.  Then we went and did service for our senior couple, the Stubbs.  

Friday we tried to do our weekly planning, and the Area Book was an absolute disaster, and nothing had been updated since like April/May, and there were like no addresses or phone numbers on the people we were supposed to be teaching.  So yeah it was not the greatest weekly planning, and we pretty much had to trash a lot of that as well.  So yeah we have gotten lost every day so far, but we are slowly getting there.

Saturday was a little better, we have been doing a lot of tracting trying to find anyone really.  Nothing overly exciting happened that day, but we did get lost again trying to find someone, and ended up finding a different person.

Sunday.  Well Sunday has to have been the strangest Sunday on my mission yet.  It was pretty normal for the first half actually; we went to church, gave talks, and went to class and did all that jazz.  But after church we saw our bishops wife literally running around with our dinner calendar, trying to get people to sign up to feed us, so I think we will be taken care of with food.  Then we went out with our 2nd counselor in our bishopric, so he could show us more of the area and what he knew.  We originally thought it would be like an hour drive at most but it ended up being a 4 hour trip, haha.  I was in the back of the van so I didn't hear much of what he was saying, so I was pretty much on a scenic tour.  But we stopped at his wife's house were he periodically brought out more food for us to eat while we were driving.  It started out with grapes, then pop tarts, and then he brought out a bag that had hot dogs, chips, s'mores, and applesauce.  So I felt like I was having a camping picnic in the back of his mini van.  So that was very interesting but I enjoyed the trip :)  

But other than that the truck is in pretty bad shape, and we are pretty much starting from scratch with this place.  It's going to be an adventure!

Love you all,

Elder Takis

Some Final Photos in Tuba

These are happy photos, taken at Coalmine Canyon after doing some service at the bishop's house, and before Elder Takis found out he was going to be transferred.

These are photos taken the night before transfers, saying goodbye at a special family's house.