Mike's Update

So I gots a letter from the Mike-ster and he told me to post this story (written on Oct. 5, 2011): "I have to tell you about what happened today while helping the new missionaries that came in. So first off it was just pouring rain on us so we were given jackets and umbrellas. I finally got my Elder, who is 23, and we took care of stuff. We then went to go drop off his stuff at his residence and some Elders there directed us to his room. We push open the door since it wasn't closed and there, sitting in his chair, is an Elder in a makeshift loin cloth!!! He came and greeted the Elder and we just stared at him stunned! We then quickly got his stuff, all the while avoiding looking in "Laman's" direction and got out of there. We headed to his class where I would drop him off. As we got into the building we checked to see what room he was in and it was the same as his residence. I thought was weird so I double checked and found out the Elder that helped us in his residence gave us the wrong room! We hurried back and took out all of his stuff and took the poor Elder to his actual room. That was the most disturbing experience I had here in the MTC. It just goes to show that there [are] rule breakers who do stupid things everywhere you go."

Haha I think this was in response to the letter I wrote him about when I went to the rendezvous and saw men in loin cloths (see previous post).....

Lil Mikey

So me and Sydnee put together a little kit for little mike....we are calling it "A tiny kit for a tiny man". Pretty clever don't you think? Yah so we are mailing him a package with a bunch of random inside jokes and such before he heads out to Nicaragua in 1 1/2 weeks! The picture is of the note we are sending with it. I told him about SLAM and he said "Ok the SLAM thing is prob the coolest thing ever!" which it is......he also told me to add some things from his letters as his contribution to SLAM. After all he is the M in SLAM. So here's a little contribution for this post written on Sept. 23, 2011:

"I got to hear Russell M. Nelson this Tuesday in devotional talk about the Book of Mormon! He made a hilarious joke: 'Can we dim down the lights or would that be against the Word of Wisdom?'" Later on he said "So I only have two and a half more weeks before head out to Nicaragua! I was also told that DearElders can be sent to me even out in the field! Not sure exactly how it'll work but there you go! Oh o during my stay here I've seen a guy that looks like Taylor Laughtner (Jacob) and a guy that looks like Edward! Pretty hilarious."

Michael...or I guess I should say Elder Rasband would love everyones letters so send it to him through dearelder.com His aunt is also posting letters on his facebook under notes if you are intrested.........wow I sound like his mother! That's awkward........of course it is only awkward if you make it awkward!

Sherlock Holmes and Outer Darkness...

Though this memory will forever give me nightmares, Im sure it will bring great laughter to you all, so I shall proceed to write about it. But if I start virtually hyperventilating and reaching out for something plushy, its not my fault...Anyhow...Me and my three partners in crime, being the studious children that we are, decided to go listen to a debate in the capital...for extra credit, of course. (What? Did you think that we would willingly put ourselves through that torture for no reason!? Ya right! I'd rather have all the happiness sucked out of my life by a Dementor... and then Harry will save me and then we'll get married and take over Hogwarts and-oops, can't share that with you, or it will defeat the purpose of having a journal...so...awkward...I'll continue with the story...) We suffered through the debate and proceeded to exit the building.  Now, picture this action: an EXTREMELY creepy old man with like, two teeth and some crazy eyes dressed up as Sherlock Holmes! I was expecting to see Watson show up any second. So we see this man enthusiastically chatting with some very bewildered people, and pick up our pace, trying to get out of there without runnin' into the crazy. My mother always told me she had eyes in the back of her head, and I don't think that was a joke, because that man had to have spyed us with his! He whipped around and approached us demanding to know what we were doing in there. The poor chaps he had previously been talking to saw him distracted and quickly escaped, and we would have as well except, Michael (who is OOBER friendly and loves all of God's children...no mad how odd...and ..ahem...eccentric they may seem) greeted him and engaged us in reluctant conversation.  This is how the conversation went(no joke) : The creepy man started ranting about government, then lecturing us about history, then somehow turned it into women's rights, then out of nowhere "shabammed" us into religion!! He whips out a Geneva Bible and waves it in our faces saying that, "that King James doesn't know what he's talking about!!" Then, Ashley, who must have been reading all our minds that day faced his two teeth and crazy eyes and said, : Listen! Were Mormons and aren't interested in hearing anymore about your religion, plus, it's really cold out here, so were going to go now!" (Ashley, please correct me if I botched that up!) We quickly turned and started hastily walking away, congratulating Ashley as we went.  As we were walking away we heard the following message : " YOU"LL BE WARMER IN OUTER DARKNESS!!!!".....and then: "God Bless!"  Now, I don't know about you, but that was a pretty traumitizing experience. Everytime I watch Sherlock Holmes I shudder! But anywho, I hoped you got a kick out of it because we sure did, and if I ever see that man I'm going to march right up to him, look him right in the crazy eyes and say: "See ya in outer darkness sherlock! Don't forget your swimming suit!...oh wait! Scratch that, I DO NOT want to see that man in spedo's....and with that unpleasant vision in mind, I bid you farewell...
Awkwardly,
Sydnee...

Charley VII

So the other day I decided hat my living room needed something to spice it up...cause it was looking kinda plain. So I decided to go buy a fish...its a Betta...I named him Charley...the 7th...he of course being the 7th Betta I have had. The first one I got when I was about 8. And Charley the 6th I got for Christmas from Sydnee. Each Charley lived for a couple of years at least so I am hoping Charley the 7th will too.

Scarred for Life!!!!

Sooo this weekend I went with my roommate to her dad's house for the Labor day weekend. It's in the redneck state of Wyoming. So this morning we went to a ligament Rendezvous (you know like where the mountain men, fur trappers, and Indians come to sell/trade their goods). It was really quite interesting. A lot of people there were dressed up like they did in the old days. There were a bunch of girls in the big pretty dresses and bonnets. Men wearing Indian outfits some dressed like mountain men. I was walking around looking at everyone dressed up thinking it was all kinda cool. I felt like I was back in the old days kinda having fun. Then all of a sudden out of nowhere I see a guy walking around wearing a loin cloth!!! It was crazy! That was one image I never wanted to see! I was thinking to myself who would walk around wearing that? That's nasty! A few minutes later I see another man wearing a loin cloth only this one was half the size of the other! It was tiny! No pants no shirt just a loin cloth! I am scarred for life! That is something I did not expect to see. The majority of the people there were just normal people who just dress up to come to this thing. So why would anybody even think "Hey I think I am going to wear my green poka-doted loin cloth today"? (No joke it was actually green poka-doted!) What do their wifes think? They are probably single. If they weren't before they wore that I am sure they are now cause I don't know anyone who thinks loin cloths are attractive (except Jane who likes Tarzan....but now Jane is insane!) It was sooo nasty!!!

ADVENTURE NUMERO...ummmm...TWO!!

Alrighty, shall we continue?? Let me ponder a moment...what was our next adventure...oh! My pondering paid off! Heres a good one. Ashley, Lizzi, and Michael were hanging out one day and decided that we needed to do somethinh BIG before little mikey left to preach the Gospel in faraway lands with other good looking young men wearing stylish ties....I mustve been in Narnia because I missed the whole brainstorming "shin-dig" they were having. Anyways, they came to the decision that we must take a magical trip(and magical as we disussed last time is one step above fantistic, so this was a pretty big day!)into the wilderness where we would brave swift rivers, deadly reptiles, and treacherous porta-potties!! We then started our preperation and in no time flat were ready to depart on our journey. A journey that would seperate the jedi's from the dark side, the wizards from the muggles, and the girls fromm the women...oh,and michael...After setting up the camper and such, we prepared for some fun. Our plans were to: eat, canoe, eat, canoe, eat, play cards, eat some more, and make an epic scary movie...oh and we musn't forget to eat. So the trip was so far a success, and by success i mean that no one had been eaten by a bear or started a forest fire! After a quick trip to the terrifying potties of doom we got in our PJs and sat around the fire for some scary stories and roasted starbursts. It wasn't long before we started freaking ourselves out, and we decided to head for the safety of the camper. I, being scared of EVERYTHING screamed hysterically and in turn scared the crap out of michael who started screaming and like a gentleman, pushed me down to get through the camper door. We then huddled in the camper and scared ourselves to the point of insanity and preceeded to try an attempt at thinking happy thoughts. I tryed humming my favorite hymn, but it brought back memories of primary and i was shaking all over again! Michael insisted on sleeping on the other side of the camper so we wouldnt be scared(but he was really just too much of a baby to sleep in his little tent alone!) anywho, other than that the trip was great! We made a scary movie by the woods("by" not "in"...) and mikey was peed on by a frog...good times! So if your ever looking for a way to spice up your next camping trip, give us a call, were very entertaining. But NO SCARY STORIES!!! oh and by the by, wolverines are real...the animal, not the mutated man...
Cordially,
Sydnee.

ESCAPADE NUMERO UNO!!

Alrighty now, i guess since i informed everyone that we were going to be sharing our adventures with everyone...we should actually do that...so heres adventure number one!! This was probably the best memory in S(sydnee)L(lizzi)A(ashley)M(michael) history!(clever acronym yes?? kudos to ashley's brain!) Anywho, once upon a time, we were all sitting around thinking about our empty tummies. We all decided that donuts sounded great, so we decided to go out and get some. For future reference, me and comrades take the phrase, "go big or go home" very seriously. And since all that was waiting at home was chores and the ever impending sense of boredom we decided to make this field trip to the donut shop a HOLIDAY(not every group of mindless teenagers can simply make up their own holiday, so this is kind of  a big deal...) known as (drum roll) DONUT DAY!!! ya....we weren't feeling very creative that day...So we grabbed our wallets and headed to the donut shop. We discovered many a thing there: 1.I LOVE giant maple bars, 2.they do in fact, have giant maple bars, and 3.the giant maple bars that i so love are fetching expensive! SO, we decided to rebel and make a SUPER FANTASTIC FREE HOLIDAY!! And as we all know, fantastic is just one step closer to magical so this was a VERY big day. The holdiay would be forever known as  WAFFLE WEDNESDAY!!!(insert angels hallelujah chorus..) It turned out to be the most epic holiday in holiday history! So from then on, every wednesday we would get together at someones house and make princess waffles(though i always found that they tasted better when i shoved my fork through cinderella's face and let prince charming dwell on my waffle alone...what can i say? cinderella is kind of a self centered butthead. That innocence act is all just a big facade! but i digress...) Well...I guess that's it then. Sooooo....i guess....go eat some waffles....preferably princess. (minus cinderella.) Come on people, it is a holiday, afterall!