Hola from Elder West

The weather here has started to warm up. For the most part it was pretty mild for the first couple of weeks I was here (ignoring a couple days of rain), but since summer "officially" started (June 22nd or something) the weather has started being more like what I'd expect from summer here (read: hot). Still, I don't think it's been above 90 degrees yet, but I could be wrong. The worst part of the weather is when we have to wear our suit coats when going up to the temple. Speaking of the Provo Temple, I find it to be surprisingly similar to the Seattle temple in some ways, though I guess that's kind of a given since they're close to the same age.

Oh, and just so you know, I usually write my e-mails during laundry time, which starts at 10 o'clock for our district. However, that's entirely dependent on whether there's a computer available when I start my loads. I don't want to change loads mid e-mail, since that leaves the computer open and also because logging off takes 5 minutes off our 30 minute time limit (enforced by the web browser they use here). If I'm not able to e-mail during that time, I usually do it during the free time after lunch then.

The Spanish is going pretty well, though I think we could be doing better. Like, yesterday in class the teacher said that we (and they themselves) are not speaking Spanish as often as we should right now. Granted, the teachers say we've learned the grammar pretty fast, but we just need to speak the language more. I'll admit that I should have put in more effort than I should. I mean, finally bought supplies for flashcards, and right now I feel like I should have done it like 2 weeks ago. Regardless, I've found the language pretty easy to learn compared to Japanese, thanks to it being grammatically similar to English and having quite a lot of cognates. Granted, that kind of gets in the way when we run into false cognates. For instance, "embarasado" means "pregnant", whilst the word that actually means "embarrassed" is "avergonzado" or something like that. There are a couple people in the class that like to purpose make mistakes like this.

- Elder Alex West

Minus One

Danny's room before - that's how I felt every time I went in.
 (like Wesley - not Prince Humperdink)

It's amazing how soon I can break a habit of getting up super early.  Just two weeks ago I was always getting up before 5am. This morning when my alarm went off around 5am I felt like it was 3am. My bed was comfy. I was tired. I didn't much feel like getting up.

It's amazing what you can make yourself do when you're properly motivated.

Steve and I drove Danny down to Sea-Tac and got him through security with just a few minutes to spare before boarding the plane to San Jose.  He's now in sunny California for the ENTIRE week.  Yay!  I'm going to be spending the week refurbishing The Pit of Despair aka Danny's Room. Stay tuned for the play by play.

What are phones for anyway?

Never blog in anger.  That's our family motto.  Never blog in anger - perhaps I should embroider it on a pillow?

Count to ten. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.

(Wipes brow) Okay, I'm fine now.

Steve forgot to take his cell phone to work today, which meant that our mechanic couldn't get hold of him, which meant the van didn't get worked on today, which means that besides not having any wheels today, I won't have any tomorrow either.

Never blog in anger. Never blog in anger.

1, 2, 3, 4, .......

Hola from Elder West

The laundry room here seems less crowded than last week, but I had a much harder time finding a place to sit down. Weird.

> 1. Have you been getting your dearelder.com letters??
Yes. :-)

> 2. Do you have everything that you need?
Yes.

> 3. How is the language coming along (and by language, I mean Spanish)?
Reasonably well. I'm finding verb conjugation to be the hardest part, with each tense having 6 forms (1st/2nd/3rd persons, singular/plural) and there being like 7 tenses or something. It seems like the biggest roadblock towards the road of speaking conversationally. That, and my vocabulary needs some work. I have a lot of church-related words memorized, but we haven't really done much work with normal everyday words like bed, blanket, spoon (cuchara), fork (tenedor), plate, pants, etc. I need to make some flash cards of these words for language study time.
Also, in addition to language study time, we have about an hour a day we spend on the computer using something called "TALL" (Technology Assisted Language Learning). Not to rag on the developers behind it or anything, but it is probably the most boring piece of software I've ever used.
I t ' s j u s t s o s l o o o o o o o o o o o w .

> 4. Have you seen anyone else that you know?
So far I don't think I've seen anybody I know beyond Ryan Coon and Elder "i'msuddenlyblankingonhisfirstname" Hartsock.

You also asked something about the MTC choir, so I might as well update you on that:

Last Sunday we practiced singing "Jesus Once of Humble Birth." Basically everybody in our district joined the choir to practice it, except for the companionship with the nephew of the person responsible for the arrangement we were singing. However, due to an incident with temple locker keys that I will not elaborate on, my companion and I ended up being too late to actually perform for the choir last Tuesday.

This Sunday we practiced "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." It seems a bit weird to say, but I really liked the choir director during the practice. He was humorous, and also provided some excellent commentary on the song itself (that is, I actually know what "Here I raise my Ebenezer" now means). I think we'll be performing the song at the devotional tonight (hopefully).

My time's up right now.

Hasta Luego,
Alexander West

A little of this, a little of that....

Father's Day treats...by Andrew.

I showed him a picture from Bakerella - and he made these all on his own.

Thoughts about my new sewing area...I've actually mended, yes mended two articles of regularly worn clothing this week...all due to having a dedicated and easily accessible sewing area.  It's handy.  Very handy.

Happy Father's Day!

"No need to search any further...you're the one!"

The glue's still wet on the card I whipped up this morning...I screen captured the Google search page...pasted it into Word and added 'World's greatest dad' (sooo original).  I printed it up on card stock and added the phrase, 'No need to search any further...you're the one!' to the inside. It may not be profound...or witty...or pithy...or, well, fill in the blank, but it's sufficiently nerdy to bring a little smile to my particular nerd.

This is what I made for Steve...I blogged about it at Help Me Hanna.

Oh no, not again...

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.

- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Lest I get in the bad habit of not posting anything except Alex Updates, here's a picture of my latest embroidery project.  I haven't decided yet whether to just frame it in a hoop (doubtful) OR put it in a picture frame (more likely)...anywho, here it is. 

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

-HGTTG