(From Alex with some comments from me)
Hello Family. How goeth life?
Not much has been going on over here. It's the same old. The Dubons are progressing slowly. Every lesson we have with them is one step backwards and one and one half steps forward. So it's slow but they're getting there. I'm not sure if I'll still be here in Conroe when they finally get baptized but we can go to other areas for baptisms with President's permission, which usually means only if we can get a ride with a member. So yeah, I'm pretty much done with Conroe, I'm tired of it, and there's only 2 weeks left of the transfer so who knows where I'll end up, or even if I'm going anywhere.
This week was somewhat interesting actually. Once again we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders. I went down to the Woodlands to be an english Elder for a day and it was okay. Though I noticed that there are a lot of ugly white people in Texas(Alex!), I've been around Hispanic faces so long that I was amazed by looking at these white people's faces. They're really weird. Now our Zone Leaders with perhaps the most odd pair of missionaries in the Mission. Elder Short and Elder Dashdorj. Elder Short is from Oregon, 25 years old, round like an egg, and is perhaps the strangest person I've ever met, he's sort of creepy too. I think I've mentioned Dashdorj before, he's the Elder from Mongolia, his english is pretty good but he still has a really thick accent, he speaks both Mongolian and Korean and wants to learn spanish too. He's really cool actually. Anyway so Elder Hansen (the zone leader I was on exchange with) and I came back to the apartment at 8:45 and the lights were off and the door was locked. So we thought that the other must still be out. Hansen unlocks the door and opens it. Then this hazy smoke wafted out, we walk in and Elder Short is sitting right there next to the door at his desk, staring at this little blue light on his speakers. Sitting completely still and just staring at it in otherwise complete darkness. He didn't say a word as we came in. Dashdorj was sprawled out on the couch staring off into space. Hansen says: "What the is going on?!" And he starts going around throwing open windows and trying to waft the smoke out, I was just laughing while Dashdorj says in his thick Mongolian accent "I was cooking some buffalo meat." I was still laughing and I asked Dashdorj where he got Buffalo meat from and he told us that some member gave it to them.
Later that night after we had finished planning I was talking to Dashdorj and I asked him what buffalo tasted like. The conversation went somewhat like this:
R: "So what does buffalo meat taste like?"
D: "It tastes like Yak"
R: "What does Yak taste like?"
D: "Kind of like camel?"
R: "What does Camel taste like?"
D: "Like Marmot"
Elder Hansen: " What's a Marmot?"
(I explain to Hansen what a marmot is)
D: "You're the first American I've met that knows what a Marmot is."
R: " Thank you, so what does Marmot taste like?"
D: "Almost like Dog"
R: "... We have got to find some common ground here... does it taste like chicken?"
D: "Um..... yeah... sure."
R: "Okay then."
Yeah it was rather funny. Most of our conversation was me asking him about stuff in Mongolia and Korea, he told me how they make Kim-chi and how to prepare dog and stuff. He says that in Mongolia they pretty much eat only meat, almost nothing grows, no fruit whatsoever and very few vegetables. And then he just asked me how to say certain words, like 'diagonal' and whatnot.
So yeah, the next day we had District meeting and it was probably the most boring district meeting I've ever had, probably because their district has sister missionaries in it, that and they're district leader, Elder Hunsicker has the worst monotone voice ever. I spent most of district meeting teaching Dashdorj spanish slang and he was writing it all down in his planner.
After district meeting we were off to un-exchange, Dashdorj and short went with us too. And we were driving along and ahead there was this red pick up truck full of drunken white trash fools (Alex!). They were weaving all around the road and we decided to get ahead of them so they wouldn't hit us. We passed them and noticed that the female driver was buck naked. We drove faster and got away from them. A few minutes later we were waiting to merge on the feeder (which is this road that runs along all the free ways in texas and it "feeds" you into the free way. It's really cool, they ought to have them in Utah (they do Alex). Anyway these fools ended up behind us and rear ended us. We pulled off the side, but they kept going and sped away. We got their license plate number though so they're toast. There was no damage luckily but even so, Elder Hansen was furious, Dashdorj and I were laughing and Short was babbling about something strange.
So yeah, that was Thursday and friday. The most eventful days of this week.
Okay so the pictures I sent are of many things. Most of them are random shots out the car window from our trip to College Station, the countryside, some kids smoking something, a ferry, a doughnut shop, an odd trailer, Elders Woodruff, Shultz, and Lopez after a long day, and a few others that I've already forgotten about.
So yeah. Oh and mom I know your birthday is sometime this month but I can never remember the day (nice). I got you something and I'm gonna send it in a package and it'll probably be your birthday/mother's day gift(okay!). Oh and while I'm at it I'm gonna send the rest of you stuff. I've already got something for Alyssa and I know what I'm gonna get Dad and the boys. I think y'all will like them. You should get this package around the end of the month maybe I have not yet gotten everything yet. So yeah that's all for today. Glad Austin got his homework done. So I love you all and have a good day.
-- Elder Rice
