This we we got a call from our branch president. He asked us how Tony and Paschal were doing and if we had seen them recently. We were like, “They are fine, we haven’t really seen them a lot.” Then he asked us if we knew their last names. We didn’t know. Then he asked us if they had been to Vietnam recently. We told him that Tony mentioned something about Vietnam a while ago. Then he told us that he had seen an article about two Nigerians that got caught in the Phnom Penh airport smuggling cocaine from Vietnam. Crap, but wait, there are a lot of crazy Nigerians. “Why do you think it was our investigators?” “Because the report says their names are ANTHONY and PASCHAL.” Oh snap… Well, I guess we have to drop them as investigators then.. Because they are in jail.
We were pretty shocked and felt pretty stupid. There were a bunch of people in the office at the time and they were all laughing and saying what the crap. Nuts huh.
But then we looked up the news report. And looked at the pictures. AND IT WASN’T ACTUALLY OUR INVESTIGATORS. LOOOOOL. It was a different set of creepy Nigerians named Tony and Paschal that had been to Vietnam recently. Definitely the coincidence of the century.
Apparently these guys swallowed 1.27 kilos of cocaine in “wiener sized pellets” to try to get through security. The people at the airport saw that their faces looked weird so they held them up and fed them papayas and milk and waited till they pooped everything out. Lol.
Here is one funny article about it: http://abiyamo.com/two-
I have a bunch of Pokemon figures on my desk that I found from Japanese thrift stores here. All the other missionaries are super jealous. https://www.dropbox.com/sc/
President walked in to my office the other day to talk to me about something and then he said “I’ve gotta ask, what is this all about?” pointing to my Pokemon collection. I told him that it was just a childhood thing I liked (yeah right #pokemonforever). Then he was like “So you just put them on your desk wherever you go and you… stare at them? or play with them? or what?” I told him that I just like to have them around for fun. Then he was like “Well, I can relate, these are Pokemon right? My grandson loves Pokemon and so I have a book about this thick of Pokemon cards. We don’t ever really play the game but we just like to look at them and trade with each other.” I was like NO WAY. Bonding with my mission president over Pokemon.
We had a transfer this week and a bunch of missionaries “died” (ended their missions), including my trainer, Elder Neuberger. It was a weird couple days. Elder Lambert and I were in charge of logistics and getting everybody on the right bus and sending their stuff up. It was nuts and we only messed everything up about a dozen times. But the night of the transfer all of the dying missionaries stayed over at our house and then hung out in the office the next day waiting for their departure devotional that night. https://www.dropbox.
It was definitely the most trunky day of my entire mission so far. They were all talking about home and about their 2 years on a mission. Then that night a bunch of their parents and families came to pick them up so they were all crying and hugging their moms and families. I hated it. It was super weird, because I know all those guys super well, especially my trainer. Lol side-note, Elder Neuberger’s parents ran in to the mission home and they were like “Hey Elder Osborne, where are all the Elders?” I was surprised they recognized me. https://www.dropbox.com/sc/
Elder Paramore's Reunion: https://www.dropbox.
I’ll end my mission one day. But not yet. I’ve still got a lot of work to do.
I am trying to get better at teaching from the scriptures. I think that we are called to support the scriptures and their teachings, not the other way around. I have been reading the Book of Mormon and trying to find ways to link scriptures together in my lessons so that I let the scriptures do as much of the talking as possible. I have been making a scripture chain for faith this week and it is actually pretty hard to make it all work. But I know that the scriptures back by my testimony will have much more power than my testimony alone.
Here is one of my chains so far:
Chains:
- Today we want to talk about faith, what do you think faith is?
- Alma 32:21 - faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.
- Okay so thats faith, but what happens when we have faith?
- Ether 1:12 - I will grant unto thee according to thy desires, because of thy faith.
- You want that right? I do too. God is all powerful. He can grant us anything. But we need to have faith first.
- Ether 12:30 - wherefore thou workest after men have faith.
- So we need faith before we can receive blessings. How do we obtain faith?
- Alma 32:27 - experiment upon my words… … even until ye believe.
- these are his words— the scriptures
- Commit: Will you read his word (the BoM)?
Hey love you guys.
The church is true.
Love,
Elder Osborne
A short tour of the mission home: https://www.dropbox.com/