My Pet Parasite Named Jim!

My Pet Parasite named Jim!!!

February 18, 2013

Oh today is a good day. Hello family! and friends, and fans :)

So this week.... bleh!!

As you can probably tell from the subject (which is to be the title of the entry on the blog please) I have a pet! His name is Jim and I take care of him and feed him everyday. He likes to play around a lot, but honestly, it’s just not that fun when he wants to play... he is a parasite! He lives inside of me! hahahahaha So yeah, I got sick this week. (...(fetal position) don’t kill me mom!) It was pretty bad. ( freaking chato the power just went out! and I lost like half of this email!) Anyway, yeah it was bad. On vday (Valentine’s day) I was fine, we had some awesome lessons then we went over to president’s to get some supplies and they had us eat dinner there and I asked Sister Thompson what the symptoms were for parasites and when she told me I was like shay! (shay is an Angolan word used for like "what the!" or just a surprised moment, and its awesome because it’s not even bad and it’s so fun to say!)  and then boom! Right after we left their house I got chills and a fever and before we made it back to our apartment I had lost my dinner and lunch and breakfast and I was sitting of the side of the road. Talk about gross. Then I threw up 4 more times that night, and the runs for forever yatayatayata basically I’ve been in bed from Thurs night till this morning. yeah it sucked. I think I had something other than the parasite too. But, I killed Jim with a pill... he o.d.ed if you know what I mean... Ha! So this week wasn’t exactly the best. But man I’ll tell you what, getting sick here trunks you out of your mind! You’re just like ooohhh this sucks, I miss my mom.. I want my mom.. my mom was so nice to me when I was sick. She did so many things for me.. owwww...I miss clean water... I miss air conditioning... I miss electricity...I miss American food that is safe to eat..... yeah, you get the point. So mom Thank you sooooo much for all your years of loving service to me. I love you so much! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we’ve been without energy for the past week. Kill me. I think if I had energy, and clean water... I would be happy for the rest of my life. If that’s all I had I would be happy. Ha I sound pathetic Haha. Anyway, I still got the runs. yeah Dad I know what you mean when you say “Carry tp with you! Good thing I took that advice! The other day my planner almost became tp! Yep, I’m having quite the experiences! 

Oh, so you know how I’ve been trunky, like the whole week when I was sick, because you know there’s only so much studying you can do before you go nuts. Anyway, I was really really really missing country music. Like really missing it. I miss it sooo much! But! God gave me a blessing! Our neighbors were having a wedding party (which was insanely loud and I didn’t sleep that night) and they played a Shania Twain song and I was like, wait a second...! This is country! And I got up and like started running and screaming with joy and singing to it! And just relishing it! Oh, it felt sooo good! It was sooo great and then when the song was over I went back and lay in bed because I felt like crap after doing all that. But man I was sooo excited!  Oh, and then last night I couldn’t sleep and I had a serious trunkfest about the ranch. Oh I miss the ranch! Seriously, Grandpa Tingey, I think I can seriously say that I love the ranch the most out of all the grandkids. Seriously, tears came because I was thinking how I would miss two summers there.. Oh, that was sad. And horses. I want to ride a horse so bad. So Grandpa.. you can never sell the ranch! Except to me if you want. I decided that I’ll probably have to live in Utah because I want to be really close to the ranch. sooo yeah. 

Oh and since I couldn’t sleep last night, I created like 5 companies in my head... I got some seriously good ideas. Do-able ideas too. I got a notebook to write them down in. But enough of being trunky! I got work to do! (Whenever you want to get pumped to do missionary work just watch the district, works every time!)

So Grandpa Stoker, Happy Birthday! You rock! Seriously, I love you, thanks for all you’ve done for me. Jase, it’s your bday today! Dude, I was thinking.. I probably won’t see you for a long time. Sooo have a freaking awesome birthday! 

Yes, Mom, I can get milk and eggs and vegetables and fruit. Different ones come in periodically. I made hashbrowns the other day out of a potato... unfortunately, I didn’t get to digest them. But yep, I can get tomato sauce and all that good stuff. I stay away from the meat because its just sketchy sometimes...  but yeah send those things. President hasn’t nixed the packages yet! So send them while you can! Just know to put some money into my account because it costs a little bit to receive them sometimes. And Mom, no one sent me recipes, I was being sarcastic!

Oh yeah, that zone conference we had last week was in Hotel Talatona. Holy freaking nice!!! Like there were Ferraries outside in the parking lot.. Yeah. I got a pic. Um, yes, I have a twin size bed. It’s nice. Not a bunkbed. Yes, I got Elder Montgomry his stuff when he came to the conference. 

K whoa. No, I sent a suit home. Did you never get the stuff I had sent to Tyler?! Nooo! I love that suit! Find out! Clothing is working out good. I use 5 shirts and 3 pants. When the energy is on, with all the phases … I can take a warm shower, but mostly, it’s cold bucket showers. Btws, (text language for “by the way”) I made a shower in my head for when I get home.. It’s sooo legit. It’s hot at night. It’s not bad if you open the windows but then the mosquitos come in and we don’t have nets. Yes, there are bugs. Big and small. I keep our place pretty clean so we don’t get them. But, our water tank has some serious roaches in it. It’s gross when you pull up a bucket of water and they are all there to greet you! No snakes yet! 

Dad,on an average pday (missionary language for prep day, the day off) get up, pray (ha! duh) clean the place, go play futbol, do internet, go shopping, play bang or monopoly deal; then have FHE (Family Home Evening) at the end of the day. But, President is trying to put together a Safari and I’m stoked! 

Hannah, I have been eating rice and beans and pasta. I’m sick of it! And we don’t have members do meals for us except sometimes on Mondays or Sundays, because we have no members in our area! 

Sounds like Marissa had quite the Vday. Made up for my horrid one! Dad, ha! That would be crazy if I saw you here in Angola! Do the interview! But after this sickness, I decided I’m living in the states! You know what’s weird. Marissa will be in college when I get back! Shay! Ah, so weird. Well, I love you guys. Missed you a lot this week! Babes, shout out to my girl! Darin, I love you bro! Be a stud in the gospel! Hannah, don’t grow up! You’re too cute! Marissa, I just miss you like crazy. Ah! Love you guys! Mas tudo bem! Tudo bem!

With love (African and Black of course!)

Elder Tingey

(And Jim...except I think he died!)

P.S. Dad when did you learn Portuguese??

It's A Party In Africa!!

Hello Hello!

How’s my biggest fan base doing? Good obviously! I love you guys. Well this week was interesting! But, first things first. Dad idk (I don’t know) if you meant to write your email in Portuguese, but don’t. I’m not that good at Portuguese to read it that fast! So I translated it with Google... and got the jist of it.

Hannah! My cute baby girl! Happy Birthday! Oh my goodness you’re so old, I was remembering last night when you were just little! Like holy cow I feel like a parent. Where did the time go? Gosh you’re so cute! I want you to meet my little black bro. His name is Lucas. He’s Rita’s son and he is 6. He is so awesome! I love that cute kid. I’m going to take a picture with him he is so cute.  And he has a little motor mouth! He puts me to shame it’s sad! But Rita is progressing really well! She comes to church every week with her daughter and she reads every time. Ah! She is just a solid investigator. I just get so excited when investigators keep their commitments. It’s so awesome! I just can’t wipe the smile off my face!

This week the Kretlys, (the actual mission president and his wife) came to town from Mozambique with Elder Cook, from the Quorum of Seventy, for a mission tour and district conference. It was really good. We had a zone conference with Elder Cook on Friday and Elder Cook was just teaching us all this solid stuff and he just randomly was like “Elder Tingey, I need your help; come up here and let’s be companions and were going to do a role play of this and that.” Holy freak! I was scared out of my mind! I’m new! Like, I’m going to mess up! I was sweating and praying so hard! Haha! But it went good. Haha and then at the end of our literally 30 min role play he asked who all the new elders were and I raised my hand and he laughed and was like wow, you did good! But he is just such a stud. He talked to the wards and basically chastised them for not working better with the elders. But then on Sunday he just threw down some solid meat. He talked about how important it was that the husbands spend time with their families. It’s soo important that they do that. And then he talked about how important it was that the husbands love their wives and how the husbands need to be way better with treating their wives better. He shared a story about how President Packard told all the 70 that they need to treat their wives better and that they weren’t doing good enough. He told that to the 70! Like that is just sooo important to treat women with respect. Not just here in Africa, but everywhere. He shared a story about how he noticed some things his Dad did that weren’t bad but just didn’t make his mother the top priority. Anyway, his dad ended up leaving the family. It was a sad story, but it showed the power and the importance of how husbands need to treat their wives and how the husbands need to initiate it. Not the wives. Oh man, Elder cook is just so awesome!

Speaking of district conference a bunch of people want to contact Uncle Earl through email and they keep asking me. So if you want to give me that (you don’t have to but) it would be nice.

Oh, btw,(by the way) it’s a party in Africa. This week is the start of Carnival. Yeah, I’m getting no sleep. Seriously, on Saturday, the neighbors partied ALL freaking night until 630! Gosh. gotta love ‘em.  I forgot my planner and I’m mad! I had stuff written down that I wanted to write! Oh well. Oh, Dad, about that KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) article. I didn’t read it but KFC is like the ONLY American restaurant here. Like, I almost can’t believe it. I’ve only seen two in Luanda. Actually, I think there are only two anyway. But it’s expensive. Ugh, just like everything. It’s really annoying. Let me just kinda show you how expensive stuff is here compared to Mozambique. We get more than twice as much money per month than them.

Oh, but Dad, there are soooooooo many taxis here and it hit me; Taxi Top advertising here! Boom! Big money! Oh, and I was talking to this guy, John yesterday, he’s from Portugal, and speaks English. Holy cow so many people speak English. But anyway, he had a sweet suit and he said it was only 70 bucks in Portugal! So basically, on my way home, I want to go to Portugal and get some suits. Like they have nice suits here but they’re up the wazzu expensive! And they’re all imported anyway. Actually, when I come back, my suitcases will have nothing but African stuff in them!

K, one thing here that is just nuts and I’m really sick of it, is just the porn everywhere. It’s just annoying! Freaking chato.! But its strange, I feel safer here in Africa. Haha, like I’m away from the "world" when in fact I’m more in it. But I’m a missionary so I’m protected! Whaaaat! Take that Satan! Yeah, try having another African slut throw herself at me and see what happens! (happens all the time btw) yeah Nothing!

Anyway, now that I’ve rattled on about that....

Austin! You’re finally going to the MTC! Haha ‘bout time! Thanks for the shout out bro! I miss you! We would be awesome comps and I’m glad your speaking Portuguese!

Well, peeps, I’m almost out of time and I gotta go shopping. Thanks for the recipes btw.

Oh wait! Haha! when the Kretlys came they gave me a bunch of Dear Elders from G and G Stoker! Haha they sent them to me while I was in the MTC but the pressed the wrong button and it went to the mission home in Mozambique. Haha, but it was nice to read them and hear from them. Thank goodness for having grandparents! (that aren’t too tech savy haha!)

Alright love you all!

Elder Tingey

P.S.  If you want to send a letter, use an international airmail stamp. It will get here faster. And PLEASE send them! haha

What a Week!!

2-4-13

Wow, so much has happened this week! Hello everyone!

Tudo Bem?!

So.. wow.. so many emails this week and so little time!

First off you actually can send letters! I actually got one this week on the 30th and it was postmarked for the 27th. I was dumfounded. So thank you Berges for that letter!

Darin, Bra. Freak man I wish I could have been at that Red Mountain game! You’re a freaking stud! Oh man I’m just getting so excited sitting here reading about it! Oh sounds so fun. That’s the first thing I’m doing when I get home; going to one of Darin’s games. ahh!

haha I’m still laughing about my email last week. haha epic, but this week was crazy kinda. We moved into our new apartment! And it’s really nice. ahem "really nice" meaning that there are\were some huge kinks. So we’re the only ones in the whole building. There’s 5 floors. So some times we go to the "penthouse" at the top and its like a party house. haha. But, the Chinese who built it (they build everything here) wired it soo wrong. So anyway, Elder Walker and I did some serious jimmy- rigging and got our ac unit to work and the lights. I’ll try to send some pics of the place. Oh and the showers are like party showers but w\o water its pointless. Correction: without good water pressure. Oh, and our water in our water tank was filthy. Literally smelled like /&$%$ crap. So we got that cleaned out which took two days then the water guy said he was coming and didn’t show up till the next day and the whole time we had to wait for him because we can’t leave the place unlocked. Ugh, such a waste of time. Oh well though, it’s done now. Today, I cleaned the floors’ swept and mopped. The place is beautiful now. haha.

So as far as missionary work went this week, it was slow. Our investigators.. some are progressing.. others say they are but they’re not and well, there’s just lots of problems haha. And, the work is getting tougher! which is good because it’ll stretch me. And when the work gets tougher, it just makes the success that much sweeter!

Oh, okay, Elder Walker and I were walking; finding the borders of our area and wow, our area has nothing. haha We found a jungle. It was awesome. Like, legit African jungle in Luanda. So crazy! We gotta go back a take pics. You guys are going to love them! Like it’s amazing! There’s one I’m going to send and I’m on a cliff with jungle and beach and the ocean behind me. Like soo legit!

Yes Dad, I cook for myself. I need recipes. I’ve been living off of pasta, and rice and beans, and sandwhiches. Haha, but I’m experimenting with things! Sister Thompson is putting a recipe book together for us, so that will be sweet, but sometimes we get dinner invitations. Yeah, Grandpa, about what Uncle Earl said. Yeah, we don’t eat stuff from street vendors, but when someone offers us food in a lesson, whether it’s an investigator or a member, you gotta eat it. Usually, it’s not bad except funge. bleh.. gross. But don’t worry! I pray really hard over my food! A few times actually. Man, I’ll tell you, it’s the cleanest food around cause I bless it so much!

And Dad, we have a washer in our apartment. We jimmy rigged that too haha. Seriously, we had the thing like in pieces. And when we don’t have electricity we flush the toilet with water that we get from our tank (which is under the building.) We throw a bucket on a rope down there and bring up the water! haha It’s kinda fun doing that actually.

I love the pics! Darin is a stud in his jersey. Like oh my gosh, he is so legit! And Marissa, dang girl! Looking good! haha Guess what happened this week. I walk into our room and Elder Walker is like, “Hey, Elder Tingey... wanna be brother in laws?” Hahaha I busted up. All my comps love you! Well, I gotta run! Dad, sorry I didn’t answer that one question. idk. But there’s no where to play basketball. And they want us to focus on familyies more than anything. The mission here is about establishing the church more than anything. I love you all! Hopefully, I’ll have a little more time next week. I love hearing from you!

With lots of Black African love,

Elder Tingey

WHOA!! January 28, 2013

Elder Nathan Tingey 

Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos S.U.D.

Caixa Postal 18404

Luanda, Angola

BOOBS. That’s all I have to say. hahahahaha jk. So funny though because seriously, I have never seen so many in my life as I have here. It’s ridiculous. Like, multiple times during lessons they'll just wip it out and start feeding their baby and your like well hello. haha I just laugh in my head. Oh, but funny story. So we’re teaching this woman and I totally thought she didn’t have any kids! Because she told us she didn’t ( she doesnt speak good english or portuguese she speaks clicky language.) Anyway, this kid just walks up to her while were teaching her and she holds him and then BAM there it is! Everything is out on the table! Me and Elder Walker just look at each other and I almost cannot hold it together and just about bust up laughing. Then she said that it was her kid and we’re like “oh, okay.” But we totally thought it was just a random kid on the street! Okay, anyway, on with the email.

Hello everyone! haha. So another week here in Africa. In HOT Angola! So it’s a little hard to teach because we have no copies of the Book of Mormon to give out. It’s horrible! We ordered 800 months ago and they’re still not here! But we do the best with what we have. Rita came to church again this week with her daughter. Booya! ha it was sweet. She finally understood the importance of being baptized by the correct authority. So she is gonna pray about it and then we'll go from there. Obviously she's gonna feel good when she prays about it, so basically, she'll be getting baptized soon and probably her whole family which would be SICK! Last Sunday we split the branch and made another. It was soooo needed. We had like 260 people in this building and it was just way too small. We have a few other investigators: Victor, Evandro and a few more but not enough time to write about all of them! 

So some stuff about Angola: There is trash everywhere, like everywhere. It’s gross! The people just have no respect for the land. Sad, really. Somebody could make some serious dough here if they set up a legit trash business. Especially because gas, especially diesel, is sooo dirt cheap! They love American music here. Mostly rap, r and b and hip hop. ha A lot of the taxies we get into have music playing and American swear words and the Angolan people have no idea what they mean and they just say them because they think they’re cool speaking English. haha Sad really. It’s amazing actually how many people here can speak English and they want to learn English too. So here is the deal with the whole power situation here. Angola only gets their power from this one dam. ONE! So basically it can’t sustain everyone. Sooo EVERYONE has a generator and runs their house off of that when the power goes out because gas is super cheap. I mean if any country should run off of generators it’s Angola! They have the means to do so! The nice houses have huge generators. Like, really big! 

So this week army dudes just started showing up everywhere. It was kinda freaky but it just means that the president is here in our specific area for something. Man, I’ll tell you it’s pretty legit when the president drives by. ALL traffic stops and these black cars with army trucks all in between them drive by and then they have a helicopter flying over them and there is just this guy hanging out the helicopter just chillin’ there with an ak47. haha it’s legit! 

So apparently, I talk in my sleep…. in Portuguese!!! Yes! haha and I remember the other night I had a dream in Portuguese, which does not mean that my Portuguese is good because it is horrible.  

So there is a member here, Irma Lasolet (idk how to spell it) but she knew Uncle Earl when he came here and she saw him in the DC temple when she went there. She was excited to see me it was cool. 

So to answer some questions: they have internet cafes that we go to so that we can email. To be honest, they’re not very good or fast. Like slow as tar! So today we’re at president’s house emailing because Elder Walker had to sign up for classes at BYU Idaho. Elder walker goes home at like the beginning of May. I think.  Ya, and the new investigators in our new area, we just invite them to the existing branches already in the city. 

We are with out power... mmm probably 30-40 percent of the time. You learn to take advantage when the power is on though. Fill up your water bottles with the purified water, take showers then, stand in front of the ac unit while you read your scrips. haha jk about the last one, we don’t have air conditioning! Yes, Mom, I’m taking my meds. Well, two of them and my Malaria medicine. Well I take them when I remember, which is about every other day. ahahah. I’ll do better!  I promise! All mail goes to president’s house. Sister Thompson said she would send it. Oh, and to answer your question about the people, rich people….well, the wealth varies I guess. A small house like about 1900 sq ft. would be millions of dollars here. Like a lot. A condo is in the millions as well, which is why all the senior couples that serve here are absolutely loaded! They’re from Brazil. umm what else….. 

Okay, There’s two games you guys need to get! They’re so fun. Bang and Monopoly Deal. They’re awesome. Oh did I mention that there’s now 9 elders in our house? Yeah it’s nuts. Oh and the air here is horrible. I feel like I’m in China there is so much smog! So I’m praying to the Lord that I don’t have lung cancer in a few years. hmm anything else? Oh yeah, Darin, way to go in bball. Grandma thank you for your email. I hope the trip is good! Grandma Tingey get better! AND my love and condolences go out to the Perkins family. I love you guys. Josh your a stud. Keep CTRing (choosing the right!) and the best is yet to come.

Mom, please give Mr. Hansen my blog info! That amazing math teacher needs to hear about what I’m doing here in Africa! Oh, speaking of which, Sister Thompson went on my blog the other day and I saw it and I was like whoa this is weird!!! haha I felt like I was at home reading about my own mission! Well family and friends, I love you all. You’re the best! Keep me posted about Paige please Carol!!! geez (2nd) mom!! haha. 

With much African love,

Elder Tingey

P.S. In the church choir we’re learning this African song. It’s sweet!