Saturday, April 18, 2009 - The Travels of Wilbur the Pig Head

Hello!

How's it going?

Glad to hear about the good weather you're having. We've also been having some interesting and good weather. More on that in a moment.

First of all, a lot of my pictures won't make sense unless you have the story behind it. Either that, or the other parts of it were taken on Elder Northey's camera. With the two of us together, we probably take more pictures than any other companionship in the mission. It's a good thing that I got that hard drive, since I've collected over 13GB of pictures and especially videos from him alone (and that's just what he took since coming to Lubbock on the same day I got here). I'd send it to you, but... it's over 13GB and we have no space for that. Although, I think I will try to send a few cool things.

Speaking of the pig's head: I'm not sure if I told you about it yet; I thought I did. Anyways, back in December, when Elder Hewitt was still here, he was having trouble walking, so he asked Elders Pugh and Bringhurst to run to Wal-Mart for him and gave them his card and a list. When they got back, Elder Hewitt was in the other room. The two were putting the groceries away. Elder Bringhurst pulled out of one of the bags with a big pink thing, vacuum-sealed in plastic, and quickly stuffed it into the freezer. For a moment, I thought it was a turkey. They finished really fast, said bye and ran out the door. Elder Hewitt came out and looked over the receipt. "Cookies, chips, ... hog's head? ... oh, no!" He ran over to the freezer and there was a giant pig's head staring him eye to eye.

We all had a big laugh, took pictures and everything. Then Elders Pugh and Bringhurst gave it to one of the Sister missionaries in Roswell who used to be a vegetarian. Ever since then, it's been passed from freezer to freezer. Eventually, Wilbur (that's the pig's name now) made his way back to us in Lubbock and we gave it to the same Sister who was transferred here last month. Then we decided that Wilbur needed to see more of the world.

On Wednesday, we drove down to Abilene to close an apartment there. Elders Sosi and Allred had the keys to that place, so we stopped by there to get it, but not before they got a mystery package. We packed Wilbur into a box with ton of shreddings (that box has a prank history of its own), dropped it on their doorstep, rang the doorbell and ran off. After they took it in, we managed to walk in just as they were about to open it. Long story short, they loved it and Wilbur's being passed around in Abilene. (Do you know how many times that thing has been thawed out and re-frozen?)

How does Survivor at school work? And to answer your questions: I didn't get the card with the missionaries, but I got the one with the camel.

I'm not sure, but I think the record for time [served] in the office is 11 months. Elder Johnson (not the one from Canada) said that his trainer served in the office for several months, went back into the field to train him and then went right back to the office after that for the rest of his mission. President Robison wants to change that; he wants people in the office for less time. Elder Rasmussen has the record for shortest time in the office: barely two months! I love serving in the office and I think President knows that. He always asks to make sure we're doing alright and so on.

When I leave the office, I only hope I'll have enough time each week to send my pictures home. That's why I'm trying to keep it up to date now. If I fall behind, I'm going to need to have plenty of space on my memory cards to hang on to them, at least until they can be sent. I have more pictures of my time in Lubbock than the rest of my mission combined.

We have almost no meat. Right now, the only meat we're getting is from McDonald's. That, and the pig's head, but there's probably a ton of poisonous bacteria in there by now. We also have six pounds of ground beef which we bought for hamburger helper, but we haven't had the time to actually make it. Allotments do carry over to the next month. Somehow, I have about five months' worth built up. Just kidding. I wish. Even if I did have a lot of money, what would I buy? We have very little time, and we have no oven. When we go shopping today, we're going to get cheese and hot dogs.

And yes, there are certain kinds of people that are more likely to be home during the day, when the missionaries are out tracking. That's part of the reason why President Monson said that there's no substitute for a member-oriented missionary program. Where are all the "cool" people? Duh, they're at work, making a living, providing for their families, etc. Who else is there but members of the church?

Anyways, as we were leaving Abilene, it started to rain a bit. All of West Texas was getting some moisture. We started driving home and we heard that Lubbock was starting to get hail. Down the long road, on the horizon and in the middle of the blue sky, we saw the darkest clouds you ever did see. We finally reached them and it was raining hard. Then, further up, we saw tons of cars stopped on the side of the road. As we were wondering what that was all about, the truck started getting pelted by golf ball-sized hail. We stopped too, but only for a minute. We kept going and the rain really picked up. The hail hit the mission home hard. It punch holes in two of the three skylights in there. No one was hurt, though.

Last night, there was a ward talent show. We couldn't go because we were having dinner at the mission home, but it's a good thing we didn't. Elders Craven and King just told us that they went and they were asked to come up to present something - totally unplanned. They went up and sang this really dumb song. They were pretty embarrassed.

We also had interviews with President yesterday here in Lubbock. He did them slightly differently this time. Each companionship rotated between being interviewed, to being trained by the zone leaders, to being trained by the assistants. It was pretty interesting.

Well, we have to go. Hope everything goes well.

I love you!

-Elder Brandon Wong

Something I wish I knew before my mission: how to cook and eat a pig's head.