Week 15, Homer, Alaska

My Salmon Brethren,

You know that scene in that one episode of "The Angry Beavers" where Daggett is jumping on the couch and jumps into the light on the ceiling, gets electrocuted, and then falls on the floor and says "That was nuts!"? That was pretty much my week. Sometimes I feel like my life is an episode of Angry Beavers. That's Alaska for you.

Tuesday wasn't the greatest. Nobody was home. And I mean that literally. Lots of doors, no people. Sad day.

Then Wednesday the party started. We helped Gwen (the witch lady) with some service and taught her a lesson about the importance of the Book of Mormon, which she has been reading. She is going on vacation for a little while now, so hopefully she reads it on her ferry ride to Bellingham. Then we stopped by a few more people and ended up running late to dinner, which was out all the way in Ninilchik, about 35-40 minutes away. So naturally we were speeding. While going 76 in a 55 we got flashed by a trooper as we crested a hill and got railed. He pulled us over (Elder Freestone is the designated driver) and gave us a ticket. Our ticket would have been $300, but because he was an awesome trooper he dropped it to $50. Then after dinner and a lesson with the bush people Jim and Leanna and there menagerie of goats we got pulled over again on the way home! Elder Freestone didn't see the speed limit sign and we got caught at 15 over the speed limit. He gave us the flashlight treatment and everything. He also dropped our ticket from $175 to $82, so I'm not about to complain. But I get to pay half the speeding tickets because that's how the mission rules work, but other than that it was hilarious. Elder Freestone was getting lit up. He was a cranky monster after that. He's the funniest guy in the world.

Friday the adventures continued. After a good day of working we got home and planned. Our bathroom had been seriously neglected in the cleaning process of our apartment, so I decided that I would clean the bathroom. We had some The Works which I used to clean the toilet and I got the sink with some scrubbing bubbles. Then Elder Freestone came in to help me with the shower. So I poured in a bunch of the works and started scrubbing, and to make it better he added some scrubbing bubbles and a good amount of bleach cleaner. Now, it says on the Works bottle in big letters DO NOT MIX WITH BLEACH, but we weren't in to reading things and we weren't paying attention. After about five seconds of scrubbing I noticed a horrible, noxious smell coming out of the tub so I went and turned on all the fans and opened the windows. We turned on the shower to rinse it out, but within five minutes our entire apartment was filled with chlorine gas. Turns out when you mix the Works with bleach it creates a chemical reaction that releases copious amounts of chlorine gas, which will kill you in high enough amounts, in to the air. After getting permission from our authorities we got out of the apartment and went and slept at a members house for the night. The Kirkpatricks were chill and let us crash on the couch. 

Then in the morning we ate lots of French toast. French toast is the best. After we did studies at their house, Hyram, the 17 year old son, asked if he could go with us for the day. So we took him with us all day long. It was pretty awesome. We ended up having a good day with a couple appointments and then we took him tracting and taught a lesson while tracting. It was a really good testimony building experience for him and for me. It's cool to watch the Gospel change a majorly insecure and slightly depressed young man to somebody who is happy. That's the purpose of the whole thing I suppose. Hyram has been debating whether to serve a mission or not, but I think he'll go. He wants to do it, so it will be fun to see what happens.

Sunday was also really good. After an interesting testimony meeting at church we again took Hyram out teaching with us. We talked with Billy about getting a new baptismal date, but she isn't ready yet because she won't be able to make it to church enough to have a close baptismal date. Then we talked with Bruce who has started reading the Book of Mormon again and is asking lots of questions and we actually get to teach him things. He likes it a lot, he's just not a fan of religion in general because he's seen to many hypocrites in his day. He also told us that Seattle stomped San Francisco at football, which always makes it a good day. After trying a few more people I ate the best fish tacos of my life, then went and made cinnamon rolls. They were so good I ate three of them this morning for breakfast. And yet I wonder why I have trouble losing weight.

That's pretty much been the week. It was a crazy one, but every week is pretty crazy when you're teaching the Gospel. If it wasn't nuts they wouldn't call it the best two years I guess. Hope you all have a great week this week, try not to gas yourselves like we did. But it gets you a free sleepover, so it's not all bad.

Love,

Elder John Miller