Snow Patrol - Chocolate

16 pennies

Wednesday's.

Good, long days in service. Good, long, productive days in service.

I have not written a short story in a long while. Nor has anyone else on the Gaiden's blog done so either. Yet, recently, so many ideas for stories have entered my mind. I ought to take them out of my head and write them but I haven't yet. Short stories are so great, though. Telling a story in a few words.

Soccer - is - great. I've played hockey, basketball, baseball, golf (bla!) and football. Soccer is the only one I can play every week and not get tired of. And playing with brothers only makes it better. Got to keep their competitive inclinations at bay, though. Still, I always feel so good out on the field. 4 days until next game. But who is counting? :)

Snow Patrol. Hard Rock Live. March 20th. I can't wait!

Dear friends: You all rock! I love you all. Just thought I'd say that.


Float on...

I backed my car into a cop car the other day
Well he just drove off sometimes life's okay
I ran my mouth off a bit too much
Oh, what did I say?
Well you just laughed it off it was all okay!

Circuit Assembly

Goodbye Switzerland

Italy

Last week we traveled to Italy for 5 days. Below are some pictures and video from Venice, Pisa, Tuscany, and Milan.


Venice, Italy

Click here for some video I recorded in Venice.

Venice, Italy (can anyone say bird flu?)

Click here for another video.

Tuscany (and the evil cat that stalks it),Pisa and Milan, Italy

A film is 50% visual, 50% sound.

New Short Film

My new short film is titled "In an Instant." It is a crime-suspense drama. Please share your thoughts. Enjoy!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH
Length: 5 minutes

Elizabeth

Thank you so much to everyone that has visited Elizabeth while she is in the hospital!

It is hard being over-seas while she is ill, but we know she is being taken good care of. Everything should be figured out soon.

Thanks again! *BIG HUG TO YOU ALL*

Fahren um Deutschland

It's been a few weeks. Been busy, in and out, up and down, left and right, over and under, through and around... (I can't think of any others)

There was a freestyle sport competition in Zurich September 22-24. My dad and I went on the last day for the finals. It is Europes equivalent of the X-Games. Freeski, skateboard, Moto-X, and best of all, snowboarding. I compiled the video I recorded of the snowboard finals. Watch it here!

I had a slow start to the service month because of getting settled and all, so I had a big push the last week of September. I went out every day. I started a study with a young African refugee from Tanzania. He is so appreciative of the Bible and for help in understanding it. The last few weeks, though, he has been depressed. There was a voting not long ago on immigration policy and he may be exported from the country, along with hundreds of others. He had left Tanzania because of political oppression so he cannot be sent back there, so he has to figure out where to go. He is going to have to start his whole life over, he said. My mother and I were able to give him some scriptural encouragement and it seemed to cheer him up a bit. I heard that many refugees actually burn there passports and other documents once they reach Switzerland so they cannot be sent back. I also just started a study with two young Hindu men who have never read the Bible, but are eager to study it.

Such horrible things going on in the world today. These school shootings are so unbelievable, three in one week. Five young Amish girls age 6-13 bound and shot. It must be terrifying for every parent to send their child to school every day, knowing how random this all is.

We are in Germany right now. My Oma (grandma) flew over here to see the places she was born and grew up. So we have been driving all over Germany through her life. It's pretty fascinating. She was born and raised during the time of WWII, in Germany. If you can imagine what that would be like. At a young age she left the town she was living in with family friends to get away from danger. The next day that town was bombed and leveled, killing her aunt as she was running from her store to a shelter. At a youth shelter near the end of the war, she was sleeping one night when released Polish prisoners who obtained rifles broke into the shelter to steal food and supplies out of desperation. She had the gunmans flashlight right on her and still kept her composure. "There is an American guard down the hall," she said in German to try and scare the man. She escaped without harm. She is a brave one. Amazing resilience.

Some of you are off to West Virginia for unassigned territory today. Have a great week! Drive safely. To everyone: I miss you all very much! I enjoy reading all of your comments and posts. To the Gaidens crew: The stories are looking fantastic! A new one seems to roll out every few days; it's awesome. I better get writing!

Tschuess!

The Swiss Alps

On the Precipice: Part II is complete. It is posted on the Gaidens blog. Enjoy!

Part I - Part II

"Diese gute Botschaft vom Königreich"

Welcome to the new service year everyone! The congregation is so warm and encouraging over here, just as you all are. I promised to tell about the congregation and how the ministry works over here, so here I go.

The English congregation has around 80 publishers, 3 regular pioneers, and 1 regular auxiliary pioneer. There are 6 Gilead graduates. The territory covers all of Zurich and the city outskirts. The territory is worked by searching for English names in the city directory or by going from apartment building to apartment building looking at the names on the door buzzers. Our congregation also looks for Indian and African names, as many of them speak English in the city. The territory is worked over once every 2-3 years, so many people have moved in and out in that time, so the search continues. Many times we are unable to find English speaking ones after a few hours of service, so we do street work. We listen for English and look for African people, as they all mostly speak English here. Also, there is only one meeting for service a week, Saturdays at 9:30 am. To go out during the weekdays we set up oppointments for service with whomever is going out, setting date, time, and place to meet near the territory.

Friday I worked in territory and street work with a pioneer sister named Jane, who moved here with her husband from Africa. We found one English speaking man home. We talked with him for a few minutes and read a few scriptures, but in the end he was not interested. But hey, we did find someone who spoke English!

Saturday I met the field service group. I worked with a 16 year old brother named Jason. He has a sister and the nicest family. We are in their bookstudy. He is really outgoing and likes to talk alot, which is nice. He is the only young brother in the Hall, so he informed me I must stay in Zurich longer then 2 months! We had a good time in service. We did street work for 2 hours, and talked the whole time as we were on the lookout for ones to speak to. We were talking when two English speaking girls walked right by us. We didn't even realize they spoke Enlgish until about 5 seconds after they passed us, then we looked at eachother, realizing we missed them. We were going to turn around and run after them, but we realized it may look strange if two guys were running after two girls, plus the polizei were driving by at that moment. So we just scolded ourselves for not paying better attention, lol. But, a few minutes later we approached an African man who spoke English (yay!) and talked with him for a moment. It turned out that he already was being contacted by a witness. We saw some French brothers doing street work, too, and greeted them. Jason is a cool kid. He loves soccer, and ping pong. So we have a ping pong match after bookstudy at his house.

Monday I met a pioneer sister named July (pronounced Yu-ly) on the outskirts of the city in the residential areas. It was a short train ride out there. I went on a Bible study with her. She is studying with a mother in the Bible Teach book, but on this study we studied in the Great Teacher book in the chapters on death, because her young children had been asking her about death recently and she wanted to know how to talk to them. The grandfather sat in on the study too, which was great, except when he started helping us teach. It was pretty funny, but he was actually very knowledgable of the Bible. The mother kept on saying to the grandfather after he spoke, "I want her (July) to teach me!" It was pretty funny. He was a nice older man though. Great study, too. July told me she even came to the memorial this year.

There are so many Bible studies that come to the meetings, it is so encouraging to see! There are so many great experiences to hear from the brothers and sisters of return visits, Bible studies and experiences from missionary work. My mom and I were invited to a regular pioneer meeting this Friday so we are going to that this week. The ministry is great here, a great experience to see how the preaching work is done in other parts of the world, and in foreign language territories.

I started working on part II of my story On the Precipice. Read part I first by clicking here. Below is a link to a short video I took of our street as I was walking home from service on Monday. Also, some more pictures. Gute Nacht!


VIDEO CLIP


Lake Zurich




































The SMART car. A Mini could beat it in any race, but not in a park in in this six foot long parking space contest! It is practical...















But not powerful! Muahaha!

Leben auf Magnolienstrasse

Long flight. I slept, read, and listened to my iPod. The reading lights on the plane were broken, they would randomly flicker on and off. Everyone thought they were bumping the switch on the arm rest, or that they were going crazy. I think the people were going crazy. Muahaha! Jk... So they finally shut them all off.

I don't think I really realize I am here yet, it's a strange feeling. I'm sure in a week or so I will feel settled and I'll say "hey, I'm a thousand miles from home!" I love it here so far though, but miss all of you.

Zurich is a beautiful city. We can walk anywhere we need to get, or take the tram. Went to my first meeting tonight. The congregation is so warm. All the accents are so neat to listen to. Field service is alot different over here. I am going out on Saturday, so I will tell more about it later. I haven't taken any pictures of the city yet, but here are a few of our apartment and Kingdom Hall.


German, English, Tamil, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and Yugoslavian congregations.





































A few pics of our apartment in the city. My room on the bottom.

Deliverance At Hand!

I think the finish line's a good place we could start

At the end of a good, long week of service, there is nothing I look forward to more than soccer on Sunday with my friends!

I am moving to Zurich, Switzerland for 2 months. My dad's job wanted him in Europe for some time so my mom and I are going to live with him there so he is not alone. My parents are already over there, so I fly over alone on the 28th of this month, the morning after the convention. I am excited about living there, it will be a great experience. I put in my regular pioneer application a short while ago, so I will be starting off the service year over there, which I am excited to start. My dad found the English congregation in the city for us.

I will miss all of you!

Mercury

Venus

Earth

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn

Uranus

Neptune



It may happen.

Your glare is killing me

Long weekend. But a good one. Soccer was great! We played at a new field up by Mike Vergara's house. It is bigger and better. Note to self: bring more water next time.

I can't wait for the convention! Just a few more weeks.

My electric guitar amp was delivered today. It is super portable and has a great sound for its size. $7 on eBay. No joke. Just because it had a little scratch on the top and some guy used it a few times. Mechanically, it is fine. To my sister in the next room behind the paper-thin walls of our house, not fine. I should crank it up at midnight. Then I'll end up sleeping in the garage. Haha!

Michael Piercy and I worked at the SCC booth today from 8 to 1:30. It was great. 2 people came up. Placed 3 books with one guy and 1 book and 1 magazine with the other guy. And we got to read a bunch of scriptures to them and talk for a few minutes. Woohoo!

Eric came over to hang out after. Played ping pong, guitar, basketball, pool, skydived, basejumped, extreme rock climbed, bear hunted, alligator restled then we got bored of all that and went shark diving.

A big grouped helped put the convention address labels on the convention invitations at the Campbell's home. We did 7,200 invitations! Now we got to go place them all.

My sister got this CD of a singer who was on tour with Jack Johnson named Matt Costa. I am learning the song Astair on the guitar.

Below are some photographs from Ryan Clohesy's graduation party.