Day 3: Costa Rica

We helped teach 3-11 y/o classes.  My class had 2 kids about my age and 2 adults.  (Not including us.  HEEEYYYY BTW I HAVE TO TELL YOU SOMETHING!!!! Remember that Awesome Prank vid from the previous post? I used it this morning!! :D It worked way better than expected!!!
I got about 5 people!! IT WAS SOO HILARIOUS!! I asked people to open a Water Bottle, and BOOM!!! Nothing fatal, but pools of water all around. (And some wet clothes)  I'll post a vid later. (I wasn't able to videotape the actual prank). :(

g2g now bye

It's a party in San Jose! :D

I'm in Costa Rica now! It's pretty humid over here.  It's really hot during all times of the day, but it's a mild constant hot, not baking during noon and freezing during others.  One thing that sucks is that we have constant thunderstorms, so we can't swim. It's bright and sunny during the day, but in the afternoon it rains and lightnings. The lightning hits really often.  About every 10 minutes.

Food:  Really good. I had BBQ and mango milkshakes yesterday.  We had pizzas and cokes before too.  We're going to all the old places! :D

People: Overall good.  There's some unnerving people who are directly across from each other, and they (one room of boys one room of girls ) decided to make a game of ding-dong ditching each other.  -.-  Which meant running to the other door, pounding it, then running back and slamming your door.  Which was really annoying the manager, and that made me feel bad because the manager was really nice. This one girl liked to scream for some reason.  Indoors. Over and over.  This girl also enjoyed looking up generally inappropriate words and using them in spanish.  Also they kept saying "I see what you did there." I was like:

a


I'm trying a cool prank with a waterbottle! :d

 More later! :D

Update on stuff

My mom and sister bought a clear raider for 3 bucks! :D



I'm going on a mission trip to Costa Rica soon!


Our flight is at 1:30.


AM.

Just like last time. :-D




Meanwhile, I had a Court of Honor in my boy scout troop. Oh yea! I'm a Star Scout now!!! :DD  I can sign off requirements for Second class now!

Memoirs from Costa Rica

I'm going back to Costa Rica this summer for a mission trip, and so this post is probably 2 years overdue, BUT I DIDN'T HAVE A BLOG BACK THEN SO CUT ME SOME SLACK!!! Ok.  NM I dug out some picture for each day.   None of them are me though. 8 days.  Here we go!! WARNING long post.  Hey dude.  I spent all morning and noon on this.  Just read it.  :P  This was a mission trip.  I gave my testimony and spoke a bunch.




Day 0 1/2

We got on the plane at 11:30.  PM.

It was pretty nice from the view, but I got one of the bunk rooms up top.  There were slugs and ..... thingys crawling on the opened-for-a-month windows.
I adjusted my bed so that it wasn't touching the wall.  I slept pretty well that night.

WOAH WOAH WOOOOOAAHH First, I must tell you something else that happened.

The church we were helping was called Sindero De Luz which means Church of light.

The place was huge.  It was like a shopping mall. On the right, there was the main worship place.  There was a cafe, and a book thing.  Two stories.  NO NO You don't understand the intensity of this thing.  We could drive 3 vans in side by side without any trouble at all. (Assuming the building wasn't packed)There were chain links and gate type walls.  Wind blowing through it.  In the back of this big room, there was a trailer building.  Yes. A full sized trailer.  A BUILDING IN A BUILDING. There's also a basement with about 7 large rooms.

The coins over there are made of plastic.  Thicker than tupperware, but still plastic.  People dropped them a lot.  I found coins.  A lot.  I could have bought a caramel flavor eraser shaped candy thingy. About 300cents on my first day.  (Don't ask me how much that is)  I gave a 10cent to Tyler, who's older than me, but not too good at finding coins.

Have you ever made a decision that you knew would screw you up, but took it anyways?  We need a little history.  This isn't my first mission trip.  It's my first OVERSEAS trip.  I went to Mexico, and I told this really really good joke.  Then on this trip, my team leader, Shawn, asked me to do my Testimony in front of 200 pastors.  2 days before the trip.  I took the opportunity.  I'm glad I did it now. Though.  Unfortunately, it was 200 pastors AND FAMILY.   Like where Jesus feeds the 5000 MEN.  Meaning more women and children.  That doubled it to about 500 people.  This pic sums up the size of the room.  Actually, it's longer than this.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
screwed.

 You see, the church is trying to start a Kids Small Group thing, and we were there to help kick it off.

After a speech from MY church's children's pastor, he called me up.  I did pretty well .I had some experience with talking in front of people.  ARRRRGHNOOO  I made ONE slip.  I said "growth" instead of "spiritual growth" and everyone went "ho ho ho".  After I finished speaking, I got hi5s from my team mates and sat back down.   (that was short wasn't it)
We ate tortillas for lunch.

Day 2

We went to the church service.  In the afternoon, the church had a Orientation and Leaders training. 

Day 3

animals"  I was like:

DUDE we're not in NEW YORK.  Most kids here haven't seen mountains or pet animals, and communion isn't to taste and most kids don't know what communion is and and and and and...  I decided I would carry the poster up, then put it down and not use it. (HEEECK NO)  I had the momentary advantage of speaking rudimentary Spanish, and so I used a pre-thought improvisation.  (translated)
Let's say you're going to school.  You need to put on your shoes off the self.  What would you use? 
And this kid yelled Pie!! (meaning foot) and everyone cracked up.

We went to a school in the after noon and did testimonies.

The Pastor Giovanni played ping pong with Pastor Steve.

Day 4

This lady had a pet rabbit and two chickens.

We went to an  elementary school.  And they did this cool play.  We did a mini-church service, and prayed with the principal of the school.

One funny thing that happened was: when there was at the school, there was this girl and her older brother from my team, and this kid walked up to them and was like "Chino!! sn dja nkjn dkjsna Chino
Well, the only word I caught was tu, and chino
The kids were all excited about it, and one kid walked up to me and asked  
"eres chino"  Or something like that and suddenly, I remembered!  Chino means CHINESE OHHH YEAAA.  Then I calmly explained to them, in plain english, (JK)
that my grandparents were chinese but I was American. :-D
 
It was a bummer cause the government was improving the roads around that area. Unfortunately, they did all the road-ripping at once, THEN they moved to building new roads.  So we drove on dirt alot. BTW it's the rainey season :P
 Out van got stuck, and so we walked there.

Meanwhile, the next day, we went to

 Jaco. We crossed this bridge with a TON of crocs underneath. 

AAAAHH coool dude!1!

Also, sorry that the pictures and some text is in the picture, but my dad put a security thingy on them ,so you need a password if you're on a diffrent server (or something like that)
P.S If you're wondering why I don't post pictures of me during ministry, it's cause there are a lot of 'faces' in them. It's kind of funny that you were wondering because a similar thing happened to another team member.  This other kid's mom is fluent in spanish, and she was constantly working as a translator.  The only time she could take pictures was when our team was eating.  :P  So when she got back, her family and friends thought the only thing she did there was eat. :DDDDD

We celebrated Pastor Giovanni's birthday at Jaco.   We ate pizza!! yeaaaaa Costa Rica food isn't bad, it's just its uber healthy, and it isn't made out of fat(bacon), HFCS(pretty much everything we eat nowdays)  and it was time that we ate some vegetables.  (pizza) [that's a  joke]


ARGHH this took me so long to write so sorry of it sounds detached. :D This was two years ago BTW so it has more facts than emotions. (And because I'm a guy) I'm going again on Thurday. :D I updated my testimony and stuffs. :-) I kinda cut off the end. Sorry. :-) I'll make a V2 in a few weeks! :D

Recaptioned

Warning: Some blurred out bad words!

a

Things are looking pretty grim for my troop

:I use excessive meme faces in this post: :D

lol gif




So yesterday we had our troop elections.  We met at a marsh this time.  We wanted our meetings to be more enjoyable for the scouts. We had a short hike, and then we stopped at some benches and had our troop elections.  We elected our new Senior Patrol Leaders and Patrol Leaders.  Our new SPL is this pretty awesome guy.  He's a old DOC-er.  He was the PL when I joined the troop.  He's  medium height with light brown hair. He's one of those "cool" people.  Easygoing I think.  If you've read Ender's Game,  he's Rose de Nose.  (At least physically). He and Nose's description are similar. He isn't much for protocol or strict-ness.  :D He's cool though.  (And smarter)He promised more shooting-campouts, so I'm actually not that surprised he won. :D

Nailed it!

For Patrol Leaders.


DOC: Me!!! :D It was really an open and shut thing.

Everybody loves me! :D Well, and my opponent was the Experienced but Annoying guy I mentioned earlier.
Running around hitting people with monkey fists isn't a great campaign idea. :D

SOL: This cool dude.

He's a middle eastern guy.  He's half and half when it comes to participation.  He attends 3/4 of the meetings, but 1/9th of the campouts.  He isn't outgoing or shy. In the middle.  Great leadership skills though.

Ninja Cats: This was actually a tie.  Now, the PLs are supposed to be First Class or higher, but somehow a tenderfoot tied with a Star. I actually can't believe the Star Scout didn't sqash the newb, but most of the NJs are still squirell and are friends with mr. tenderfoot.

Tenderfoot

Star Scout

vs

You're thinking: So far so good right?
Well,  let me continue


Pandas: THis totally incompetent 2 years without earning any rank short curly haired guy.  He swears and makes inappropriate jokes in the few meetings he attends.He doesn't spend much time trying to learn or pick up skills or stuff. He's the kind of hide-behind-the-trailer-with-this-other-friend and make inappropriate jokes person.
The panda patrol is already really unruly and disorganized.  Their last PL did a pretty good job managing them. 





Falcons: Hummphh Another tie.  Although this one may be good for me. 
Both nominees haven't been in the troop for more than 2 months.  They don't have ANY rank. At all. Nada. Zilch. Uno.  Oh wait. Uno means one doesn't it.  The two older scouts who transferred into the Falcons to help lead pulled an sleeve-and-leave.  :D (Where they get a patch and then disappear until they get the leadership requirement signed off.) One of the canidates is that guy who keeps digging around in other patrol's gear.  DUde he was digging around in my clipboard for the campsite design. With out permission. He also was digging in someone else's backpack for a flashlight he could "borrow".  The other guy is this short ruddy guy who doesn't have any experience or responsibility. Yet. :-)  Last week he was stepping on tents for fun....

VS

However, it just came to me.  Remember little dude?  I can't get rid of him at all. No patrols wanted him either.  The patrol leaders wouldn't take'm. But now, two newb little dudes will rule the Falcons.  One of them is Little Dude's friend.Soooooo,  now that his friend is in charge of the Falcs, I can get him over there!!! :DD AWWW YEAAAAAAA!!!

I need 3 permissions

• Mine (leaving my patrol) (easy)
• His (Getting trasferred) (he already wants to)
• The other Patrol Leader (Accepting him. ) (the guy who steps on tents wants him, but I'm not sure about the other guy.)

Still a close call.

Meanwhile,  my mom invited Little Dude's family over for Sunday Night Small Group Bible Study thing. Yea. Big Dude, Little Dude, and their parents.  I don't mind their parents that much, but their mom buys everything little dude says. (metaphorically)

me

IM GONNA DIE

Oh  yea. They accepted the invite. They are coming....
Yea. More next time. :-)

 

BRACE YOURSELF

Whenever I pull out a pack of gum...

Shady Cove Camping trip!!

Hey guys.  I just got back from a camping trip.  It was supposed to be centered on fishing.  It wasn't bad.  My patrol had joined with another patrol.  I actually kinda like the other patrol.  My second favorite maybe.  There's 2 guys (other than me and wubz) in my patrol. Little Dude, and this experienced newb.  Well, he's still at "scout" (Cmplt noob) rank, but he's been in scouts for at least half a year.  TH and TN didn't go though.  bummer.  They rock.  In the SOL, (the other patrol) there was this awesome newb dude (New to the entire troop) and his sister (THEYRE HOMESCHOOLED TOO, and this other awesome pro boss really awesome experienced guy who helped me on the falcon campout

that guy in the middle

 He's so awesome that I wouldn't mind naming him, but that would attract more general identity.I had two guys who were kind of un-legit.  then I had a really hyper active guy.  he's not bad, but he isn't the most efficient guy either.  You know this kind of guy.  Wide eyes and a crazy grin. His lastname sounds like"hedgehog", so when I call him from far away, I use "HEDGEHOG", but when I talk to him, I call him by name. We were playing Mafia, and he kept calling "Top of the marnin to ya" and "I am doctur hobbenstien", so I started calling hin Doctor Hobbenstein.
It took 45 minutes to set up, but that was mainly because I wasn't used to working with these guys, and they had their families there too. Oh  yea. it was a family campout.  The troop didn't bring enough poles to build my massive 25 pole bunker, so I just built a swing and a flagstand.  The campsite was a road, and then steep hills going down.  So the scout campsite is on one side, and the family campsite is on the other. Basically we were separated by a 25 foot hill.  It was kind of good, because the scouts couldn't keep running to their parents for stuff.  I began transporting gear to our campsite, and setting up stuff.  I assigned tents already, and me and wubz got "the command tent", which was a 5-6 person tent with excessive space.  Little dude kept demanding that I put him in command tent. 

" just becas you can say no duznt mean that yew shod."
 And I was like Aww dude shut up please you've asked me this about 15 times and I have a patrol to run with 45 hours of sunlight left.

I went over to the family side of the hill, and ate dinner. (Because friday night dinner was with family)

When I came back, I did what I usually do.  I called "Someone fill me in!!!" 
The new guy's sister said "Everyone's calling your name" :D  And I said
"When things go wrong, people like to call my name." :DD lols.



THe new guy slept in my tent because we had an odd number of people.


The next morning, We ate cereal and went fishing.  I caught nothing, :-(
 DUDE THERE WERE THESE TWO HUGE BASS WHO DIDN"T BITE AT ALL WAHHHHH I SPENT THE  ENTIRE TIME TRYINMG TO GET THEM.  I tried alligator hooking a couple small ones too. :D

 I built a swing later.
Austin, our SPL and Bison built a shelter
A problem was that they used several small tarps, and so the walls didn't connect to the floor, creating a fine entrance for the hundreds of red ants swarming the place. :D

AHHH Have you ever heard someone "croon"? Well, they can.  Ah FEELL SOOO KLOSSSEEEE TO YOOOOUUU raght nowww!!! They sang it really badly. The only part I could think of was the chorus, and it got stuck in my head. The song acutally isn't bad.  

It's called Feel so Close. (no duhr)

 Anyways, We ate ham sandwiches for lunch. The other guys went boulder-climbing.  We also visited a fire a watchstation.
Then at night, we started a fire and played Mafia. 
 I narrated mostly.


At the campfire, we started telling riddles.  The new guy kept asking us  riddles from the Hobbit or the Jungle Book. "A box without key nor--"

"An egg."

 "What has no roots but---"

 "A mountain". 

"Alive without breath---"

"A fish."

"A red flower which--"

"Fire."

He had some pretty good ones too.

Anyways, overall, the DOC and the SOL worked pretty well together. 

Clean up was really funny.  Alot of SOLers left on Sat. night. We efficiently cooked our breakfast burritos, and began packing up.  Little Dude didn't help AT ALL. He mostly spent his time running around, bothering people, and poking the fire.  I told him to roll up his tent, which was the only tent still out. He said he didn't know how to, and his mom even took him seriously.  He was off screwing around and his mom called his tent buddy over.  THis was totally a bad call, since he was helping another scout clean up a shelter he built.He didn't really do anything, and was a basic deadweight on the troop.  He also left early and ditched everyone.

le mom



                                                      little dude

Another funny thing was this person's mom ask people to ask someone else to do something. (You catch that?)  Either because she felt she had no authority, or she wanted to seem nice. (She didn't really get much of either.)  She asked me to ask someone to stop kicking pinecones, she asked the new dude's sister to ask the new dude to not climb so high on some rocks, and she asked Big Dude to ask Little Dude to help cook. (Good luck with that)

But overall, cool campout.  I enjoyed meeting the new dude and wasting my morning at the lake. -.-  NTL, it was really fun there and I enjoyed working with the SOLs.  BTW I'll find new dude a name for the next campout. :-)