December 26, 2022 THE HOPEFULLY NOT SO BORING ADVENTURES OF ELDER WILLIAMSON CHAPTER X

have you ever tried gatorade? for all of you that haven't, it's basically some drink that was made for the florida tampa bay hockey team, because they were loosing too many fluids when when would get jabbed and sliced by the other teams skates.. sooo some scientists started doing some research, and they noticed that alligators and gorillas were both very good at retaining fluids.. sooo naturally that meant that if we were to stEal their fluids then we would be able to inherit this trait vicariously through them.. sooo they started mixing different variations of their blood and.. ummm.. other fluids.. and finally they found the perfect ratio of alligator to gorrila.. they named it "gatorilla" (sUperrr creative ik ik, but they were science majors (cuz they're scientists) what do you expect?).. later it was changed to "gator-ape" for better marketing.. soon the new product started taking off, and they were "humanly extracting" more and more from both alligators and gorillas.. buttt then suddenly sOmehow gorillas became extinct in florida, sooo they needed to change their formula, and they renamed the resulting resuled result.. "gatorade".. ok so obviously none of that is true, but that is just an example of how bOred i am whenever everyone goes to take a nap during lunchtime.. this week alone i have played no less than 2,746,388.8 games of solitare, and it's only friday right now.. i have bought 3 decks of cards because that's how into solitare i am now.. thAt's how boring it is.. i've become someone who plays sOliTaRe! i now respond to eVery email i get, and i found a thingy in gmail where you can "schedule send" a message so i spend my extra time that i'm not playing solitare responding to every email ever.. no it's not really that boring, it's just more fun to write these if they're a lot more dramatic.. anyways the rEason i was talking about gatorade, is because i have actually been drinking a tOn.. my trip to the hospital last time was pretty fun ngl, but i think it's one of those one time things yk? like it wouldn't really be so fun aGain, so i've been trying to stay hydrated to avoid more headaches.. the easiest way to do thAt, is gatorade, because it has the electrolytes and sugar and stuff to help keep away headaches.. buttt i was drinking a bittt too much i think, because whenever i would go without it i wOuld start to get a bit of a headache (sOundsss like an addiction) sooo i've been winging myself off of it, and i'm still gonna have a little every day for the electrolytes, but maybe like make one bottle last 2 or 3 days, instead of drinking 2 or 3 bottles every day.. other than that, it was elder macdonalds' birthday, so we got him a pretty funny cake from the second councilor in our ward, who makes.. basically troll cakes (troll as in annoy in a unusually funny way) sorry luke and other old people who don't understand the way i talk.. but that day was pretty fun, my comp dressed up as santa.. sort of.. cuz my grandma wanted a picture of me with santa, and there aren't a ton of santas here that i'Ve seen at least.. other than that tho, not much has happened this week.. so far.. you miGhhht get a relatively shortish email this week.. bUttt i doubt that will happen, as chaotic as my life is, sOmething interesting will happen i'm sure... welll on christmas eve (they just call it the 24th here) we had to be home by 7:30? because of all of the drinking and stuff it's not super safe to be out very late, buttt i guess we got special permission or something? so we were out till like 8:30.. buttt basically we went to like 3 or 4 lessons, and then we went to the store i bought myself my own christmas presents with money people have apparently given me.. i actually have no idea how much is on my card, or in my account at any time, i just pull out money and hope it works.. buttt anyways after going to the store, we got to eat dinner with our favorite family in the ward, the mateos.. they had some pretty good food, probably the best i've had from dominicans so far, but they made us eat sOoo much.. and in that family they eat apples for their christmas desert.. and they don't even have a reason, they just kinda do.. and then we played a little bit of dominoes, which dominicans just lOve to play, i still don't think i understand exActly the rules, but i won 2/3 games for my team (one of them sorrrta on accident, but it still counts).. and then we left because of our new curfew, and we had a couple other people to visit.. we ended up getting tOns more food, which is nice, but i'm hoping we don't have leftovers that go bad, cuz one of the days elder macdonald made a tOn of rice, and then left it out over night.. and then dAys later it started smelling pretty bad, and then we put it in the trash but didn't take it out.. annnyways long story short yesterday there were maggots in our house.. if you don't know what a maggot is.. uhhhh sorry idk either sooo.. but they're basically just slimy worm thingys that look like they came from a half rotten corpse.. aLso when we're walking around in the day, there are a lot of.. "forward" dominican girls/women.. i could start a segment called "pick up lines" or "cat calls" or something, but none of them should be repeated.. i'll just stick with.. i have a lOt of wives now (that's what my comp calls them, like we'll see one and he'll be like "oh look there's your second wife").. ofc i never understand what they're saying till someone explains it for me afterwards, buttt sUper weird.. i need to learn how to say "sorry, you can't have my visa" but i haven't figured out how yet.. also on christmas eve, we kept hearing really loud bangs like gunshots, and my comp and i went down to the road (to get one of our many meals that someone was delivering to us) and we saw some kids with fireworks? that's what i thOught they were at first, but after watching them for a couple minutes, i found out they were actually just putting gunpowder (or another explosive powder) into a series of attached cans (a can-non haha get it? hilarrrious ik) and then they would use a match to light the back of the cans, and it would basically just shoot a blank, which was pretty loud.. they were also drinking wine, which probably isn't a super good combination, but it's not much worse than what a lotta americans do for the 4th of july, sooo ig it's ok.. after that we just played card games in the house, annnd thennn christmas!! okkkk! christmas was actually a lOt better than i thought it was gonna be.. we woke up, and then had a solid couple hours of sitting around and being depressed, and then we went to church, and then after that, we just had the day as kiNda a Pday basically.. we got to watch the grinch! which was super rare, first movie i've watched on the mission, buttt it was on the approved google drive of things we can watch which was so sick! and then we went to a members house and had a family home evening, and then went back to the house and called my family, and then i taught everyone how to play texas holdem, and we played with the dominican peso coins we have.. it was a little sad ig, it's definitely different, but it was still really good.. idk it's hard to explain, but hEre because they celebrate christmas so differently, and there's no snow or anything, so it didn't exactly fEel a ton like christmas.. but it was still a really fun day.. that'sss probably it for this week, a little boring i'm sure, but still ridiculously long somehow.. buttt love you guys, have a good week! john 3:16-17 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. christmas is a wonderful time that we have to remember and focus on christ, but it's important that we don't let our minds drift to less important things once the christmas season starts to pass.. focusing on jesus christ continually throughout the year will help us keep that christmas spirit and joy to be with us always! 🎄