Sunday I went to the coat rack after church and found that my long, black dress coat was gone. I thought, “What the heck?!? Somebody at church stole my coat!” I walked out to the car wondering what to do. Then I said a quick prayer that whoever took it would realize their mistake and return it to the rack. I was getting a little frantic all afternoon because it’s the only nice coat I have to wear with dresses and it would cost a lot to replace. Scott and I went back to the church at 5:00 and there it was on the rack. Yay! I was so grateful to have my coat back. Thanks to whoever returned it. It was a tender mercy.
Hogwarts Challenge ends
The Hogwarts Reading Challenge started 
March 8 2010 and finished up today. I have been updating my original post with each month’s books for Gryffindor House and it’s added up to a lot of reading this year.
I’ll be posting my total 2010 reading stats at the end of the month.
Oceanside pix from Brian
click on a photo to see them all in a gallery
November updates from Elder Brian
11-2-2010
Miercoles: Multi zone conference with Elder Zwick!! It was held in San Clemente, so we got to go on a little roadtrip and it was so fun! We had to leave pretty early in the morning, but it was fun. The conference started at nine, but we had to be there at 8. E. Zwick and his wife met every missionary personally. While he was meeting everyone, I played piano and it was like for 50 minutes. Long time. The conference was so good, and in the middle I played a special musical number, “I Stand All Amazed/Nearer My God to Thee”. It was really spiritual and it was one of my better arrangements I would have to say. Way spiritual conference, and I learned a ton.
11-9-2010
Viernes: Weekly planning as usual and then we went down to Samuel and taught him. After that we went around and did some stuff in Central but a lot fell through. Then we took the lonely bike trail back home and we think we were being prowled by a pack of coyotes.
Oh yeah to answer some questions. Elder Carey’s mission famous “Cinnamon Roll Sunday”. It really isn’t anything that special just every Sunday I make cinnamon rolls for my companions. I either make Rhodes Rolls or I just get the Pillsbury, it kind of depends on what I feel like. So the tradition is wake up and blast Mo Tab and then cook the cinnamon rolls and eat them. I have done it my whole mission and it is pretty famous now. In fact the other Elder’s that I live with have adopted it and we enjoy lots of cinnamon rolls.
11-16-2010
I AM GETTING TRANSFERRED!! Craziness, I was shocked when I found out. We found out Saturday night that both Elder Colby and I are being whitewashed out of the area. Even bigger news….I AM GONNA BE A ZONE LEADER!! What the heck. I feel like I just barely got here to Oceanside, and now I am leaving. Pretty sad really, especially right before the holidays and everything. But it is for the best. I have learned so much here in Oceanside and from all the experiences. I can definitely say that I have grown a lot as a missionary and I am ready for new and exciting challenges.
11-23-2010
Wow, this has been a whirlwind week. Alright so the results are…..I am in ESCONDIDO!!! AGAIN!! I am in the exact same ward I was in 3 months ago, but I am in a different area. Some new zones got created, and so my companion and I are both serving for the first time ever, as zone leaders in a spanish area. So that is super exciting. It was a shock when he said at transfers that I was going to the Escondido 3rd Ward again. Wow. Crazy.
Lunes: So we got up early in the morning and got ready to go to Zone Conference!! Yeah, the first week that we are zone leaders, and we have to get a zone conference together. We gave our training on inspired lesson plans and it pretty much rocked.
Wow, this has been a whirlwind week. Alright so the results are…..I am in ESCONDIDO!!! AGAIN!! I am in the exact same ward I was in 3 months ago, but I am in a different area. Some new zones got created, and so my companion and I are both serving for the first time ever, as zone leaders in a spanish area. So that is super exciting. It was a shock when he said at transfers that I was going to the Escondido 3rd Ward again. Wow. Crazy.
My love/hate relationship with technology
“I love technology”, as a famous movie character says, and we are usually pretty up to date with techy stuff here. But that poses its own problems for me. Scott recently purchased me a new laptop to replace my faulty old one, which is wonderful. However, I am not anywhere near figuring out all the cool stuff on Windows 7 that is available at the click of a mouse, and now I have a new Droid phone to figure out. This is not as easy as it seems, because it’s basically a small computer with its own operating system that differs from any large computer I’ve ever owned. We spent the evening going through tutorials and manuals and haven’t even scratched the surface, I’m afraid. I can call, text, and manage my contacts and email, which I feel is a great accomplishment at this point. But I want to do the awesome stuff without being frustrated. Of course, this applies to my computer and I’ve had that for a couple months. But honestly, how many lame tutorials can a person stomach in one day and remember any of it?
The up side of all this is that soon I’ll be doing cool stuff with both machines. The down side is that once I get them both figured out and am comfortable, there will be new technology to own and learn. It’s a vicious, worldwide conspiracy designed to make techies happy and normal people crazy.