Malagasy McCrary's Madagascar Mission Malcontent Murmurings - Mild Mormon Movie Malarkey Madness, or My Moronic Malfeasance Museum, or More Marvelous Moments Maintain My Malevolent Mirth, or part 4

This week a certain Reed Bernhisel prayed that she would be afflicted by less selfies on my blog, and lo her prayers were answered in the form of a massive zit cozying up next to my schnozz. 

jk, there is nothing that could reduce the amount of selfies on this blog. 

NOTHING.

Embedded videos make their triumphant return to the blog, here to caress your ears with dulcet tones and glisten in the reflection of your corneas. Simultaneously! Mostly in the form of me being a "boolly" (as Gagarin says) to Elder Cyusa.

Cyusa gives you all the scoop on Rwanda and my finger brings shame upon my house forever

music video for David Archuleta's "Glorious," a song the church made the  mistake of putting on LDS.org so now missionaries are listening to it 24/7 just to get some semblance of pop music

when missionaries feel rebellious sometimes instead of quieting down at 10:15 and studying their scriptures they push two footstools together and play a facsimile of "spikeball", something that im pretty sure is only a game within the Utah state boundaries. 

the big news this week is that my room-ate Elder Turley had to go home this week. this is the last known picture of him. his knee just didnt heal fast enough for them to send him out to the field, so he'll continue to recover at home before flying to lithuania. on the bright side, he'll have been learning the language for 12+ weeks before he gets there, so he should be one of the most fluent ever 1st week missionaries. Turleys a tough guy, spiritually and physically, and he took it all super and says he's excited to show his mom (who is very opposed to the church and signs her letters to him "i wish you were at princeton") how much the mission has changed him. I was sad to see him go, even if we did have to get up at 4:00 friggin AM to send him off. 

its really hard having him gone, so to fill the space in Elder Cyusa, Heiden and my lives i fashioned this crude Turley out of scrap. it doesnt help.

but sometimes, it even feels like...

He's here

got around to deco-rating my room, here is my wall of inspirations. Jerry Seinfeld is the second most influential Jewish leader here.

Cyusa loves taking pictures like this. i dont understand it but i cant argue with the results. BYU bakery bagels are fantastic and the only safe breakfast option around here. yes Cyusa drinks coke for breakfast

i think this picture says something. it says dont wear red while you have massive zits, paleface.

the Indonesians are leaving this week, thats going to be the hardest goodbye yet, theyre all hilarious.i have soft spot for Jasperson though, if you look at this picture long enough youll see him

some idiot fell asleep in class. have sympathy for him, he probably woke up at 4:00 friggin AM to send a dear friend off. probably even carried his bags for him. what nice guy.

Paparazzi snapped a pic of Cyusa and me right after our jacket-swapping scandal

The Stick of Judah and the Stick of Jesse

shall be one in MY hand

For some reason it took Sister Pullicar 3 tries to get this picture down

i guess i havent told you about our sisters, theyre are both very inspiring in thier hard work and the power of their testimonies. Sister Pullicar is from Idaho and is actually learning Malaysian, which is so similar to Indonesian its pretty much a dialect but for political reasons is considered a different language. Shes the only one going to Malaysia of the current batch. She has a mean set of pipes on her so we mostly keep quiet and let her sing most of the hymns cause no one else in our tiny ward is musically inclined. Sister Baricante is from the Philippines and hates beards. her full time job seems to be reminding Elder Heiden to shave, but its to no avail. Heiden is just too dang suave that its physically impossible for him to have a shadow any earlier than 5 o'clock. She misses having rice every meal but never gets some from the rice section of the cafeteria? still havent figured that out. 

dANGIT pULLICAR

we're thinking about forming the worst kind of rock group, christian

Another run in with an old friend, this time from Powell Ohio (its around Columbus). Caeden Brower is 18 and going to Scotland, didnt get a chance to ask if hes miresaka ny teny anglisay or learning some foreign language. Caeden got one of the best smiles ive ever seen and it comes easily to his face, great sense of humor, very friendly. He'll do great at chatting people up. Beyond that Caeden the most intimidatingly big guy to ever be really mediocre at arm wrestling (not that I ever beat him) and invented his own technique of beatboxing he calls breathboxing that sounds like a hyperventilating chihuahua but also somehow cool and pleasant . One time at some church event they asked us to film ourselves talking about our experience there and we did ours in a rapping/breathboxing format. I never forgave them for not putting that on the DVD. 

shades polarized to see through the Heavenly Light

Malagasy McCrary's Madagascar Mission Malcontent Murmurings - PikaCyusa I Cyusa cyUsa

At the MTC its impossible to tell time because every day is the same as the last, language study and gospel study, in varying ratios depending on how much of the Sabbath it is that day. if its Sunday, flavor is added with extra church meetings. because of this, this week was much like the last. so in order to SpiceTM things up (Spice trademark of the Spice Girls) our guest photographer for this week is Elder Emery Cyusa of Rwanda, who just so happens to be my companion. 

(Captions are below pictures)

Cyusa took this the first night we were here, immediately establishing his dynamic visual stylings even as we undressed. i swear this is a shot out of Resevoir Dogs.

the thing behind us is a lava-lava like the Polynesians wear, but Malagasies don't call it that. also theirs are more decorative as you can see how detailed that one is. the text on it is french, not Malagasy, because this one was made with the intent to be sold to white tourists. i like this picture cause i was going for an 80's look.

the fabled Armenians. i say fabled cause i always thought Armenia was just the country country Petra from Enders Game was from, not an actual place. From left to right, Elders Neilson, Galorath, Ahlstrohm, Kay, Cyusa, and Jowers.  Neilson's full name is Mohonri Joseph Smith Neilson which is... unfortunate. And while his name may scream my parents want me to serve a mission his personality thankfully did not. Very outgoing guy, very funny. infamous for giving hugs that broke ribs. Ahlstrohm broke his collarbone playing soccer and was sent home to recover. He's still called though, so hes still doing missionary work and serving back home. didn't even flinch when it happened either, hes a super strong guy. he'll probably be in Armenian within three months.

 for someone with millimeter long locks, cyusa sure does brush his hair everyday. he also went to go get it cut, then took this dope pic

 you have all only seen ugly picture version of Elder Heiden, Cyusa somehow stole a shot of Heiden in his natural sensuality

Cyusa summons an eternal maelstrom to wash away the unbelievers

Galorath and Heiden look on

Cyusa fulfills his dream of being an air traffic controller. actually hes working with a language learning program TALL. its jingle is the only secular music i get to listen to, and i take the opportunity to every day. *tall*TAAAAAAAA-AAAAALLL*tall* 

i love the aesthetic of korean written over a picture of Jesus and i keep this pamphlet with me always

picture taken seconds before Cyusa made it rain Ariarys. the floor was littered with almost .73 USD. i took my clothes off anyways.

Sam Raimi's original Spider-Man trilogy is a cinematic masterpiece

The purple pair pops a squat

pop a squat is a great phrase and i will use it no matter how vaguely relevant it is

gagarin's look here is on point

Poppin a squat with my whole zone. 

JASPER_THE_FRIENDLY_GHOST.jpg

Gagarin posing for his wikipedia picture once he's president

all in all id rate Elder Cyusa's photography skills as:

As for me, i noticed that the word of wisdom pamphlets all have different models based on language (diggin' the Koreans' matching track suits and the Malagasies' capris)

the ol' recursive camera trick

Met my ol' RgAy at the provo temple! you can see he's growing his hair out for his Jimmy Neutron Halloween costume. or was it Donkey Kong? His name is Steven Fluckiger. Yes, it really is. We bonded over our shared blonde feyness. Steven's a deep thinker and knows more about pregnancy and delivering children than anyone majoring history ought to. He has a way of laughing that sounds like hes hyperventilating and an unyielding faith in the gospel (of Gwen Stefani).

Demonic possession is a constant threat at the MTC

as is THIS

Elder Turley sullies this beaut with his headsweat every night. the kid holding it has a bad face and a nice sweater.

Malagasy.jpg

Elder Baize (21, from Hawaii going to Indonesia) and I found out that our grandmothers both live in Canton Michigan and are Best BFF Friends Forever. This has deepened our friendship to the point where 420 Baize It let me see his chest hair (nice!)

i will hang dental floss around my neck in order to have the skinniest tie at the MTC

   

Almost forgot, I don't have any pictures of it but i met an awesome guy this week. Elder Carlos A. Godoy, of the Quorum of the 70 came and spoke to us on Sunday and it was fantastic. he also just talked at this most recent general conference which was also very good, made me go reread my patriarchal blessing. He was one of the first people to ever give a General Conference talk in Portuguese, i believe. He didn't seem very confident in his English speaking ability here but he still gave far and away the best devotional i (or my branch president) I've heard here. So chew on that, native English speaking general authorities. also made me much more inspired to study Malagasy, knowing i can still reach people even without a perfect grasp of the language. 

Other than that, take note of my new cyberspace address and meatspace address at the top of my blog. Mail is my only real contact with the outside world and i love getting it, so if you have any inclination at all please message me or write a letter. i can guarantee ill respond, there is little else I do for fun.

Cyusa and I were both looking for so much more in this world

but then we found each other

Pretentious Landscape Shots or PLS, as in pls stop doing these

He departs