The One Where Brendan Prescribes Himself Glasses

I have to admit, for as much as I miss his dumb face, I so look forward to getting e-mails from Elder Wadley. Missionary Monday has become "what the crap has Brendan done this week?" reports.
The best part about this week? Surprise photos. I have taken a break from Facebook for a while, which is a whole 'nother story, and I miss seeing pictures that are posted on the mission group Facebook pages. I had another mom give me a heads up that there were some photos posted of Brendan. So I logged on, and went to the site. I was tagged in a couple of pictures, and I could not for the life of me, pick out my own son.

Honey Creek, Indiana District

Let us zoom in, shall we?

Oh. Well? There he is.

I just want to reiterate here (the title of this blog post was kind of a spoiler) but Brendan DOES NOT wear glasses. Never has. His vision is fine. His mental state however, is questionable.
You may remember this same crap-eating-grin from his senior pictures, where he wore pigtails. For the yearbook.

Is this the only time that he is truly happy?
When he is being naughty?
Extra prayers appreciated.
I asked him about those glasses in my e-mail to him. 
Here is his e-mail this week:

first off ive noticed youve been titling your emails like friends episodes also those glasses look dope on me so just calm down. this week has been really good we had two people at church this week one being ronnie and another being a man named tim hes this old dude hes cool we had a kid in the ward come home from serving his mission this week he was a nerd his whole family are kind of nerds but tim, our investigator talked about that kid he said" what the crap was wrong with him one moment hes crying the next hes talking quiet then hes talking loud" it was super funny watching our investigator try to process a missionary homecoming other then a normal week here

As you can see, there is still no filter here, and the glasses aren't adding to his intelligence.
Bless him, I just love him so much.
This was another picture that was posted to the group Facebook page. It might be my favorite. Elder Wadley straight off the airplane. (Far left.)

 I think I actually see the potential of a powerful missionary in his (perfect vision) eyes.

When You See Yourself in Your Kids

E-mail writing is progressing with Elder Wadley. I got a full paragraph again!
The kids started back to school this week and I have to remind my two Elders of the joy they should feel now that they never have to attend public school again!
Seems like when my kids hit their senior year, it was a real struggle for them to find the energy to scrape themselves off of the mattress.
This was one of my guilty pleasures when both of my boys went on their missions. Someone else was prying them out of bed! Or maybe the MTC/CCM peer pressure made them set an alarm or something. Don't know. Don't care. I just know it wasn't me on "angry-human-alarm-clock" duty stomping down to the basement room.
Even as a grown adult, it is a weird feeling to have Back to School time come, and not be obligated. I still enjoy not participating in that first shockingly early first day. I send the kids off and I go back to bed.
Because I can. It's tradition.
I guess genetically, we don't do mornings well.

Here is Elder Wadley's e-mail this week:

This week was kinda lame we had a zone meeting and to be honest high school wasn't terrible but it kinda was idk um we didn't really do anything fun this week i guess it was lame weeks all around ha ha our teaching pool is good we have three people on date right now two of them are really solid i think we are going to try and put two more on date tomorrow um we had a lesson with Ronnie the other day and it seems like hes being able to retain more information we think it might be a  spiritual gift ill send you some pictures too

You recall Ronnie was the investigator that is an addict. They are making progress with him, it seems.
He is starting an addiction recovery program this week.
Here are the photos Elder Wadley sent along with this commentary:

the first one is a blister about the size of a half dollar the second is ill let you guess and the third is a man at the hospital who wheeled himself out to smoke

Terre Haute, Indiana

They pass this hospital when they go to church, and Brendan saw this- and took the picture. At times you see yourself in your kids- this can be a good thing, or a humbling thing.
This last photo is totally something I would have taken. The irony of a man receiving treatment in a hospital, but wheeling his vital medical crap outside to have a smoke is not lost on me.
Before I got too proud of myself and him for inheriting my excellent sense of slightly irreverent humor- he shared this scripture with me:
(1Timothy 2:11-14)

 11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

I was going to send him a package, but I am re-thinking that now.
I think I will take his advice and just be silent on the mail front.

Rain, Chicken Nuggets, and She Bears

Elder Brendan must have gotten my not-so-subtle hints about his e-mail writing abilities. This week I got more than a sentence, and it was even sort-of informational. This kid does rock at sending photos. I got several and even a small video clip of the rain situation currently drowning them in Honey Creek.
Here is his e-mail this week, and a little back and forth between he and I.

this week has been good imma try and write a better email this week i got packages this week so thats sick thank you we have three investigators on date one is named Ronnie hes a great dude he is kind of unaccountable though so thats fun he told us how he used to do cocaine and hes been stabbed also he walked from indy to ohio once anyways hes great hes super funny also i bought a chess board this week ive beat elder eschler 8 times and hes beat me twice so thats dope also its totally been raining for three days straight now like hard rain too is been super cool

More than a sentence! This is improvement, right?

Any of the music I sent working out for you? :/ the last package thing had a super special cd it's the RM soundtrack and it is lame Mormon rock

um so i forgot to mention that when i got out here i bought a flash drive so im good on music that being said it was pretty decent music!! did you get the pics?

Yes! That rain is crazy! What do you guys do when it's that rainy? Are you stuck home? And was that Elder Darrington with you?

yeah thats darrington um we still go out and tract we just get wet

Elder Darrington, Elder Wadley the Drenched

Why in the crap did you fill out that credit card app? What did you get? Something free?

no lets just move past that we weren't thinking it was dumb did you get pictures

Don't you change the subject! Yes I got photos. What did they give you to sign up for that credit card?

You are a disappointment to the whole beehive state. I can't believe you did that!

it was dumb we didnt know it was for credit cards though and eschlers card got used:(

You idiots. 

What are you eating these days? Any member dinner appts?

Are you cooking?

weve been mostly cooking chicken nuggets but we have 3 dinners this week also i shared a message on 2nd kings 2:23-24 last week for a dinner message

I need to pause here. When these boys are invited over to a member or a non-member's house for a dinner invitation, they are instructed to share an uplifting spiritual message with the family that is hosting them. This is what he is talking about. This is the message from 2 Kings he chose to share with some unsuspecting family.

 23 ¶And he went up from thence unto Beth-el: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

 24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

He said he had another message prepared for a dinner appointment he has scheduled this week. It is in 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35.

 34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

 35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

So here are these kind people in Indiana, who take Elder Wadley into their homes to nourish him physically with food from their table, and share their family time with him and his companion, and in return they are supposed to be fed spiritually?

With this.

Maybe he can just buy them some nice jewelry with his new credit card.

Storm rolling in, Honey Creek, Indiana

More of the storm clouds.

A three day downpour.

No caption. I am assuming this is the street he lives on or something.

Sunset over Terre Haute.

Elder Darrington, and Elder Wadley. It looks like someone did the dishes. Weird.

An Idiot in Indiana (Bless His Heart.)

Brendan has his p-day (preparation day) on Mondays. Most missionaries do, when they finally arrive in the location of their assigned mission.
So why then, do I not post on his blog Monday afternoon, or even on Tuesday?
I will tell you why.
Because it takes me a few days to scrape together all the information he randomly sends out.
For instance, I wrote Elder Wadley a nice long e-mail this week.
This was the e-mail I got back.
Keep in mind, I AM THE MOTHER.

hey this week was really cool we got two people on date for baptism and we had interviews with president also i went on an adventure that was super fun!

That was it. Now internets, I am not an expert at reading between the lines, but it seems to me like there was plenty here for him to actually write home about.
Let's break this down, shall we?
"two people on date for baptism..."
This means he has been teaching some investigators who committed to being baptized. This is pretty exciting stuff!
 Then there is the matter of "interviews with president" (his mission president) and "an adventure that was super fun."

Three solid things here.

So I caught him online, and tried to pry some more information out of him.
Internets- this is like mining for diamonds. But not diamonds exactly, it is like mining for carrots or potatoes. He should be just telling me these things, it should be common-place, but I have to work really hard to get a full accounting of his week.
Like I should be able to somehow put this on a resume if I ever need a job.
Here is our back and forth, him in blue and me in red (since I am kind of bugged) and really, they should probably have a class in the Missionary Training Center on "How to Write Your Mother." If they already have this class, please don't tell me because clearly this class was a failure to a certain Elder in Indy.

Are you going to tell me more??

more of what?

You can't just say "we have two baptisms lined up and I had an adventure" you owe it to me to sit down for a couple of minutes and recap. Pretend you are writing your own blog post.

we have two investigators lined up for baptism as of right now one is for Sept 24 the other Oct 1 the adventure is we went to this abandon building called the icon building and we explored in it i found a pretty dope Christmas ornament in it it says happy birthday Jesus so that's cool 

Please tell me you took pictures? Did you teach any of the lessons for these investigators?

i did teach lessons for both of them will send pics in a second maybe

Then he did send pictures. Here they are:

"What are these photos?" you might ask. Well, let's get back to our online dialog, shall we?

And maybe some more detail about anything you've been doing. I mailed a package. Did you get it yet? How was your interview with your president?

we mostly tract um also we did three service projects (OH MY HECK MORE STUFF HE COULD WRITE ABOUT) in one day havent got the package interviews were good

What are these pictures of?

terre haute we climbed onto a roof and i took pics other then that i havent taken many pictures

What is that building though? Do you know?

Are you supposed to be climbing on roofs?

ummmmm im not sure if were suppose to but we did

Internets! Do you see what is happening here? We have missionaries climbing on rooftops at night, exploring abandoned buildings and possible identity theft (more on that later) but I guess I was getting a tad frustrated, and ready to book a flight to Indiana and beat him with a Book of Mormon. I got after him a little.

It's the Vigo county courthouse. I had to google. 

You do remember that a lot of people are interested in what you are doing week to week. I am not wanting to be critical- but your emails need to be more of a story instead of one sentence that I have to drag out of you. I need you to take a little bit of time and tell me what you have done for the week. I know it's a pain, but we want to know. I look so forward to Mondays to hear from you, and it hurts my feelings that you don't tell me anything. :(

i dont know what to say about my week what would you like to know its boring stuff all we do is walk around all day this email thing goes two ways you tell me about your week too

AAAARGHHHHHH!!!! So, if anyone else out there is e-mailing this kid, and he throws you any bones, please give me a head's up.

Later this week, I got a brief call from Fishers, Indiana on my phone. They left a message, but it was just silence. I laughed a little, and thought that maybe Brendan had butt-dialed my cell phone. I told Sam about it, and he said he got the same phone call?
Then it was weird. So Sam called the number back, and it was the mission home.
The sweet secretary informed Sam that there was a "problem."
Sam's first thought was "Crap! Already?"
Then she proceeded to tell us that several Elders went to the local mall, and I guess gave out some personal information to a data mining kiosk where they got some free crap to fill out a credit card application. Several of the Elders were involved, and she wanted to let all of the parents know to watch their accounts back home in case of identity theft.
Sam thanked her and hung up.
I assured Sam that Brendan was pretty street smart and would have probably given a fake name, etc, if he even participated in this at all, which I doubted he would.
This morning I got a credit card in the mail in Brendan's name.

Apparently he now has a $6000.00 credit line in a jewelry store in Indiana.

The "Corn Sweats", and dreaming in English

Brendan is a hard nut to crack.
His e-mails seem to be pretty positive and upbeat, but it is a tiny bit hard to separate out the sarcasm. I will let you judge for yourself. I get more info from him when we e-mail chat back and forth, so it looks like until he gets the hang of the traditional missionary "weekly re-cap" type of e-mails, I will just copy and paste the weird stuff he does send us.
This is going to be an entertaining two years, I can guarantee.
Elder Wadley was assigned to his first area, Honey Creek. Officially the town his is living in is called Terre Haute, Indiana. When I google mapped the place, it looks like he is on the edge of a city, butted up against some farmlands. His first companion and trainer is Elder Eschler. I have done some internet sleuthing and can't find Elder Eschler on social media or a blog. I don't know much about him, other than I love him for helping my boy adjust to everything new.

Elder Wadley, Elder Eschler

Here is Elder Wadley's email from last week, and then I will follow that up with his e-mail this week. I missed posting last week- it has been crazy times around here.
His letters are a little back and forth as I ask him questions. I am not correcting, or adding punctuation. I feel like this adds to the flavor and adventure of translating his emails. Or something.

this place is seriously so fun i cant even explain it also got my bike haven't used it yet  i met sis anderson the mission secretary, she's super nice um we do a lot of tracting and I'm usually dripping sweat cause its so bloody hot here its great!

We have taught at least 10000000 people already we get food almost every day also it is currently p day and i love my trainer, Elder Eschler.

I haven't been to the temple yet but hey just btw in the mtc the last Sunday we were there elder bednar totes came and we saw him so that was insanely cool also i don't need really anything right also i have frogs now i think you know that though its super crazy here its totally bible belt country here and there's this thing we like to call "hoosiering" here its where people will talk for about an hour without letting you say anything its a really pleasant experience.

Elder Wadley catching frogs at the goat farm they went to for a service day.

I am going to pause here to add a Facebook comment from this photo posted by a high school friend of mine who is currently living in Indiana.
"It has been so unbearably hot and humid in Indiana this week. They call it a "corn sweat". It's when all the moisture produced by the corn fields gets caught in the atmosphere and the air becomes heavy and sticky. Hopefully it will cool off soon and make life more bearable for our missionaries.
Don't worry moms...we'll take good care of your boys for you!!!"
So sweet of her to explain that. It sounds kinda miserable. But Utah has been pretty rough too- it is just a hot year it seems.
Back to Elder Wadley's e-mail:

This p-day we went to the foster farms its this national champion goat farmer who has the missionary's over every saturday she really nice and makes good food cause everything is farm fresh its super good

my comp is super cool i love him the area is awesome don't let dad get too excited but a couple we helped move in the other day had a house that was built in 1909 so metal detect that!!  its not really that hot here its like a 100 degrees most days with 80 percent humidity it pretty awful hah The good new is that my english is good i actually had my first dream in english the other night so i think that is some kind of language milestone. haha love the president and wife both super nice people some pretty cool things have happened and last but not least im sleeping good

So there you have it. His English is great, and he has frogs for pets. :/
Here is our back and forth this week:

my week was super cool its was really rainy and stuff we got pretty soaked one day um we helped the fosters again also met a university of utah fan in our ward so that was cool  my comp is super cool we gave a blessing to a dude in the hospital. we have a couple investigators we had to drop one cause he answered the door smoking a joint had a bong on his table and needles on his table as well

Oh no. Why would you drop him? :/ How did the blessing go? 

it was good he was a drug addict as well

Tell me about the blessing? Who asked you to do it? Was the person a member? What was wrong with them? Did you give the blessing?

its this man named dean and hes a drug addict and has like 4 diseases in his heart and keeps going to the hospital so he asked for a blessing idk it went well i think i anointed elder Eschler blessed-its cool that people who aren't active still know that the priesthood is real and ask for blessings

ummm so we went to a park yesterday and i started talking to people because they were metal detecting and ended up talking to them for like an hour and half it was cool also ate at a members house yesterday and that had inca kola hahah 

So I guess that was the wrap-up of his first couple of weeks, if you can follow his random babbling. I did get some photos though. I just need to get him to organize his thoughts a little. Haha!
I do miss him like crazy.
This past week I have been thinking about how inspired the missionary program of the church is. Elder Jayden and Elder Brendan are brothers but so different. Elder Jayden is a little more serious in personality than Elder Brendan is. The people of Colombia are not used to sarcasm, and American humor.  Elder Brendan would look like a weirdo in Colombia. But- the people of Indiana must need someone who is quick-witted and slightly "off" because that is who they got.

Elder Fonohema, Elder Wadley, at the Provo Temple, during his MTC training

The Indianapolis, Indiana mission home.

His apartment in his first area, Terre Haute, Indiana

His MTC district, the new arrivals to Indianapolis, July 2016

Elder Wadley with President and Sister Carlson

I am happy that he is happy.
I am getting ready to send him a package full of laundry stuff. He said laundry is super expensive. He does it at a laundromat and thinks it is ridiculous to pay $1.50 a load! It makes my mama heart happy to see him learning that life is expensive, and to learn to budget. A few Tide pods and some dryer sheets might stretch his budget a little further.
There are so many perks to this mission thing.
Deeper appreciation for blessings, thinking of others before yourself, and insane amounts of testimony growth.
One month down.
23 to go.