Overview of Fifth Area: Lebanon

My fifth and final area was Lebanon. I know how it's spelled but if you pronounce it like it's spelled you will be mocked. It is pronounced Leb-e-nen. I was here for 4 1/2 months (February 2007 - June 2007). We covered two wards here. The Pioneer ward which was in town, and the Snow Peak ward which was in the outer reaches of the area. We shared a car in this area; a 2006 Toyota Corolla we called Roxy. Our apartment had a wicked speed bump going into the lot. You had to be careful if you were sitting in the back seat. We played a little game at times where if you were in the back seat and you weren't paying attention the driver would go over the bump slowly with the front two wheels and then mash on it and slam the back wheels over the bump as quickly as possible. If you were in the back and not paying attention there was a 99% chance your head would slam into the roof and you'd deal with a headache and possibly a bump if it was solid enough (I never said it was a good game). If you knew what was going on you'd be smart and duck. The weeks we didn't have the car we'd work mostly in town. The weeks we had the car we'd plan on things in the ward out in the boonies.

This is the area I was introduced to Racquetball. I've never been much of a sports fan, but for some reason I find this game fun. We spent a lot of P-days playing Racquetball. I took a couple of classes in college after I got home. I think I've improved quite a bit since then.

My last transfer out I was made District Leader. I still can't figure out why I was made a DL right before I was going to go home. Maybe it gave me something else to focus on. I did have a little fun with it though. My last district meeting I made sure we sang "Ye Elder of Israel" purely for the joy of singing "Oh Lebanon, Oh Lebanon I bid thee farewell. I'm going to the mountains of Ephraim to dwell!" (of course I changed a few words to suit my needs) Since Ephraim was where I was going to college, I made sure to rub it in just a bit.

This is the only area I had more than two different companions. I had three, they were rotated every transfer. The first one was my "step son". I follow up trained him. He drove me crazy. The other two I got along with. This was the first area I was in where the zone had more than one district. It was also the first area I was in that actually rained a bit. It was west of the mountain range and I was there before summer officially hit so I did get to see a little bit of the rain that makes everything so green around there.

This area had a particularly steep road. It was several miles long and had the better part of around a 20% grade in places. I was determined to ride my bike down that sucker at least once. I did with my last companion and achieved a speed usually reserved for cars. My speedometer read pretty close to 65 at one point. 65 in a car and 65 on a bike are two completely separate things. You can wiggle the steering wheel on a car at 65 and not worry much about it. If you wiggle your handlebars on a bike at that speed you'll probably be eating rocks. One of the elders in our district did the same thing at about 35 on a dirt road and he had to go to the hospital and get staples in his head and a sling for his arm. He was wearing his helmet but the clip broke the first time he biffed it and and the helmet flew off. The rest was pretty painful.

I don't have many pictures from this area. I had a digital camera that I had been sending the memory cards home when they got full and my dad pulled everything off and would send them back. For the last six months of my mission I didn't send them home because I figured that I would just unload them when I got home. I pulled everything off when I got home and then forgot to back them up and formatted my computer. About 30 seconds into the process I remembered that I had just lost 6 months worth of pictures. What little I have are from a CD that one of my investigators burned for me that had stuff from my companion, and some video I had from my video camera. Lesson learned.

Overview of Fourth Area: Klamath Falls

For my fourth area I was shipped back to Klamath Falls and I was there for another 6 months (August 2006 - February 2007), which means I spent 10 1/2 months of my mission in Klamath Falls. This go around I was in the 3rd ward. It was the first area I was in that we didn't have a car so I put a good many miles on my bike here (as well as my shoes).

This side of Klamath didn't have as many hills as the other turf I was familiar with. It was pretty flat and our boarders extended to the outer reaches of the boonies of the east side of Klamath. I didn't have the lake (or the midgees that I'll mention in a forthcoming story). I did get the opportunity to check up on the first person that I taught and saw baptized though so that was cool, and I got to catch up with a few friends from the old stomping grounds as well as create new ones in the 3rd ward.

This was the first area that I was a "Dad". I helped train a new missionary who is known as your "Son". Rather than trainer and trainee that just worked out better I guess. My son wound up being my most favorite companion ever. We got along really well and enjoyed the work that we were involved in. We had some investigators that we grew really attached to. Things went really well with them until everything just fell apart. It's still a mystery what happened to them. There is a street not too far from where I live that has a name that is very close to one of their names and every time I see it it makes me wonder what happened. It's crazy to think that their little girl would be 10 now. She was only a few months when we first found them.

This area is where I had probably one of the worst days I've ever had on record. I'll go into the details on that in a later story. I've heard that we are given trials because Heavenly Father trusts us with them. There are days I wish he wouldn't trust me so dang much. I know I mentioned my little ER trip in the last overview. It's comparable to that little trip, but without the ER trip. It does end on with a rather amusing/scary fellow we ran into as the sun was going down that day.

Our apartment was probably one of the bigger apartments in the mission. We had some awesome green flowery couches that clashed wonderfully with the lovely pink shag carpet. We had a private little courtyard for a back yard. We even had a garage to stash our bikes in.

The missionaries in the area I was first in had moved out of the house because it had a mouse problem (apparently things got worse after I left the first time). My MTC companion ended up being there at one point and he mentioned they had caught somewhere in the neighborhood of 70+ rodents.

I went through a pile of bike tubes in this area. There was just something nasty that kept blowing holes in my tubes. I tried some solid "tires" that go where the tube goes underneath the tread. They were way to loose so I took them back. I wound up finding this plastic lining that you put between the tread and the tube. I haven't had a flat since. Well worth the investment. I even had to replace the tread too because I was starting to go bald and because I was thinking maybe something was in the tread itself that was blowing holes in my tubes. By the time I got home I had 1459 miles (give or take a few) on my bike. The beast still sits at my home today. I love that bike.