Ebbert, Lawson

Whattup glorious machines, The Purity of the Machine Apparently I hit 6 months on the mission! And to celebrate, my mortal flesh has betrayed me, and I have been ravaged by all courses of disease, weakness, and affliction. Or, in other words: I've had a cough ever since I arrived in my new area. But it was a really bad cough guys I promise- No but actually my body has been going kinda crazy. I did have a pretty bad cough until I unlocked this technique of hacking up all the gunk that was in my throat, but I also have had some other fun conditions like: -Being super hot for no reason -Headache -Nausea -Back pain -Unable to think(?) So it's been awesome. About halfway through the week, I read the following scripture in Mosiah 27, 5: "Yea, and all their priests and teachers should labor with their own hands for their support, in all cases  save it were in sickness , or in much want; and doing these things, they did abound in the grace of God." And for a moment I thought,...

Whattup Nerf Herders, So a couple days before transfers, we get a call from President Rollings. He talks with Elder Medeiros alone for a while to call him as an LZ and get the juice on what should happen to everyone in our district, and then I get called into the room where it happens. " Elder Ebbert! If nothing changes between now and tomorrow night, this next transfer you will leave your area..." Not very surprising. What he failed to mention is that we were getting pinkwashed by 2 sets of sisters :( "... and in your new area, though on paper you are going to be a Junior Companion.. ." That's a little weird way to phrase it. I'm pretty sure the transfer boards are digital now, not on paper. "... you are going to be placed with a missionary who has more tenure on the mission, but who I believe could benefit from excitement and diligence in the work, so you will play a large part in leading the area ." The puzzle snaps together. A thought passes th...

Whattup Monarchs, How poetic that this week- the week I finally leave Embu and brave the world- is the one where we've officially reached the end of the Cradle advancements (at least those known as of the most recent book, Dreadgod). I'm going to have to find some other reference for my opening email salutations that 80% of my audience doesn't understand. I've decided that this week was the water week. Why? Well, water is a fantastic symbol because you can use it to mean just about anything. Power, force, destruction, tranquility, peace, healing, etc. Water as symbolism is a little like statistics: you can take the exact same information and support whatever argument you want using presentation and context. So what insightful theme have I assigned to this week that's connected to water? Well... it rained a lot. Rivers in the Desert Also I fasted 3 days this week. Which is like, a lack of water, so that's symbolism or something. Also not for three days in a row l...

Whattup Heralds, Inner Peace In the best Kung Fu Panda movie, Po learns about having peace in spite of- or perhaps in and because of- his trials. The climactic resolution of this lesson is when, after the entire Kung Fu squad has been decimated in their fight against the fascist peacock Shen and floats in the waters hopelessly awaiting their destruction, the resolute Po stands in defiance to Shen and finds true peace within his soul, unlocking the historically accurate Kung Fu technique of deflecting cannonballs and single-handedly obliterating Shen's entire fleet in one of the greatest scenes in cinema. It's in the very midst of what should be defeat and despair that Po finds peace and quite literally turns the tide against his foes.  That... doesn't make sense. Peace, by definition, cannot come from death, destruction, or dire struggle, right? That kind of peace defies logic. Dare I say that that kind of inner peace is a peace which is not given by the world, but which su...