Officer School Phase-I ends and surgery begins

This past frigid cold and snowy weekend I completed my last 3 day OCS (Officer Candidate School) drill here in Utah. We complete three of these drills once a month prior to shipping off to a full time duty training station. For Guard OCs around the country it will be in Ft. McClellan, AL. Here's a very cool video not made by me that shows a bit of what it's like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tDeP_snKUI

As you can see the first portion is not very fun. It includes alot of yelling, pushups and other exhausting excercises while they yell in your face for not making the correct decision after they taught you what it was or if you fail to make a decision at all. Believe me, failing to make a decision is worse than making the wrong one! The phase we just completed here in Utah totals 1 week long and it's called Phase-0. In Alabama we complete Phase 1-3 in steps, assuming we graduate to the higher step. This will be my second time around starting Phase-1. If you'll recall I shipped out for Phase-I this past June but had to drop due to a painfully nagging knee injury. I came back to Utah and limped through Phase-0 all over again (yep you have to start from the very beginning if you drop! BUMMER.).

KNEE SURGERY
And so Monday morning after my last OCS drill in Utah I was in the Tooele hospital to have my knee scoped by my orthopedic doctor. This surgery was my last resort as x-rays, physical therapy and MRIs have proved to show nothing of what is bothering my knee. I can walk just fine most of the time but once the knee is stressed or pushed beyong normal people limits: running long distances, carrying heavy loads or going up and down hills or stairs, it starts to really hurt. And since in OCS you RUN EVERYWHERE, there was just no way I could complete the course with my knee the way it is. Or should I say was, at least I hope. We'll see in a week when the swelling goes down and I can take my bandage off and the stitches are out and it heals up.

So there I was in a gown and a huge IV in my arm and getting briefed on the gurney they had me on. The anesthesiologist briefed us on how he'd put me under and monitor me. Needless to say LaShawn was freaking out. Didn't help we had watched a show the night before about people waking up during an operation still under paralysis of the drugs but though not able to move can feel everything. I wasn't worried.

The next thing I remember is the anthesiologist saying I'll give you some feel good medicine and then we'll put you under with some gas and other stuff. Well I remember him injecting the feel good/relaxer med into me and I'm awake feeling groggy. 15mins later I can see straight and LaShawn is there. My knee starts pounding a little bit; you know, the feeling you start to get right before flaring pain comes. So they asked if I wanted some pain med. I said yes thinking I'd get an ibuprofin. Nope, they gave me a Lortab. That was a mistake. That combined with coming out of surgery made my whole day a gross nightmare.

As soon as I got home I felt sick to my stomache and head. I hate the whole naseau thing but even worse when your head feels worse than your stomache. Maybe they're hand in hand? Anyhow, I tried to drink water to quell my stomache but it didn't work. I eventually vomited up the crackers, cranberry juice and water they gave me with the Lortab. I felt better but not well so I laid down. Later in the day I decided to get up and hobble to Wal-Mart. Big mistake. My head starts to spin as soon as I get out of the car and I'm feeling queasy. I wait in line for 5 mins hoping to get out and to the bathroom. It wasn't too be as such because I told the lady I had to go to the bathroom and she said she was almost done. When I told her I had to throw up she didn't say anything else. I made it into the bathroom but not before upchucking into my hand and trying to hold it in my mouth and hand. Finally I got to a stall and let loose. I barfed until I was dry heaving. At least I felt better and I cleaned up, returned to the counter and then left for home where LaShawn cared for me with chicken soup broth and ramen noodles the rest of the night.

One good bonus of this is my insomnia has taken a vacation and I've been able to sleep very well and deeply. Is it the 4-5 hours of sleep while at OCS or the amnesia or whole experience? Who knows, who cares? I'm sleeping and I'm feeling well. Oh and what was found in my knee? Doc found a bunch of loose tissue and cartilage which he cleaned up. Unfortunately it revealed a crack in my cartilage of the knee. This can only be cured through not running, lots of chondritin and glucosamine and luck. So I'm trying to do just that. OCS full time is coming up which I will have to get through and I think I can. After that I think regular running for fun is out of the question for at least six months as I try to get my cartilage to heal up, a hefty task.

James' first time in the water

Here are the pictures that go along with the email he sent to Niecie.

He is growing so much as a young man while serving the Lord, it is truly remarkable and humbling! all those beatings were worth it, mom!!!


Here's James baptizing a member of a family in South Africa.

Here's a family that James (on the right) and his companion Elder Thole (next to him on the left, i believe) are also baptizing :)

I think the kids are adorable, especially the cute little potbellied girl on the left.

Just to think about how sweet these kids probably are (and probably have no idea of what it means to be baptized if they're all 8 and above) and how much having the Lord in their lives will bless them... it's so humbling!!

God is good!


James has also had the opportunity to do baby blessings in the church down there. He and his companion blessed about 5 babies, according to one of his last emails. Babies are usually blessed within their first month of birth - or the first Sunday of the month, whichever comes first.


The first Sunday of the month is when the Church, as an organization, fasts and donates the money that would have gone to buy the food, to those in need as what's called a fast offering. It's also a time for us to focus our thoughts on the Lord and attempt to be like Jesus when he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. Some times, entire wards (local congregations based on location and zoning) will fast and pray for a specific member at the request of the leadership in the congregation.

Christmas in South Africa

Since I haven't paid for internet in my apartment this month (yet), I didn't get a chance to write James...but here's what he wrote me.

Pretty busy week. We actually did our Christmas celebration on Saturday since we were all met together for zone conference anyway. They did some pretty crazy things. We played games watched ‘over the hedge’ exchanged gifts, and of course had a lot of food. I’ll get to call home on Christmas day and it’ll be about 6 o’clock your time. Turns out we’ll actually be working that day. We’ll see what they say. I also hit another milestone on Sunday when my companion and I had a few baptisms and this time I got in the water! If the computers here decide to not be so retarded I’ll post some pictures. One man was waiting baptism for a while and was calling himself a member even a month before his baptism. He was like a little kid when he saw the font filled. The electricity got turned off in our house on Thursday and we thought it was just because of the storm, but it turns out that our landlord hasn’t paid the rights to his land in a while and our power has been out for 4 days and our food’s spoiled and nobody wants to take responsibility and we’re hungry, there’s no food, we can’t shower, we stink, we can’t cut our hair and….it sucks! Fortunately our weekend was worth it. I’ll let ya’ll know about Christmas.

write back woman, and logan's holding auditions f

It just ended there. I have no idea what happened lol.

Memorable Quotes from Mom

For those of you who aren't regular witnesses to the wisdom of Dianne's pop culture, german culture, health culture, diversity culture, any culture knowledge... allow us to enlighten you with some of our favorites.

Around Thanksgiving, 2007
"that's RIGHT. he was puff daddy, then p. diddy, and now he's kanye west."
yes, exactly mom... he just up and morphed into kanye.

There are more quotes on the way, i just have to find them. :)

Update from James

Okay, so without too much detail, when missionaries are in the field, they stay in the same country/region for 2 years but not the same city. There are "transfers" just about every 6 weeks. A missionary may not move every 6 six weeks, but they are usually not in a city much longer than a few months at a time.

Here's the update as "Transfer time" came to James' side of the neighborhood. He's been in Queenstown since he arrived in SoAf.


Okay, girls...........here's the latest from Elder Deep Voice...............he's moving to Nelson Mandela's home town.
he's gotta pack today.........................
mommy----------

Forwarded message ----------
From: James Jones <jjonessoaf@myldsmail.net>
Date: Nov 12, 2007 2:39 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Hello Elder Deep Voice!
To: mcadams7@gmail.com

I got the packages last week mom! Thanks alot! I'll keep you posted if there's anything in particular. Forward this one to the girls cuz I'm out of time right now.

well then, this week wasn't horribly eventful. My companion and I were a little slower this week seeing as how we were certain that this was going to be his last week in queenstown. We didn't find a whole lot of new investigators neither did we teach a lot of lessons. We ran into some nice people and people just did not stop feeding us this week. Everyone including myself, was certain it was going to be Elder Mayall's last week serving in Queenstown so they all wanted to feed him one last time before he left. Lo and behold though, fate dealt us a cruel blow when transfer news came around and it turns out that Elder Mayall was staying in Queenstown. What's more, nobody in my zone was leaving the area except for one elder...yeah. It looks I'm going to Mthatha, the birthplace of Nelson 'the man' Mandella. I'm a little crushed as I feel like I'm leaving a lot of loose ends in queenstown and I know that the mission president has plans for that place, but at the same time I know he's got plans for Mthatha. My new companion's a guy named Elder Thole from Zambia. He's a really good man and I'm looking forward to working with him. Otherwise things are pretty chill in queenstown. Now everyone is trying to feed me before I go today and I still gotta pack and all that mess. This will be intresting.

One Last Time

One Last Time
According to the submitter: "The night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of 'Cat,' and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. 'I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it,' she said. 'I think that's what he would have wanted.'"

Send a card to a soldier!

As a U.S. Army soldier I find it heart warming to receive thanks for citizens. With that I submit to you this forward from my loving, thoughtful and now round bellied wife! Take a second to send a card to a soldier serving through link below.

This is wonderful Please share with your friends and family!
SOMETHING COOL THAT XEROX IS DOING

If you go to this web site,

www.LetsSayThanks.com

You can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print
It and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving
In Iraq . You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to
Some member of the armed services.

How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone
We know to send one!!! This is a great site. Please send
A card. It is FREE and it only takes a second.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch
Of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our
Guys and gals over there need to know we are behind them...

Thank ya, Jesus!

No, really.

I go to the mailbox today and what is in there? A big fat check of $1900, which is my entire tuition for fall semester. I find a letter in there that says "Congratulations on your academic excellence!" I was like "!!!!!!!" and called Mom. Turns out my family needed the money right about now, so this was an answer to a prayer. Oh, the perks a good education and impeccable study habits can give you and those around you. Needless to say, I'm very happy that I finally got a scholarship after trying so hard to get one and I'm happy I could help my family out. Woot!

James' Mailing Address & Email

James' Email address: jjonessoaf@myldsmail.net

James has "Preparation Day" (p-day) on Mondays. so if you write him before Sunday/Monday stateside, he will get it and usually write back.

We are thinking that our Sunday nights are his Monday mornings... so the earlier you can write him, the better!

His mailing address:
South Africa Cape Town Mission
Elder James Jones
P.O. Box 181
Observatory 7935
Republic of South Africa

Parable of the Itching Booty

Some snippets from James's latest email.

Parable of the itching booty:
There was an certain elder who bore an booty itch that was grievous to him. He said unto himself “This itch causes me exceedingly great pain, However I know that this kind goeth not out but by much scrubbing for I have toiled all day and it must needs be that my booty become soiled because of this. Therefore I shall scrub that this itch may depart from me for it grieveth me that it should remain.” So he took himself into his shower and did unto himself that which he had decided to do. And it came to pass that when he had departed from his shower he was exceedingly wroth with anger for the itch had stayed itself upon his bum. He said unto himself, “Mayhap, my scrubbing was not with all my might that I shall cause the itch to depart.” So he went unto his shower and did unto himself in the like manner notwithstanding his lack of triumph upon the first attempt. And it came to pass that he was even more wroth with anger for the itch had stayed itself upon his bum a second time. And he hath said unto himself “What more could I have done for my bum than that which must undoubtedly cause the itch to move?”

This was a rather powerful week. Yesterday we found a powerful family to teach. They took notes and asked good questions. I’m looking forward to seeing them again and hope I can do everything in my power to help them receive the restored gospel. I’m seeing more miracles, but I’m struggling to expect them. I’m trying to become more of a missionary that can expect miracles because he is exactly what he’s supposed to be. I’m working pretty hard to help people and things move along, but I won’t get carried away in wonderful ideas of all our investigators taking on the first covenant. Right now I can’t really remember a lot about what’s happened this week. I should’ve brought my journal with me for this kind of junk, but it’s probably not as eventful as what’s happened yesterday. I’ll let ya’ll know for next week.Church is true. Watta Tah. Sappa Tah Tow.

Write him letters! :)

James is in South Africa

On August 1, 2007 we took James to the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah.

Unfortunately, my camera was stolen the next week, before I was able to download the pictures from that day - so unless it miraculously shows up anytime soon, you'll just have to live with verbal renditions.

He received his call in March 2007 - the date escapes me - and was to report to the Cape Town, South Africa mission on August 2, 2007. We were to ship him out via airplane on July 31st for his international flight and he was going to train at the MTC in Johannesburg.

We ran into some bumps in the road due to the Feds not granting letters or visas or something as quickly as they usually do so he was going to go to Provo instead of Johannesburg to wait for his FBI Clearance letter.

I took the afternoon off of work to go with mom and James to the MTC and see him off. We took pictures all the way. Some on her camera - whose battery lost charge, and then some on mine - which got lost/stolen the week after.

It was a beautiful day and we had a wonderful time being there with James.

Here is the latest picture we have of Mr. GQ out in Africa. We'll post some of his letters and pictures again throughout the duration of his mission (approximately 2 years).

He is doing well and loving being out there with the people. It's been a beautiful experience for us all.

We will keep you posted. Say some prayers that some kind soul found my camera and has the decency to turn it in.... 2 months later =(

The Joneses in the house

This is LaShawn... blogger extraordinnaire... signing in to let you know that the Jiz-ones famili-yay is now in the Blogging universe.

From mom's updates (and/or tirades) to James' mission letters, to Nishy's college experiences, Jette's high school experiences and Morgan's jr. high experiences, it's all here.

As well as whatever else we deem fit for sharing.

Love you all!
LaShawn

p.s.
Next up.... updates from Umdala Jones (Elder Jones) in Queenstown, South Africa!