Hurricane Irene: ETA Sunday.

This is a video from a musical group I discovered here in the mission.  The Moleni Brothers, raised in Tonga, New Zealand, and America, are all members of our church, having served missions.  They're actually fairly incredible.  They have the sound right, and can do a capella just as well, if not better, than rap.  (Just in case anyone was thinking of getting me Christmas gifts, this album, Always There is pretty good.  Moosebutter is good too.)

I just thought I'd send up a little plug here and say a few words.

This has been quite a month.  We've had three severe thunder-and-lightning storms, a mild earthquake, and sometime from here to Sunday, Hurricane Irene is supposed to make landfall.  It's a bit scary.  Well, really scary.  All around, people seem to be going about their lives.  I predict mass rushes to the grocery stores to buy some last needed supplies sometime soon. 

Doing some research indicates that Hurricane Irene is a category three hurricane, with wind speeds of around 114 miles per hour.  It's currently moving at around 14 miles per mile north towards us.  By the time it reaches us on Sunday, it should have calmed down to about 100 mile per hour wind-speeds.  (I mean, as calm as 100 MPH winds can be.)  Church will probably be canceled.  If it were not, I'm still not sure I'd risk the two miles to the church.  Google indicates that it will most likely pass right over us.  The Weather channel plots us as in the extreme danger zone.

Wow.  Assuming none of this kills us, I'll have a heck of a story for when I get home.  So far as I see it, we have a win-win-win situation here.  Option A) The storm misses us.  I like this option.  Option B)  Hurricane Irene hits us, and none of us is hurt.  Even if we lose a few material possessions, I think this is a good option.  We get the story, and afterwards we're able to find some new people to teach while we help clean up.  I'll finally be able to wear the yellow Mormon Helping Hands jersey.  Option C)  Hurricane Irene hits, and we die.  Hopefully it won't happen;  I'd like to go home and not traumatize my family, if at all possible.  Buuuut, if it were to happen, I think I'd be alright with it.  After all, chilling with God in Heaven is not the worst way for things to work out.

I love you all.  Stay safe.

Now, I need to hard-boil a few eggs in case the gas fails.  Hard-boiled eggs and Monopoly ought to last us through the storm.

Are you a good witch? Or a bad witch?

This is a section from one of my favorite webcomics, entitled Slightly Damned.  The main character, Rhea, (She's the brown fuzzy thing with big ears.) has just died.  Death, the red guy with fire coming out of his head, is explaining something.  Her sins were more than her good, so she can't go to heaven.  However, she truly isn't worthy of hell.  So where does she go?

In the webcomic, she goes to a place called The Ring of the Slightly Damned, just on the outskirts of hell, thus the name of the webcomic. 

However, in life it's a lot simpler.  If a person does not accept Christ as his savior, no matter how much good he does, he cannot go to the highest kingdom of Glory.  It is through the atonement of Christ that we are made clean.  We need to have faith in him, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end.  If we do these things, we will be made clean, and go to where God lives.

(Should you choose to check out SD, go to http://www.sdamned.com/.  Don't worry, the art improves later on.)