Wow! It's been more than three weeks since I posted anything! A lot has happened since my last post. I'll try to cover all of it here, and in the future I hope to post something at least once a week. If you don't see anything here again for a while, feel free to call me or send me an email.

Francias Ball passed away, for those of you who knew him, and I volunteered to help set up chairs, hand out bottles of water and clean up the gravesite for the various activities. More than 2,000 attended his memorial meeting, many testifying in tears about how Francias somehow helped them along by his simple manner of life and his powerful spirit. I didn't get the exact number of attendees, but it was impressive. I also attended the funeral two days later, and again, many were brought to tears over the memory of his cheerful smile and gentle shepherding. The last time he spoke to me he jokingly remarked "You're a man of God, Mark. Don't let anyone think your a woman of God." He may have been hinting at a haircut, but I still thought it was hilarious.

For the first few weeks I was working on the project here I was shuttled around in this vehicle (above). Your eyes do not decieve you. That is a 1968 VW Microbus. The experience of riding around town in that bad boy can only be described as awesome like no other car can be. Sadly about a week ago it broke the engine rod (whatever that means) and now the whole engine needs to be disassembled and rebuilt. That will take time, and until then, it sits forlornly in a corner of the parking lot next to the machine shed behind Building 8.

This is Enosh K. from Oklahoma City, OK. He came for the month following the Summer Training 2007, which I attended as well. At the end of my July third entry, four posts down, I talk about driving to this conference. Anyway, Enosh here is hot. I don't mean good looking, I mean he's got an electrical current running through him. He's actually sitting on the part of the sign that says 4,160 volts.

To tell the truth, he is sealing an underground breaker box with 4,160 volts running through it. We were about to pressure wash the ceiling over it and didn't want to see it blow up and put such a massively lethal current through the puddles on the ground. That box really did have 4,160 volts through it. Seriously. Not kidding. That's so much power it would be instant death to anyone that touched it. To put that in perspective, you would really feel the pain from a 6 volt car battery. 4,160 volts would be totally painless, but not in a good way. Fortunately, no one has been shocked badly yet. (I got a little jolt from an engine while checking the spark plugs on a forklift, but really it was only enough to startle me. You might even say it shocked me.)

We did a little work with an air compressor in building 7 (wich we don't talk about much since it will soon be parking lot 7) and in a short break I snuck into the other half of the building. It seems that it is still being used as a warehouse for books that were printed and shipped to LSM for later distribution. Mostly what I saw was hymnals, but I didn't really look closely. I also saw some bibles. Anyway, the rows and rows of books looked so impressive I had to take a picture, so here it is.

In hopefully the last chapter of my cellphone saga, my Motorola v600 died. Seriously, I'm more annoyed than sad. Totally fed up with saving by getting used phones, I went to pricegrabber.com and looked up prices on all new phones on Apple's list of devices compatible with iSync. I found an unlocked Motorola L6 new at tigerdirect.com for a very reasonable price. Here is a picture of it. You might see some similarities between it and the RAZR, which is natural. Also, if you know what a SLVR is, you will probably recognize this phone. The L7 was the first phone to carry the name SLVR. Mine, the L6, is basically the same phone. I'm sure the SLVR has some great improvements, including having a stripped-down version of iTunes, or so I hear, but this phone is just great. I have high hopes for this phone, since it is new, and I ended up getting a much better phone than what I had before, so I guess it worked out. I did have to spend a lot more money than I would have if I'd simply gotten a new phone to begin with, but that's the moral of the story: it's not worth it to try to save by getting an inferior prouduct. It's almost always better to spend a little more to get something that will last.

Some of you may have noticed this already, but there is now a digital camera on my wishlist. After much research I have chosen the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ7. It is a 7.2 megapixel camera with 6x zoom. My last camera was a Panasonic Lumix 3.3 megapixel camera, and it was a great camera. This new one has gotten some really good reviews, even when compared to some of the most popular cameras out there, like the Kodak A series. I can't afford it, but if I really save up my allowance I might be able to afford it eventually. Probably right before Panasonic releases a new model.