Home visit.

I just heard the news about Granpa Tom this morning.
Rob, the team leader, told me as I was getting up. So he and I talked to Lt. Marrs and they've arranged for me to fly home and then return to the ship with the next rotation of people.

So I have quite a mix of feelings going on right about now. Excitement for another trip and the chance to visit, Sadness for Grumpa, Happiness for grumpa, I'm sure he's havin a good time :) Sadness because I won't be able to help out here in Dominican Republic, I'll get back just as they're packing up to move on to Antigua... So yeah!

Sunday School

This is a proof of how awesome and wonderful the spirit is.
So all this week I've been trying to find enough time to sit down and prepare my Gospel Doctrine, Book of Mormon class. Alas I never did find more than 20 minutes of such time. So I had the very start of a brief lesson planned and as I was packing up my books to go to the chapel and teach the lesson I realised that maybe the Gospel Docrine manual isn't where I'm supposed to be teaching from! So I pulled out my Preach My Gospel and tada! scriptures started popping out all over the pages. So we had a very spirit-filled/guided lesson and I got many thanks for it :)
And also we had a non-member visitor that brother McCreary brought along to learn some of what we do, and because of the non-preparedness of the lesson we were able to incorporate his questions! Awesome!

Picture finally!

So I finally found a picture of me in my Tooth suit!
Somebody took a picture and put it on the sharedrive that all the computers on the ship are liked to except for the ones that I can use, of course.
So I had somebody find it and email it to me :)

That thing in my hand is an uber big cardboard toothbrush. Most of the bristles are brown so you can't really see them in this picture. This was at the General Hospital University place, the best school in the country pretty much. You see that fan on the wall? That's their A/C, heh. And it was turned off most of the time. Fun stuff :)

Minor Frustrations

So yesterday I went ashore as The Tooth! it was pretty great :) and hot too. But today, Jenna was going to go instead of me so she could get a chance to go ashore, cause she works in the Library and they don't have much use for Librarians on land... But! CDR Drayton forget to change her Manifest from yesterday so I was on it instead of Jenna, so they called my name over the loudspeaker this morning at 0530 and Galmiche woke me up with a strong french accent. And I still missed the boat, so today there is no Tooth!
And Jenna was way bummed last night. So I'm going to see if she can swap me out for tomorrow and do the third day. And then tomorrow they're looking for people to help out with a ceremony thing and hand over supplies that the church has donated. So I won't be without something to do all day!
So it's all a good plan to me! Lets see if the Navy follows along.

PS.
CDR = Commander
Manifest = the list of people going ashore
Galmiche = A French-army guy that I work with

Stories of the day

So! today we are in Port Au Prince, Haiti.
there is alot of garbage in the water, we're 3 miles off shore because the water is shallow, so they drive boats and Helos (helicopters) to the land!
there is alot of trash in the water... we were hanging out on the "fan tail"- the deck on the back end of the ship- and a bloated little dog floated past... it was gross.

This morning I almost puked! but not from sea sickness haha. actually the rocking of the ship makes you sleep really well... whether you want to or not, heh. Training meetings can get long sometimes....
oh yeah, my almost spewing story . So there's this LDS guy aboard the ship, Sargent Rix, he's 6' 4" and I'd say his calves are about the size of my waist, just for a reference to how huge he is. He teaches a "spinning" class (fixed excersize bikes) and I just hopped on and started going my normal fast pace! But, as my ski-legs may be in shape enough to run up and down stairs all day, and with all this extra oxygen in my lungs I didn't notice me getting exhausted untill I was quite pukish. so I laid down for a bit and now I'm good :) I think the class being at 0530, and before breakfast, didn't help much.

So that was today!

Jobs

I know this is long, but you want to read at least the second story here

Soo, here I am aboard a giant rocking cradle full of many many various military personel from several countries and posts!
My first job I was assigned is in the 2 Aft ward where patients go after having their procedures done. There I am a runner so I run up and down several flights of stairs to get orders for medicines in, and to get blood samples where they need to be and awesome stuff like that! Wheew! but I haven't done it yet, we get to Haiti tomorrow morning and then the fun begins.
They say Haiti will be our stop with the most need. So the most patients, the hardest patients because they live in such poverty so they won't know showers and toilets, and things that are normal every day comodities for us, and the hardest language, Creol which is like french with some spanish mixed in!

The best part of all.
I was walking down the hall on the Main Deck on my way to an LDS devotional we were about to have- this was a couple hours ago- and Commander Ware, who is LDS, stopped me and said "Stand down a minute CJ" so I stopped. and then he asked me how tall I am (6 foot) and said come with me! So we went to his office place and he intruduced me to a tooth costume he owns! Then he explained to me that he wants me to wear it in a presentation they're doing this Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in a hospital in Haiti! Isn't that AWESOME?! I am so stoked. apparantly the church donated thousands of toothbrushes to this trip!
Most of the people in the Wards (where I work) will be going ashore only for 1 8-hour shift but it's looking like I get to go Three Times!!

So I'll be posting some pictures probably monday night or tuesday sometime ^_^

~CJ, "the Tooth Monster"