Category: James

The biggest news I have;

WE FINALLY HAVE A CAR!! But that’s not all, so let’s get talking about the week.

7: The Car An area in our zone got combined, which meant there was an extra car floating around. We got it, and are in a car-share with the other Coos Bay ward. Now we can finally go out and do some good work, not plan the whole dang day around as few trips into town as possible.

6: Exchanges I wasn’t going to put this in, because I thought we had exchanges last week. I’m all turned upside-down right now. Dunno what I’m thinking.But yeah, we had exchanges, I went with Elder Hyer, we set up some things with our people, and did some street contacting.

5: A Cursed Experience As Edler Hyer and I were walking, I noticed some papers on a pole. Thinking they were a missing child poster I checked them out, but it was actually screenshots of a youtube video. What were the videos about? Olympic gymnasts. No information other than that. Weird right? Right as I was figuring this out, a middle-aged crackhead wearing big snowgoggles walked up, more papers in hand. He began to staple them to the pole, and I asked him what he was doing. “Did something happen to these girls?” The man looked at me through his colossal snowgoggles, “No” he replied, putting another girl’s motion-blurred face up. “So why put these screenshots up?” I asked. “It’s better than sleeping with ’em” giant snowgoggles replied. I… I……. I had nothing. I’m usually pretty quick when it comes to responding to stuff, weird or otherwise. But this caught me like the French after the 3rd Reich walked in through Belguim.”Can’t argue with that” was the only thing I could say as we walked away. My boy Hyer turned to me after we were out of earshot, and said “That was the most Cursed Experience I have ever had.” I would most certainly agree. 

4: Church is cancelled Yesterday, instead of going to church near us, we got a ride all they way out to Coquille. It was good, a nice ride, and some good talks by the Coquille elders. But supporting Elder Larsen and Young wasn’t the reason we drove 30 minutes to church. It’s because our building flooded. That’s right, the ocean has heaved above it’s shores, with nothing to hold it back it raced inland and…I’m just kidding, a waterline broke. There’s been fans running all Friday, but the carpet near the kitchen is still sopping. The solution? Shut off the water for the whole dang building. This meant that church had to be cancelled. Probably because bathrooms don’t work. Which sucked because Vera and Linda were going to come to church. Well, there’s always next week.

3: I thought the floor was just that dark. We got a dollar mop, because I’m tired of our floors being slightly sticky. As we began mopping the kitchen, the floor was changing color. It was really gross, but it had to be done, who knows the last time it had been properly scrubbed? Then we started to work on the bathroom, and a similar situation occurred. So Elder Clark and I said, ‘Screw it, today is a cleaning day’ Changed out of proselyting clothes, and deep cleaned the whole dang apartment. It’s so much nicer now. Don’t know why we waited this long. Ugh. The dollar store mop was just as bad as you would expect, but because it was a dollar I did not complain.

2: The Future of Groceries! Safeway has this cool program where they will deliver groceries right to your door, and Elder Clark has an even cooler mom who will do that for him. I’m so thankful for that, because she covered some of the costlier necessities, leaving room in our budgets for other things, like different cheeses (so I can try out which cheese makes the best grilled cheese), nice dishwasher soap, some air fresheners so our apartment doesn’t smell like bleach from our cleaning spree, etc. Thank you Mama Clark! <3

1: Why weren’t you here yesterday??  After Elder Clark had put Linda’s car back together, we set up for a lesson on Thursday. Come Thursday, we walked up the hill to go teach Linda about the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we knocked on her door, she was kinda upset with us. She had been sitting out all day yesterday, waiting for us. Linda had thought that Wednesday was Thursday, and Thursday was Friday. After she realized her mistake she was in a much better mood. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and she loved it. She had something to add to everything we talked about, it was more of a discussion than a lesson. We extended a baptismal invitation, and she said yes, but she needed to receive answers to a few questions she had. That’s great, we said. That’s what your baptism should be. not just a thing to do because you should, but because you know and love the Lord.

Sincerely,

Ya Boi

Elder Berky

Usually we wear our suits once a week, at church. But this week we wore them a total of three times (3)! That’s almost more times than I can count! Let’s talk about that.

5: Zone Conference Was very good this week, we had it in Roseburg, and all the talks were good. Elder Ward got  V E R Y excited over some fruit, our sisters had a great segment about personal study. Personal study is nice, because it just makes the day go by so much better. The days where I don’t have a personal study just seem, darker for lack of a better term. So do yourself some personal studies and see how much better the day goes.

4: I can sing a song (so can 4 others in our zone) I totally forgot, we had a musical part in zone conference! We sang “Saviour Redeemer of my Soul” and it went down great! I’ll have to see if we can do it again so it can get recorded lol. I was singing the harmony and it was pretty difficult because I haven’t done any actual singing for a hot minute, but I got it after a little practice. (And audio recordings of the piano)

3: This one’s also about zone conference It was just an eventful day okay? The first event that we started off with was getting up early. Like 5:00 early, because Roseburg is 3 hours inland, and we wanted to be there early to practice our piece. We got a ride with Port Orford, and as soon as we got in the car, Elder Clark and I fell asleep. Or as asleep as you can be in a little Corolla. After a couple hours I woke up, and said “Oh hai ocean” But Roseburg is inland remember? WE HAD BEEN GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION FOR TWO HOURS Cowabunga time. Elder Ream flipped the car over. Around, he flipped it around and floored it. You know how we have those little government wiretaps in our cars? To track our speed and make sure we don’t do anything too crazy? Well, the Lord understood that we REALLY didn’t need it just then and the little Orwellian-nightmare box stayed off for the majority of our way back. We definitely topped out around 85-95 on our way back. We changed our arrival time from 10:30am to 9:15am. That right there is a miracle. Another one? We didn’t see a single cop. 

2: Interviews took all day Our interviews were at 1:00, but the Coquille elders were at 9:00. We did not plan on going to interviews with them. But the Coquille elders did! So we came to interviews with them. And were there all day. It was good though, President Orton and I talked about training, which I’ll probably do in next transfer, or the one after that. So I’m excited. It’ll be a great experience. (That was the other time we had to wear a suit)

1: Dodgeball is a very good thing A kid that we’re working with, Mason has come to dodgeball quite a few times, but this time was evidently the best. We had plenty of people there, and it was just fun. I need to get some pictures, it’s a good time.

Bonus: Stake Conference/Sunday was fantastic! Unfortunately we didn’t have anyone we are teaching come, but it was a spiritual experience nonetheless. Elder Acosta of the seventy came, and shared his re-activation story, it was wonderful. Then his wife shared a story of her family in Mexico, who she didn’t know if they stayed active or not, but was able to find out through family history. Moral of the story? Do your family history.

After stake conference we had lunch, and went to go talk to a lady named Linda, who was out working on her slug bug. I know jack squat about cars, but Elder Clark does! He helped her put the headlights in, and I kept the dog busy. It was a good way to go. We set up a lesson with her this Thursday, and it will be fantastic. She’s ready to learn, and has some real promise! 

After putting her car back together took longer than expected we had to book it to make it to the F- (everyone say Hi!) who had us and the other elders over for a dinner/lesson. Dinner was curry (very good) and the lesson was on the commandments (even better) the Spirit was testifying so strongly of the message of the commandments. They aren’t here to hold us down, but to lift us up. All of the commandments bring blessings, ones we see with our eyes, and those we don’t see. We have to feel them out, seek them out. 

Well, that’s all I’ve got for today, and in case I don’t see you tomorrow,

Good Morning,
Good evening,
and Good night!

(That’s what he says on the Truman Show, right?)

Ya boi,
Elder James Berky

6:We biked to the other end of the world and back. Twice. First off, my bike’s fixed. I kinda wish it wasn’t, cause we have been biking absolutely EVERYWHERE

There are just parts of our area that we just don’t visit because it’s so far out. But with bikes we can get out there! We got to talk with a really nice lady named Linda who was working on her lawnmower. We talked with Linda for about an hour and a half. When we went back to talk with her we saw her talking with her neighbor! So we talked to the both of them about the gospel for a good long while.

5: Scones are easy to make if you don’t actually make the scones.  Pillsbury biscuits, when split into pieces make very good scones. They puff up and are very good. But more importantly they are cheap! Gonna be making those more often.

4: Don’t trust Google!  We were going to go on a hike at Golden and Silver Falls, but No one knew how to get there. So we plugged the name into Google maps and headed out on our 45 minute journey. Well, after arriving at our destination we were told by Google that it was a u-turn, and we had to head back 10 minutes in the other direction.We eventually did get to water falls, they were cool. Here, have some pictures!

3:  I kinda fixed my glasses. Kinda So after waaay too long of wearing my square glasses I decided to fix my circles. Well, I don’t have any glue, or tape, or flex seal, so what do I do? What do i have? Thread. I have thread. So I wrapped the leg with thread and tied it to the frames. But as you can expect it didn’t work out all that well. Guess I’ll just have to take it into an actual shop or something. 

2: We talked to another Linda! She s talked to missionaries in the past, and liked it a lot! So We stopped by and saw her working on her VW beetle, good thing elder Clark is a car guy so we helped her out. Or he helped her out. She might be coming to church next week!

1: Giving a blessing on the side of the road is Very spiritual. As we were taking a (much needed) rest on the side of the road after biking to east side a car pulled up. A lady leaned out the window and asked if we were okay, I lied and said I was fine, and then we got to talking. She’s a homeless member of the North bend road, and wanted a blessing. It was loud but spiritual, and if that were the only reason we rode over there, it would’ve been worth the whole ride. 

☠-us round! Anti-mormon zombies! The lady Gail wasn’t actually a zombie but her anti might as well be. What I’ve learned about all anti is that it has been shot down, blown up, and disproven so many times, but it just keeps coming back. Like zombies. Get it? Any ways, we knocked into a lady named Gail who left the church when she was 19, and has been an enemy of it ever since. We tried to resolve her concerns but once people have been like that for 50+ yrs they just don’t want to. As we were leaving she asked us to pray and the Lord will reveal the truth to us. So I took her up on it that night, and (shocker) the Lord re-affirmed what I already knew. It’s always good to keep praying about the gospel, and keep growing your testimony.

Love yall 

Ya boi

Elder James Berky 

Transfers were last week, and Elder Robinson headed off to Medford, and replacing him is Elder Clark! He’s from Belen New Mexico, and has been out for ~20 months. I believe it is last time.

1: Bikes are temperamental if you leave them in a box for 6 months That’s right, to solve our transportation woes, we have pulled out our bikes! After getting a tune-up courtesy of Brother G-, we were ready to head out on Thursday! As we were heading up the first hill, my derailer was acting up. Elder Clark hopped on to see what was up, and it snapped in half! A call to the zone leaders and $50 later my bike was back up and running.

2: You know who hasn’t been running? Me. Because it’s been about a year since I’ve ridden a bike, the Coos Bay hills were brutal. I had to walk up the majority of the hills here. It’s bad, but its bound to get better if I keep at it. By the end of this transfer I’ll have legs of steel! 

3: Accidental renaissance  While looking through my pictures, I found this guy. Then I edited it.

4: Going to a ward BBQ  It’ll be fun, if not a bit rainy. I hope I can fly my kite!

5: Wait, you’re the family history consultant aren’t you?  We had recent convert lessons with the F- family, and we had planned on talking to them about the temple. Cause we were under the impression that he hadn’t been to the temple. But he’s the family history consultant, and has done plenty of baptisms in the Medford temple. Just like that our whole lesson plan went out the window. Awkward – lol.

6: Check your pockets I accidentally washed my white handbook, but luckily I have a spare one. I’ll need a new plastic cover tho.
Well I’m going to get some Myrtle wood missionary tags.

Love ya!

Ya boi 

Elder James Berky 

1: Silly pants are cheap and silly While we were at Walmart getting some dinner supplies for the night (tsziki, tzikki, tseziki, sauce for gyros.) And I spotted some silly shorts that are ridiculously comfortable, silly and most importantly, cheap. I also got some nice tan dress pants for $7 so I wasn’t being totally irresponsible….

2: When was the last time this bathroom was cleaned?? When Elder Hyer and I were at his apartment, he decided to clean the bathroom, because his companion would pitch a fit every time Elder Hyer tried to clean. No idea why, but it was very gross, and I’ll spare details because some of you might be eating. Had to take a shower afterwards it was that bad.

3: Oh yeah, Transfers! Luckily Hyer wont have to worry about his problems with his companion because both Elder Kerbs and Elder Robinson are leaving. I will be getting Elder Chris Clark, fresh out of Zone Leadership, and Elder Hyer will be getting Elder Mooney, who is fairly new. Due to the weirdness where the coast is positioned we have to arrange member rides. Always fun.

4: Blessings Galore! Sometimes, you’ll go 6 months without doing a single blessing, and sometimes you’ll do 3 in the span of 12 hours. The first was for a member who might have cancer, and wanted a blessing of comfort before she went in and got the testing done. The second was for a guy we’ve been teaching who tore his ACL. We went over to his place to have a lesson and M- told us that tonight wasn’t a good night because he was recovering from his torn ACL. When we asked if there was anything we could do, he said “Make my leg heal faster” HA YOU ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD M-!!

We told him about priesthood blessings, and he accepted. Nice. Right after that we met a member of our elder’s quorum, and visited a sister who was having a rough week, and was worried her prescriptions weren’t working. We gave her a blessing, but also let her know that this isn’t a replacement for her meds. 

5: I saw many dogs.  But I have no photographic proof, because I am a fool. You’ll just have to take my word.

6: Exchanges/splits with Coquille The coquille elders came in for a couple days because they had to get some maintenance done on their car. So we decided to do exchanges. Well, we also had splits with the youth set up. So we did both. Unfortunately we didn’t find anybody, but we did meet T-, who said we could come back at 2am cause that’s when he knew for certain wrestling wouldn’t be on. Funny guy.

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Also we’re heading down to a hike and I don’t do too well when typing in a car. Carsickness sucks.

I love you all, Ya Boi – Elder James Berky

Yeah, I got sick again, not enough veggies and staying up too late playing board games will do that to ya.

1: Before I got sick we had a good gospel talk with D- D- is a pastor for the local – – church and we help him out with pickups and stuff. As we were driving out to some Boonie area to pick up a couch we started talking about the gospel. It was a really good conversation, we talked about how the gospel will bless us in our lives as we let it in. God isn’t passive in his love for us and we shouldn’t be passive in our worship of him. 

2: Yee Haw Hyer Just watch the attached video for this one lol

3: Safety Zone marathon!! A couple of months ago, the church put out some safety videos for the missionaries. You can watch them on gospel library (Go to Missionary>Missionary Training>Safety Zone have fun cringing yourself into a singularity) We had to watch them (duh) to make sure we stay safe and all. However, you must watch them through the missionary portal, and check off when you’ve finished watching them. I had watched all if them before, but on someone else’s account, or on gospel library. Which led to Saturday, when we got a call from the mission office telling us we had to both watch them. Oh joy. So we made our way to the church, sat down in the family history center and spent the rest of the day there. The sisters dropped by for a few minutes, and we talked while the videos played in the background but that wasn’t enough. Those videos are cringy as a trench-coat wearing middle schooler whose favorite character is Shadow the Hedgehog.But that time dis allow me to recuperate from my sickness without just sleeping the whole day long.

4: What kind of sickness? Cold+Flu+some kinda Local thing I was starting to feel it on Tuesday, and it hit me hard Wednesday after service. I was out of it Thu and Fri. Was feeling well enough Sat and was pretty much fine for church. CHEST VAPOR RUB FTW!!

5: The Feng Shui just isn’t right in this room. So while I was incapacitated on the couch in the Empire elders apartment, they decided to re-arrange the furniture after they got back from service. I wasn’t much help, but I was a pair of eyes and a steadying hand. Moving desks to a new study room, changing where the couch is, and throwing a fake fireplace in a spot where it really won’t be used but dang does it look good, makes an apartment feel much better! Bigger too!

6: My second Phone Call home! Is what I’d be saying If the change a few months ago didn’t happen. Regardless I tried calling home anyways. Huh, the Wi-Fi at the Empire elders apartment is a little weird. Huh, maybe it’ll fix itself in a minute. Nope. Well, let’s text the member they live with. No response. Okay, how about we go knock on their door? Nothing. Okay, I’ll just wait until elder Kerbs is done talking with his family, then I’ll call the old fashioned way. That’s how what lead up to the mother’s day call. Pretty silly but whatever, it was still good. 

7: I wish to burn this puzzle While I was waiting for the phone to be free, I decided to do a 500 piece puzzle with the end result being a nice dock scene.  IT TOOK ME 4+ HOURS!! The whole time i was muttering like a madman, listening to classical music, and occasionally yelling nonsense.  It must’ve looked like quite a scene. Then I called mom, had a nice chat, and I finished the puzzle. Except for 1 missing piece. I’m fine with that though. Honestly. 
Well, for today’s pday we’re going to the beach, so I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures! (As you do at the beach)

Love ya

Ya boi

Elder Berky 

1: Phase 2 So what phase 2 is, is the second part of mission efficiency improvement, the main thing being member involvement. Members will be involved with the people we are teaching within 48 hours of us “finding them” which is fine.

2. Sand boarding will bruise your freaking tailbone.  Yeah, we went sand boarding. Which is a lot like snowboarding, but for stuff that’s coarse, rough, and gets everywhere. I’ve never played with any type of board before so I was 100% new to this. It was a lot of fun, and I’ve totally bruised my tailbone. Oof ouch owie, my bones.

3. Elder Bangader Is an area seventy who came to our mission to help roll out this new phase 2 program. It was really cool, he talked about how it got approved by the quorum of the twelve! I thought that was really cool, cause I like learning about the internal logistics of how stuff works. What I learned is that it not only passed a logical perspective, but they sought the approval of the Lord as well.

4. Seeing other missionaries!  Because an area seventy was coming we gathered the mission into 2 big zone conferences. The northern half, and the southern half. Getting to see some of the missionaries who are up north was great! Especially since i might not get to see them again! We will be losing a lot of missionaries coming up soon, so our mission will be getting pretty young. But it was great to see them!

5. I am a boat-man! Helped out a jew named Doc on his boat. 

6. Fat ole Borger from Vinnys Yeah, look at that guy, I had the food sweats something awful that night. #worthit

Love y’all I’m going to go ice myself. Oof. Ya boi

Elder James Berky

So this week was fairly uneventful so far, so I’ll struggle to figure out something to write. Hmmmmmmm…. Time to think

1: A crazy lady named J–.  So Edler Hyer and I were looking for something to do, and were told to go visit a lady named Joann. So we did, and she talked about her whole life story for 2 hours! We tried to talk, but she would just keep on going. Eventually we were getting tired, and so we asked if she would like to be baptized on May 25th! She off-handedly said yeah, and kept talking about her life. We told her that we had to get going, and talk with somebody else, and dipped lol. The next day we got a call from the mission office saying that she didn’t want to talk to missionaries anymore. Oh well, we would;ve just wasted time there anyways. 

2: The babysitting ended!! We finally split up with the other coos bay elders, cause Elder Kerbs was finally well enough to not nap all the time. So we went out and did some regular work in our area for once. 

3: No we’re not joking, come be a missionary.  Right now. We had dinner at the G-/S- (These interesting Ciabata sandwiches with ham, caramelized onion, peppers, avocados, etc. It was really good) And they have a 14 year old son, A-. We were joking about how he could come out and do missionary work with us since he wasn’t going to do anything else for the Sunday night. It was joking at first. Then we went out to go contact a guy who’s talked with missionaries in the past! Giving A- a taste of what really being a missionary is, the guy didn’t answer. So now we had to find something to do, visit less-actives! Well, nobody answered. So we all agreed it would be best if he just went home. Yup, a day in the life of a missionary. Yee Haw A-, there’s so much too look forward too.

4: Gordon Ramsey showed up for our district council! If you don’t know who he is, go look him up, he’s real funny and angry. But it wasn’t actually him, it was Elder Kerbs pretending to be him. Our task was to make him a 3 course meal in under 45 minutes. Playing as the role of the angry britbong chef, he yelled at us as we prepped him lunch. (He paid for all the ingredients. The don’t call him Kash Money Kerbs for no reason!)

5: Cheap audio equipment?? Yes Please!!! As we were doing service for Salvation Army I noticed a mic stand for $5!! It was brand new, too, in the box and everything! Then to top that off, I found a pop-filter for $8!! “I don’t have a use for that now” I thought “But I can send it home and use that in my computer setup!”Unfortunately I didn’t have my wallet, and by the time I came back both were gone! So sad, it was some nice stuff! 

Anyways, I’m getting hungry and I’ve got a subway gift card burning a hole in my pocket. Love you all, and so does the Lord. It’s important to remember that, as you go through life you’re not alone. Oh that I had the voice of an angel, that is the message that I would share with everybody. 

Ya boi

Elder James Berky

1: So, about that root canal Elder Kerbs had some bad dental work done before he got out here, and so his teeth have been killing him. Dude has been taking so many painkillers the CIA is asking who his dealer is. As a result of his drug habits Kash “money” Kerbs has been a sleepy boy. We’ve been on babysitting duty all week long, just bouncing back and forth between apartments. 

2: Scrap metal is a terrible business plan We were doing service for a guy named D-, where we would go pick stuff up for the salvation army. We saw a lot of scrap metal, usually from boat-related things. An anchor, some chains, parts of a buoy, etc.

3: Crackhead named D–  Nothing too much to say about that, but its worth a mention. 

4: Beach time! We went to the beach this morning, it was real nice, the water was cold, and the sand was course, rough and it gets everywhere. 

5: My dang glasses broke!! After just trying to out them on in a normal way, the weld that holds the leg to the frame snapped!! What!? It’ll be an easy fix, I just need a souldering iron, and a member who has one.

6: Easter Egg roll! (Not an Asian egg roll) so we had Easter dinner with the Baughs (pronounced ‘Baws’) and their kids. We got to participate in one of their Easter traditions, an egg roll down their steep driveway! I won the farthest distance, but Seth (13) won the least amount of cracks.
That’s really all I’ve got for this email, this week wasn’t really eventful due to babysitting elder Kerbs. Hopefully next week will be a better email.

Ya boi

Elder Berky 

So, I did it, I got to the coast during the summer! I’m excited. But you know what I’m not excited for? 2 hours of commuting each day. 

1: Complaining time So, our apartment is out of our area, which is okay, the springfeild apartment is out of it’s area. It happens, you just have to do the best you can when it comes to the apartment situation in OR. But our apartment is 40 minutes out of our area, one way. It takes F O R E V E R for us to get anywhere. The reason?? We have no car, and the hills are alive with the sound of my complaining. The Coos Bay area is so dang hilly we loose 2-3 hours a day just walking.

2: Complimenting time My companion; Elder Robinson is pretty cool, he’s from St. George and is a hard worker for only having 3 months left. We are in a ward share with another set of elders, and they’re pretty cool. We’ve got Elder Kash “Money” Kerbs and Elder Zach “Served with me in Spring-a-ding” Hyer. They cover one half of Coos Bay, and Robinson and I the other. We hang out pretty often (Is this what college feels like?) Last night we stayed up till 1 playing Trivial pursuit (Jesus version) The people here are pretty cool, I haven’t really been able to get out tracting, but the people we have talked to are pretty cool. The food around here is nice, there’s this one REEEAAALLLLYY good place called Vinny’s. The whole place just has that Guy Fieri aesthetic to it. 

3: It is very rainy. (Who’d’ve thunk??) So yeah, first day as we were walking to somebody’s place it started raining lightly. Because I am a silly boy, I thought that all I would need was a sweater.

I got soaked. That light rain starts to get heavier as you’re walking through it for 40 minutes. Lesson learned, take rain jacket. Maybe even invest in an umbrella?

This should be a good transfer, I’m going to work hard despite my challenges (These dang heck’n gay Hills) and prove to President that I should train. He’s going to need some trainers in the upcoming months. We have a group of 30 missionaries finishing up in a few months, and we’re going to get a group to replace them. Gotta let president know that he can trust me. 

Love ya lots, here’s some basic white girl pictures that we took on the beach! <3