Man date (July 10)

Shea Stone is one of the sisters in the branch who I made friends with on facebook a couple months ago. She gave me a lot of great info and helped with things to get ready to come over. She and her family have been here for about a year. They are about our age. Her husband Luke works for the military also. So there's the regular army here, and then there's the Presidential Guard Command. The "better" or higher level of the army. He teaches the PGC basic combat, navigation, how to use guns, grenades, that sort of thing in combat. I teach the PGC how to fly.

Shea and her kids just left today to go back to the states for about 6 weeks. Luke is going in a couple weeks. Anyway, he called me this morning to see what I was up to tonight, if I wanted to go grab dinner with him (can't say "go out to dinner" or something, guys don't do that, right?). So he came and picked me up. We actually went to a member's house to help move a bed and some things from their house to another member's home. Luke has an F150, so he's "the guy with the truck" in the branch. So he ends up helping people with stuff of course. Anyway, we do our service, then head out to find some food. Because of Ramadan, nothing would be open for another hour, so we stopped by his house (villa). That's where I took the sunset picture (attached). I was on top of his villa.

We went to the mall by his house to eat. TGI Fridays, McDonalds, Burger King, the usual stuff. We ate Charly's Grilled Subs. I took a few pictures for Dad (Cold Stone and Cinnabon) They had a Krispy Kreme, but I didn't get a picture of it. Anyway, we had a good time hanging out on our "man date."

Then a picture for Holly, the rancher. This little Toyota Hilux hauling two bulls. Usually you see camels in the back of pickups, but this guy had this whole cage thing to haul cows around. Probably camels at times as well.

I flew again this morning (yesterday was my first flight here). More local area orientation. While landing out in the desert we had to watch out for some camels wandering through the area. What a different world!

It's hot. Feels like Phoenix. Little bit humid, but pretty much just feels like I'm in Phoenix.

Tomorrow is church. I feel like I've met half the branch already, but I'm excited to go to church and get a feel for things.

Mom said it's like having a missionary out again with these emails! I kinda feel like a missionary. Similar emotional rollercoaster of "this is so cool" and "what the heck did I get myself into" kinda thing. But it's going well, I think we'll be happy here. It'll just take some getting used to.

The end.