Christmas Leave

So now I’m back in Edmonton.

What a great first service to be back for. The baptism service. 

My heart was beating like crazy when I climbed up the stairs to my regular spot in the congregation. I’m excited to be back, but this is a good time to reflect on my military career.

Goona start off with he negatives, man has it been a long time since I was spending time with God. I spent 4 weeks in an extremely small Aldershot 4-5 person church and since then... nothing.

I feel like my self control has taken the biggest hit since my military career started becoming stale. Stale in the sense that I am somewhere where I shouldn’t be, because I have a goal and being here (Aldershot) does NOTHING to achieve that goal. Having self control to work out regularly, to spend time listening to what God has to teach me, to learn more about God.

I have had a chance to learn more about myself. Just over the past week+ I’ve had comments about how my face looks unhealthy.

And it probably does. Not working out for 5 months will definitely do that. Can I make Jesse changes over Christmas? Can I do T25 a few times a week and not be a lazy man?

I could.

But. Ehh. I mean I don’t know what tomorrow holds so why workout? 

Wow. That was actually my reasoning it looks so stupid writing it out.

So what’s happened in my military career so far.

Golf course, pig roast, dishes & potatoes, field ex, football game, Halifax parade, Halifax Canada day, Halifax deadmau5 concert, Remembrance Day Parade, duty driving, mess life, AtLA, multiple tv shows/series, countless movies, many books.

Basic training, soldier qualification, C7, C9, C6, grenades, nm-72, trenches, trip flares, mine threat, radio procedures, operating as a section, recce patrols, timings, professionalism, 1 man 1 kit, DLN, chain of command, dress & deportment, inspection layout, 

Between two Worlds - Pastor _____ maindude   Portuguese dark haired short pastor.

Isaiah 6:9

Matthew 1:18

Matthew 1:22 2:5,15,17,23

Philippians 1:6

Isaiah 41:10

Philippians 4:19

Psalm 139:7-12

Jonathan Martin quote

Matthew 1:20...

Best preaching in the world at a press of a button

Steve furdick

Object lesson on second hand experience. Sunday night Christian’s: tame, watered down Jesus when we have time.

What are you worried about?

Announcements:

No Christmas Eve service 2pm 4pm 6pm dec 24.

New Year’s Eve service, 

That’s all for now.

More and more Aldershot

I'll repost this to July 30 sometime in the future if I remember or not idk. Since the date is off.

Yup here I am still in Aldershot.

The nice thing is that now we have decent wifi and it's not like everyone isn't good people.

Nobody here breaks the drinking in dorms policy or throws up in the urinals. We also don't stay up until 3 am being belligerent to each other when we're trying to sleep. Ahaha.

Basically no news is good news, nothing new with the family back in Alberta.

I guess the biggest thing this week for me was thinking about my future postings in the Army. Whether or not to try to get posted back in Edmonton or seeing how far the government wants to send me and what sort of new experiences I can get while I'm training and starting off my military career.

Being a single guy means that there isn't anything holding me back if I travel abroad or far away in different provinces in Canada. I could look forward to aetttling in somewhere else, seeing lots of new people and learning a lot of things about Canada and the army while training and pursuing higher education and language skills.

Unfortunately the internet is everywhere so that would probably always follow me, playing league and looking at Reddit in my free time. I do think that the opportunity without the internet and video games is really useful for my personal development.

One thing I wish I had was a home base to send my stuff and setup my life but I don't think it's that easy. I mean that would be too easy: Trope facile (too easy in French).

Church - Padre Maia Bevan

Psalm 17: verse 14, very explicit on the enemies of the Lord

Romans 6:17-

"I use everyday language because of the weakness of your natural selves."

Mark 8:1-21: Jesus feeds the four thousands and confronts the Pharisees and disciples

That's all for now.

Duty Driver

Meant to publish this July 23 my bad

So this week, wow.

I spent way too much money, I spent a lot of time driving around places, spent plenty of time being sociable, made my way out to Paddys and had a game of Settlers, but now my Intro paragraph is way longer than I expected so I want to segue into the body of things.

The biggest thing that happened was this week I got my 404 (military drivers license) which means that I am able to do the duty drive during the week. 

The way this all came about is actually a fortunate story for me, now I've been put in a position of responsibility which is nice for my job satisfaction and psyche, as opposed to the menial (not an opinion, but the best way to describe) taskings we are given.

Anyways, just a few working days ago we got access to our DWAN accounts, and through those we have the bookmarks and access to different DND websites and resources. I couldn't log in to EMAA, so I went into the help section and created a ticket which gave me access to my personnel file. After that I got access to DNDLearn and started, along with almost a dozen of the other PATs, the 404 PowerPoints and quizzes. We had access to computers in a few different locations, but one of them was in the Tpt office with the Cpl and WO. The whole week I had been pushing for computer access whenever I could, so while he other guys were in supply I was on a computer reading PowerPoint and doing quizzes. After I finished the safe driving final exam with a passing score (the warrant gave me a hint about the prntscrn button so I was able to review my answers and the other module very efficiently - read memorize answers fast) Cpl Heinekamp was talking about training another duty driver. When he said those words I did the little "choose me" whisper/hand signals. I'm not sure how much was chance and how much was first-(second, Pte Samcoe did the final exam earlier the other day) past-the-post. 

Oh I almost forgot, when the Cpl tried to put me into her computer system it didn't give her access, and this was due to a computer issue where it said I was supposed to be in Borden.

Anyways with all his information it means that we were able to kill two birds with one stone: Smith gets his information entered into his 404 correctly instead of Borden holding his information hostage, and Smith learns the route and routine of the duty drive.

So that was Wednesday I think, Thursday and Friday I was going to greenwood with Cpl Heinekamp.

I also played baseball Thursday afternoon, and Friday afternoon I was asked to go to Halifax with Pte Mcleod to pick up one of our vans and drive it back to Aldershot.

After that Friday afternoon, I jumped in my civvies and went with Pte Hill and we caught a ride to Halifax to check out the Costco there.

That's basically my whole week and it was great. I also tried slacklining and didn't get to do some PT since the duty run is in the morning at the same time as the usual PT so I need to see what my options are for PT now.

Church @ Aldershot Padre Mia ____

Singing; our songs were a little off because it was most of our first time there, it was awesome though

Reading

Genesis 28:10-22

Jacobs dream, Stairway to Heaven

Luke 6:27-36

The Golden Rule

That's all for now!

(Backup) PAT Platoon

Aldershot is where I am and it's not too shabby.

Travel is obviously 🙄 the worst. Finding someone with a car and then organizing and not wasting time going there or coming back.

Now I've been much more social in the evenings and weekends. Doing stuff like slacklining, board games (resistance), watching anime (Samurai Champloo), playing games together (Until Dawn PS4), throwing the old football around as well.

There are a whole lot of us playing FTL now, which is pretty fun because I mean, it's a fun game. 

Church in Aldershot - Padre Mia B____

Last week I was here too, met a BMQ Reservist and a MSE OP reserving, nice people and I said to my friends at home that it was refreshing being back singing songs and talking with other Christians. It's like I'm back in the real world again - experiencing normalcy.

Reading Psalm 34

1 Peter 3:8-20~

Luke 5:1-12

Jesus causes the disciples to become fishers of men

That's all for now!

Aldershot

So now I'm posted to Nova Scotia, it's not too bad here.

I'm trying to remember most of what my BMQ was like, but it was a long wild ride.

I lived in 4 Section, Echo pod the whole course. So that was nice. Had a few good roommates that were good and drove me to better myself. Toews, Stevens, Yetman. All good guys who I graduated with.

Some key memories from BMQ:

Farnham was hella fun.

Falling asleep in class? Yeah I did that.

Got 92.61% final marks, second to top candidate, I was so proud of myself for that one.

Improvement in the first and second FORCES test, 9 points from platinum. Warrior test top 5.

Won the Section obstacle course with 4 minutes 53 I think?

Earned the nickname machine for a few days for my jumping jack intensity in class

Completed weapons drill first time with only one minor screwup which I fixed the second time around

Completed drill test on week 7 with 69/75

Earned the title 'Laundry King' for how much time I spent doing my sections and other people's laundry.

I enjoyed learning from our instructors, 4 Section commander Mcpl Boudrias was by far most people's favourite instructor. He gave us a lot of good advice for portraying ourselves, standing tall and driving ourselves for success in our careers. Never compromising and always learning and moving forward.

That's all for now.

The beginning of the end

Finished Farnham.

I'm just goona copy down some things I texted people:

"Well I don't think you'd recognize me anymore, let me tell you a few hints about myself.

I go by Smith 123

I wake up at 4 am every day

I run up and down 9 staircases 3 times a day

I polish boots and iron shirts in my free time

I run 8 kilometres with 50 kg on my back

I can field strip a rifle in 55 seconds

My estimated exercise V02 is 56.6 ml/kg/minute.

I cannot think of anything else good right now, how have you been?"

"Everything is awesome, I just got back from 4 days of intense field exercises and training.

I marched 13 kilometres with 50 pounds on my back and my feet are dead"

Basically Farnham was great.

First day, getting settled in Farnham, kind of a camping atmosphere, minus all the cool things (campfires, games, etc). The environment was fairly cool in the sense that we learned a good amount.

How to run a camp stove, spark a lantern, how we should arrange ourselves, disciplinary actions that are tactically minded (walking clockwise around the perimeter of the camp), how to set up a hoochie (wind break tent shelter thing), where to position during an enemy attack (Stand To! Stand To! Stand To!), what our arcs of fire are, how to determine friendlys (Hotel. Response: Oscar. It is a five letter password), we also put on cam paint that evening (it sucked and didn't come off fully all week), 

Next day, we tore down camp, took a bit to figure out how to do everything quickly, also the cam paint and shaving led to us not getting our timing.

Basically putting on and taking off FfO all day, this day I decided to wear my goferex boots because my zippers broke on my good combats, worst decision ever. So much pain in my feet all day, since this was the day we did the obstacle course, walked to the range and shot, and did a team building exercise as well.

We also had to do the Fire! Fire! Fire! exercise during the night, which sucked. This night we didn't get too much sleep.

The third day we had our obstacle course I think... yeah that's right.

zip line, tapell rower, and bridge crossing. Amateur hour basically, but al this week my feet hurt so it wasn't the greatest. Next we had to go and do some other team building exercises, where we xompleted obstacles and scenarios with the supplies we had in a tactical simulation.

After that I was tired like all day, and we got jacked up so much that afternoon. It was super sucky, like we had a good week but we wee getting jacked up like it was week 5. This continued, we did fast showers and cleaned our rifles/rucks, then we had to go to Kalen where in our PT gear, everyone's worried because we have no idea what's happening.

Then sergeant Poirier comes and gives us the yelling of the century. Like holymoley, 5-10 people cried, everyone was sad and disappointed. Sergeant said things like "17 people failed the drill test," "you lose every weekend for the rest of bmq," "phones go away for 3 weekends, you'll have 5 minutes to talk to your fairly, I don't care what you tell them."

But it was all an elaborate ruse, we did good, everyone passes the weapons test, we got a canteen offered to us where we could buy snacks, and we watched Fury.

Basically the best evening ever, we didn't even have fire pickets or patrols that night.

The past day in Farnham was the 13 km ruck.

My ruck got randomly selected for weighing and it was perfect. I had a chance to tie my left shoe again when we were outside, but I didn't retie my right shoe, so I think that partially caused the pain I'm currently experiencing with the blisters and numbness on my right foot. It's not too bad though, it could be worse.

That's basically Farnham, we came back and got steak so best Thursday evening meal ever.

Church at Saint-Jean 

Padre Irish

Hymn 260 alleluia, alleluia

Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Psalm 116

1 Peter 1:17-23

Padre B______

Luke 24: 13-35

_____?

Bagpipes

Statement of faith and apostles creed

Contemporary songs 

Prayer

Hymn 479 the church's one foundation 

That's all for now!

Day before field exercise

So next week (tomorrow) we're going to Farnham.

Cleaning rifles, waking up often, sleeping outside on the ground, sllvthat to look forward to.

I'm packing my kit right now, I need to rebuild my rucksack because my fire team partner accidentally "ghost locked" her locker. Fortunately it wasn't anything that I did, but my FTP is still part of my responsibility. I was pretty lazy, when my FTP was right next door I checked out pretty often, now that Michaud is in he girls pod halfway across the floor I've been super lazy.

We also don't have the greatest relationship, even on a professional level we don't really communicate, and I don't really contribute anything productive to that. Just time and communication will help fix that, but I've been moving other priorities (including leisure ones) above my FTP, so I know that I need to do better in that area.

When 4 Section was reformed into what is colloquially referred to as the "remedial section" (not seriously, just in a meta and sarcastic sense) Michaud admitted that she took it personally, and her attitude in that was evident with the way she acted around the rest of 4 Section. The staff, Sgt Rubin and Mcpl Boudrias told us that we were a section that "needed extra help."

Yeah, ___ing ow.

Idk about my thoughts on that, it's been 3¿ weeks now and I feel like I haven't actually changed too greatly. (That's a lie I'm more disciplined, but that's neither here nor there) anyways I'm happy jay I haven't been moved from 4 section, I've been here since the beginning, I haven't even moved pods so that's pretty nice.

I'm basically going off on different tangents but I'm basically saying I wish things were easier here. It would be so nice if I was just able to relax every day, do the physical stuff at a proper pace, sleep every day, leave my kit the way I like it, leave my bed "good enough", have my phone on my all the time, etc etc.

But it's not. If I haven't had the rigid discipline I wouldn't have the habits I have. If I was cutting corners whenever I could my body wouldn't be able to be driven during drill.

PT wise I'm doing excellently. 12 points from platinum on the Forces test, I'm impressed at my own abilities and how easy it feels like it was. I now know I need to be pushed, and I need to use that inner drive to produce qualities that will not fail when subjected to stress.

Physically-awesome

Mentally-discipline is coming, laziness is being staved off

Emotionally-family and friends from home are on my mind when I have downtime, I have a very positive association with everything I do or have done and I think that is healthy

Spiritually-church is a semi regular thing, same with bible readings. Morally I feel like I am doing ok, I can always improve there, but acknowledging that this is a specific season of life gives me a chance to take a step back and focus on the moment, knowing that building bear habits and disciplining myself will result in the desired outcome of a fully-trained CAF member.

CCC friends were on my mind this last weekend, I really love those guys and I'm glad I have that church group, I don't know when I'll return but I'm going to put more effort into talking with them semi-regularly in the last month here at CFLRS.

Encounter YEG is another group I've been getting more into contact with, love those guys. Josh is always hanging out, so I'll probably text him more often. He's still looking for work so I'm going to have him in my prayers. (Haven't prayed too much recently, working on that)

Haven't talked with Alyssa, semi talked to Andy. Layden, izzy, Brennan and Ashley are also some people who I haven't texted or called, but they are on my mind.

Chapel at Saint-Jean Garrison

First Sunday after Easter "Second Sunday of Easter"

 

Hymn 464 "Come ye faithful, raise the strain"

Reading Acts 2:14,22-32 

psalm 16 

1 Peter 1:3-9 

Kids service

Hymn 463 he choirs of new Jerusalem

John 20:19-32

Today was more of a personal reflecting chapel for me. I'm glad for opportunities in environments such as this, it's truly a blessing.

I just need to remember to post my blog stuff

That's all for now.