The Pelkeys have always been a large portion of our church. Bro. Al Pelkey being the oldest, with his wife, Sis. Janet. They are Nick's grandparents. Steve is the oldest son, followed by Craig, Curtis, Brent, Eric, and Brian. Brian died around age 20. Curtis is Nick's dad. Al died a while ago and Janet married Bro. Don, Al's friend. We all lived around Long Beach, California. The Pelkeys always seemed like the "cool" people to me. They did fun stuff, went fishing, camping, and surfing a lot. They reminded me of the Beach Boys songs a lot. We all went to the same church that I do now, it was just a lot bigger then. I was best friends with Nick's cousins and Craig's older sons, Philip (1 year older than me), Thomas (as old as me), Jordan (2 years younger than me), and Russel (3 years younger than me). We did a lot of stuff together, but I cannot remember it all, I don't really remember back then. I remember having a bike with training wheels and Philip and Thomas not having training wheels. I didn't really know Nick then. Steve's family moved to Oregon, and so did Nick's. Eric and Brent also moved. Our family moved later, when I was in second grade. I left my best friends in California. We would write once in a while. I think I was closer to Thomas since he was my age, but Jordan wrote more letters. Then they moved here to Oregon, maybe a year later. I was so happy. We did stuff together a lot, football mostly. We would go to the park or whatever and play tackle football. They always said how I was hard to get down. Then the unthinkable happened. It happened right around 7th or 8th grade. One of the brethren in either our California or Idaho church brought a false doctrine or teaching and started preaching it, and trying to get everyone to follow him. He would even travel to the different churches and had others who believed him. The church split. Craig's family went his way and moved away. I didn't see them for a long time. I then became best friends with Nick, who was the only boy my age in the church up here. He is actually 3 years younger than me. I've seen Thomas around a few times. I think he works in a place here in town. Russel and Jordan now go to the high school. Philip works at Arby's, just like me, but has a later shift than me. I saw all the others before I saw him. We are supposed to kinda avoid them, because they are being taught wrong and they can influence us. But I still talk to them. My parents don't mind really, they have faith that I won't be tricked into thinking their church is right, and they haven't even been talking about it. Nick is supposed to avoid them like me, but his dad would take him to see them a lot. We recently had another split, and now our church is small, even the once huge California church is only twice as big as ours. The Idaho church is about as big as ours also. Eric and Brent left in that split. Curtis, Nick's dad was taking his sons to the other church and stuff, and of course his mom didn't like it. She did a legal separation, in an attempt to make her husband want to really see what's right so he could see them again. He took it further and divorced. Now Curtis gets the house and kids, including Nick, for a week, and Nick's mom gets it the next week. They trade off. Nick's mom, Michelle, stays at Don and Janet's house when she's away. She now works at the elementary school in Nick's city and gets to see the 2 youngest ones everyday. Nick's younger brothers Cory and Ethan come over a lot. Cory is really good friends with Amy (my sister), and Ethan with Matt and Catie (my bro and sis). Cory is a skater wannabe he said, lol. I'm friends with Cory and Ethan of course, but Cory thinks DBZ is dumb. Lol, he used to like it. Cheree hangs out with my bro, Ben mostly. She is in kindergarten I think. Nick is still my best guy friend. We both agree DBZ is the best show, we like mostly the same kinda music, our favorite games are RPGs, specifically the Squaresoft ones like the Final Fantasy series. And, we both have never had a girlfriend, hehe.