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| We're fine! Don't worry, don't worry! |
So, I wasn't going to tell you because I didn't want to
unnecessarily worry you, but we got in a car accident last week. We're fine!
don't worry. don't worry. I just figured I should tell you because they made me
use our insurance from home, and I thought it may be a little scary for you if
you saw I went to the emergency room and didn't know why. They made us. It was
no big deal. We went the day after the accident. We were just told we needed to
by Sister Augustin. So here's our car. Yeah, pretty big accident actually.
Elder King was looking at the GPS and didn't see the car in front of us slam on
the brakes. I yelled at him to stop, but it wasn't fast enough. Everyone is all
safe though. No need to stress about it.
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| The view right across from our car accident! |
And
this billboard was across the street from our accident (which actually occurred
on Friday the 13th), which I think all together is pretty dang ironic.
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| Emergency room! |
Here
are some more crash related pictures. Me and Elder King chilling in the
emergency room. That was actually kind of fun. Elder King got in almost
immediately, but I had to sit outside in the waiting room for more than an
hour. It was pretty cool I guess because the Alabama vs. Texas A&M game was
on TV so I just watched that while I was waiting. The only problem was it made
me want to go watch more. Dang.
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| Chocolate covered bananas.....yum! |
Then
a couple days later Elder King had to go to the police office because he got a
ticket for following too closely. Then since we all felt depressed after that
Elders Hancock, Pasquale, King and I went to "La Palateria" a mexican
ice cream shop and had some chocolate covered bananas. Yummy :)
These
last two weeks were full of miracles (especially being safe in a crash that was
big enough to total our car). Since we have been on bikes we have been able to
talk to a lot more people. Most of them we have had to hand over to other
missionaries because they speak English, but I hope things go well with them.
Speaking of handing people over, cool story:
In
the Spanish branch we have been doing something interesting with the other
Abilene wards to try and find Spanish speaking people. We had the other 3 wards
in the city send all the records of people with Spanish sounding last names
that they don't know who they are to us. The records are pretty bad down here,
so we got a lot of records where the wards had no idea who these people were at
all. Lots of them didn't even have addresses or phone numbers. The branch
presidency got onto this "people finders" website and looked up a
bunch of the people to find out where they live. Then they give us a list of
like 5 addresses for each person and we have to find them. It's been hard work
(especially on bikes), but very rewarding. Over the time I have been here the
average Spanish branch sacrament meeting attendance has gone from the 20s to
the 60s. And then by working with those less actives we find, that's how we get
new people to teach too because they are almost always part member families.
Anyway,
so the cool story is that we found a guy names Ray by doing this. He spoke
English, but we talked to him for a while and told him we'd get him in contact
with the other missionaries. We did, and this week I saw him at church! He came
up and said hi to me. He had another friend with him too. It was awesome.
This
week we also really got into the holiday season. I know it's very early, but
fall has now officially started, and it finally doesn't feel like blazing hot
summer here anymore either, so I'm happy about that. The festivities were
kicked off by Elder Hancock baking us pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. He texted
us at 9:00 one night "hurry and come over to our apartment. It's an
emergency!" We ran over there, and he had a fresh batch of pumpkin
chocolate chip cookies sitting out for us. He's the bomb! Then last night he
made pumpkin cinnamon rolls. Those were so delicious too. I love having a good
cook/baker so near by. What a blessing.
For
the investigators this week: Katarino is just taking it slow. His baptismal
date is now the 12th of October. We have to redo lots of things we teach him
because after his stroke a few years ago, he can be quite forgetful.
Cesar
is still afraid of committing. I made a promise to Kathy though that if she
would read the Book of Mormon every day, pray every day by herself, and pray
everyday with Cesar, that she would know the Book of Mormon is true within a
week. The Spirit told me to say it, so I did. We'll see if she does it. I hope
she does. There's no doubt in my mind that if she does all that, she'll know.
Nicolas
is the same old same old. And Nadia wasn't at church this week. She went to
Dallas to go to a concert with some of the 2nd ward girls. Come on 2nd ward,
stop giving my converts bad influences. Just kidding, maybe.
And
we have 2 new investigators this week! Sofia (11) and Damian (40s)! They are
part of a part member family in the Spanish branch. The members in the family
are Elsa (40s) and Laura (18).
Exciting
news. I think this is the first picture I've ever sent you of one of my
investigators. Hey, in my defense, it would just be super awkward to ask an
investigator for a picture. "Oh hey, is it alright if I take a picture of
us so my family back home can see all the people I'm teaching?" But this
was a perfect opportunity for a picture. We were helping him to cut down this
big tree with a chainsaw and carry the pieces away. Then after we took that
first picture, he just handed me the chainsaw so I could get a picture holding
it too. Pretty legit, I think.
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| Best part of my day! |
Mommy!
Your package of cookies was the best surprise this week! New recipe? They're
really good, even though a couple of them are no more than a pile of crumbs.
They still taste the same.. Delicious!!! It was the perfect end to my day to
open up that package because we had been biking all day in the rain and I was
soaked and exhausted. Then those cookies just finished out my day perfectly.
