Abilene week 14

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.

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.

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. 

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.

Also, pictures with Eliseo I don't think are big deals anyway. He took a picture with us last week in church after priesthood meeting randomly. Then he put it on his facebook and some of his mexican friends were like, "hey, who are those cute bolios (white people)? Can you give us their number? We want to meet them." He told us about that. I had a good laugh.

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.