27 November 2017

So yeah. My companion went home this week because he needed surgery. Basically, we went into the doctor's on Tuesday to get some more x rays. So, we get those done and sit back down to wait for the doctor to arrive. We knew it was bad when he walked into the room with a weird expression on his face and immediately asked if he had done something to reinjure himself. He then showed us the x rays, and originally he had broken his collarbone but it was still in one piece, just cracked. With the second set of x rays we found out that his collarbone was now two pieces, and the ends weren't even touching anymore. We started walking out of the room to go see them and I saw a computer screen with his x ray on it. He didn't say it was his at first, but the first thing I thought was, "Oh I hope that's not Elder Rolph's bone." Unfortunately, it was. So he got to have a nice chat with the doctor about his options. There were only two. Let it sit there in the sling and heal as it is, which would result in a huge knot of bone, possible reduced range of motion, and possible nerve issues. Or he could have the surgery and have a plate holding the two parts together, which would hugely reduce recovery time and almost immediately regain at least some use of the arm. The doctor very much encouraged the second option. So Elder Rolph talked to the mission president who agreed that it would be best to go home and get the surgery, especially because he only had two weeks left anyways. We had the official call of he's going home to have the surgery on Tuesday at about 2, and his flight was Wednesday at 1:30. The church is very efficient in shipping its missionaries around. So we spent the rest of Tuesday packing his stuff and getting him ready to go. Then we spent Wednesday morning getting stuff figured out and putting me with my new companions. So, I'm now in a trio with 2 elders from my district, and we're covering two areas. The funny thing is that one of those elders is my MTC companion, so we already know each other. The other one is his trainer, so now he's training two elders in Spanish at the same time. He's also going home this transfer. Then on Thursday we had Thanksgiving with one of the counselors in the bishopric. The funny thing is he's one of the only Americans in the ward, so we had an English Thanksgiving. We ended up being the judges of all of the pies, so we had to eat from five different slices. There was a super good apple pie, and we declared that the winner. Mom, you have the pictures of all that, so you are in charge of pictures. They didn't give us them. But it was fun, and after that madness for days in a row the rest of the week was kind of a blur. So sorry, that's all I have for this week. Except for that I relearned how to juggle.

20 November 2017

Well, this has definitely been the least exciting week of my mission. We couldn't find last week because of my companion's injury, and so we didn't have any appointments. We spent a few hours on Monday in the hospital, and then we didn't have much else to do. For most of Tuesday, we were in the apartment but got to go out and knock a little bit. Wednesday was pretty good. We had a zone conference, and we got to go to the temple. It was super nice. It's always great to be able to go and do work. Then Thursday we went on exchanges with our district leaders. We mostly just knocked because they didn't have any appointments set up that day. Still, it was great to go out and work. The next morning we transferred back and I immediately went on exchanges with our zone leaders. That one was even better. We didn't knock a whole lot, but I got to go with him and teach a few lessons. And I got to drive the only truck in the mission. It's a Chevy Silverado, and only the Raleigh ZL's have one. The only reason I got to drive it was the ZL I was with had his driving privileges taken away after getting dinged by the system called Tiwis- Teenage Independent Witness. Basically your mother sitting next to you and screaming at you if you speed, brake too hard, accelerate too fast, or turn too hard. And then telling your mission president. I didn't think that I would enjoy it much, but it turns out that I also love driving trucks. Not just small cars like I thought. Unfortunately, I got back after that exchange and found out my companion had decided to go out and knock and work for two full days without wearing his sling. He's in a lot of pain, so we couldn't work Saturday or Sunday. It took me and my district leaders an hour and a half to convince him to leave the apartment this morning. He just doesn't want to move at all anymore. It's kind of rough just being stuck in your apartment all day. On the plus side, I've had plenty of time for scripture and language study. I've also read every Ensign we have. Which is a lot. Well, that's all for this week. As nothing really happened, I don't have any pictures, so I apologize for that.

13 November 2017

Yay! We got in a bike crash! It was very fun, and I got to ride in an ambulance for the first time! What happened is that we were going down a hill when it was really dark, and it had been raining all day. My companion saw a pile of leaves that covered the entire sidewalk and thought it would be fine to go through them. I was maybe 15-20 feet behind him, so I couldn't see it. He hit the leaves and started to slide, and I was right behind him. He went down first, hit the ground hard, and started to slide. I hit the ground right after him on my right side, rolled onto my feet and walked over to him. It was probably that roll that saved me, because when I got to him, he was laying on the ground with his head bleeding. And both his hands. And his ear. I started checking to see if he was okay, and two people showed up with some paper towels for his head. They started asking questions, and then we found out that he had lost a lot of his recent memory. While I was calling our mission nurse, they called an ambulance. The nurse showed up right before the ambulance did, and she fought them on taking him to the hospital, because she said it would be too expensive for the ambulance. They said they had to take him rather than her because he was confused and couldn't make his own choices. So, I got to ride in the ambulance with him. When we got to the hospital, they made me wait outside, so I found the mission nurse and sat with her and her husband. Eventually, we got to go in and see him. Elder Root (the mission nurse's husband) and I gave him a blessing. Shortly after that, he started to regain his memory. I had forgotten my camera, so not many pictures from it. Our mission president got a whole bunch of pictures when he got there, but he never sent them to us. When he was released, he had cuts on his hands, a bloody bald spot on his head, a really cut up ear, a cut shoulder, and a broken collarbone. My sum total of injuries from the exact same type of crash about a half second after his: A bruise on the inside of my left calf from my own shoe, a mid-sized cut on my right knee, and an 8 inch long bruise on my right hip. Not much for me. He has to wear a sling for a while, and might go home if our visit to the orthopedic surgeon says he needs surgery. He'd be slightly peeved, mostly because he only has 22 days left anyways. So I've been stuck in the apartment with him, working on the area book. I think I'm going to explode. Well, that's pretty much my big thing from the week. Until next time! ​

​Elder Rolph's head, 1 week from the accident



His helmet that he had borrowed just for that one day. We had forgotten ours as we dropped off the car, and the other missionaries let us just use theirs. Didn't even make it 24 hours before we had wrecked one of them.

​My pants after the accident. (Sorry mom, I didn't even make it out of my first area before I ruined some.)

​Here's the crazy part: this is Elder Rolph's normal helmet. If he'd been wearing this one, he probably wouldn't have made it nearly as well. (Note the safety pin holding it together.)

6 November 2017

Well, this last P Day was very interesting. It involved 2 Olaf pinatas, many smaller homemade pinatas, and far too much candy. Basically, we just had an activity where we beat the snot out of pinatas because it was Halloween and we could. One of my district leaders was wearing a kilt because you know, why not. Our attempts to blindfold people didn't work too well, and so we decided to just go with wearing a shark head backwards. Again, because why not. Everyone ended up with way too much candy, and I have Olaf's head on my desk. We used medieval flails on Olaf because the DL with a kilt had some randomly. As well as a short sword and multiple knives. He's a strange man. Later, we all played a game called Werewolf. Kind of like mafia, but more complex and with werewolves instead on a mob. This is us trying out the blindfold on a front facing shark head. (Didn't work)
Aftermath of a single Olaf pinata
Middle of a werewolf game

In the actual week, nothing too terribly exciting happened. Well, except for one door contact. I was on exchanges with my non-kilted DL(Who is also just English speaking, so I got to do a ton of Spanish work on my own.) and we were knocking some apartments. We get to one door, and as soon as we knock, it swings open. There's just a man standing there with a huge knife and a crazy look in his eyes. Before we can say anything, he says with much enthusiasm, "I'm making spaghetti!!" We said that was great and we were missionaries of the church before he yells again, "I'm busy, I'm making spaghetti!!" Every time he said he was making spaghetti, he shook the knife to emphasize it. I don't know why, but that was the funniest door contact I've ever had. When we walked away, we couldn't stop laughing. Aside from that, our week was pretty uneventful. Just my trainer getting super trunky as he's been doing something called "My Plan," which everyone says is designed to make you as trunky as possible. Basically, it's you making a plan for after you get home, and it involves you signing up for Institute and college, making plans for your career, where you want to be in 5 years, and (my favorite) dating plans. It's so hard for him to focus after doing it so I end up doing most of the work for the rest of the day. It's really been helping my Spanish. Unfortunately, we've been having some trouble with our investigators. Our most progressing one just dropped us, and we haven't been able to get in contact with our one with a baptismal date. We think he's avoiding our calls and not answering the door when we're there, but we aren't for sure. We'll keep trying with him. On the plus side, we have another who is reading in the Book of Mormon every day and progressing pretty well. He's already been taught a lot by other missionaries, but then he moved. The big problem with him is that he needs to get married, but we're working with him. We had a lesson with him last night and it went pretty well. His girlfriend (a less active member who recently reactivated herself) made us pupusas(I have no idea if I'm spelling that right), and they were delicious. I always find it funny how people here get more upset if you don't eat all of the food in their house. We had someone get mad at us before because we "only" ate 5 pupusas each. Hopefully I don't get too fat out here. 

I think that's all for my week, but I shall be back in another with some hopefully more exciting news. ​