Just another fabulous week! 7/16/2012

The only package I got was the first one with all the goodies. I don’t remember when I got it but I will tell you when the next one comes. But thanks for the package, it was much needed.

And sorry again, I didn’t bring my cord to my camera so I cannot upload any pics this week. If you guys could, maybe find a cord & send it to me so I can always have it on me that would be awesome.

To kick things off this week I thought I might share how my companion and I almost died a week or two ago (I just kept forgetting to tell you). We were out one day going to some less active families. We stopped on the corner of an intersection/4 way stop to check the address. The house was only two home down from the intersection. We go down there, knock on the door, then we hear a huge explosion. We looked at each other then I walked out to the street and looked down at the intersection. It looked like someone hit a garbage can, because there was so much debris everywhere. But then I saw some people running across the intersection. So we ran down there and saw what the debris came from. About 100ft from the intersection was a minivan rolled over on its side, the engine hanging out, completely totaled. And about 150ft beyond that was a little one-seater BMW, with its front smashed in and looked like he had spun out. There was a mom and baby in the van, the mom was in shock and apart from cuts and bruises looked fine. The baby was 100% fine. The guy in the BMW looked out of it. What happened was the minivan was taking its turn crossing the intersection, going straight and the BMW was coming from the left of the van. There was another car stopped at the intersection, the BMW went around that car at about 60+ mph and full on hit the vans front driver side of the door; throwing the van 100ft past the intersection and spinning out the BMW. What was scary about that is not one min. before that, we were standing on the corner. If we had been one min. behind we would have got hit by oil and debris, or ever worse a car. Just goes to show you how much the Lord is really looking out for us. I didn’t get any pics because it would have felt weird taking them at that point in time.

But other than that nothing too exciting has happened. It is just as busy as ever down here. But we did get a decent storm yesterday. Loud thunder, lots of lightning, and a bunch of rain! It is funny how it can be so dry down here and yet rain so much. The roads become rivers and everything floods. And the other day we biked to a referrals home. It was 5.5 miles uphill! And on top of that the wind was blowing against us. But on the way down the hill the rain started. And again the wind was against us so we didn’t get going very fast. The rain hurt though, imagine going 20+mph and huge raindrops hitting you. It was not fun, but it was an experience.

It is funny to hear you guys complain about the high 90′s in the letter, because down here when it get that temp. if feels nice!

Everything down here is going great, although I do envy you for going camping. I hope everything is going great up in the cool weather.  I will try to send some letters this week but I am not going to promise anything. Things just get too crazy!!

Hoping all is well,

Elder Barlocker II

P.S. Tell Kevin I said HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!

Oh and I forgot to tell you one more crazy thing that happened this week. We got a call at about 3:30am saying that one of the Elders was missing. They thought that he was sleep walking and got away. So we got out of bed, didn’t change, got our tags on and went out and got a ride with our district leader to the other elders apartment. The story we were told was one of the missionaries couldn’t sleep so he decided to do his laundry. When he came back after about ten min, his companion was gone. And this was at about 1:00am, he waited two hours to call anybody because he thought that he would come back. Well everyone in the zone was called in and we started looking for him. Me and one of the zone leaders stayed at the apartment to see if he would come back. To make a long story short the search ended at 5:30am. The ‘lost’ elder showed up at his district leader apartment. When the one elder went to do laundry the other one woke up, saw his companion was gone with the keys and phone. So he did what seemed logical at 1:00 in the morning, walk to his district leader’s home. Let’s just say the missionary that was ‘doing his laundry’ got transferred. The rest of that day was long and everybody was tired. That incident made me want to follow the rules even more closely. Things can happen way too fast and it can turn out bad.

My time on the computer is up now, so I will write/email you guys later!

Love,

Elder Barlocker II