November 29, 2010

Hey Mom and Dad.

I heard that you got stuck in Vegas because of snow! Bummer. I’m sorry. Hope you get home safe. This week was crazy. So crazy. Let’s start with Thanksgiving Day. In the morning we went to go play football with a bunch of people at a park. That was fun. And muddy. So then we were driving home. Let me set the scene for you. The road we were on has just recently opened up because they were doing construction on it for a long time. They are still doing construction on it but it's open to drive on. One lane going each way. On our right was a ditch. Elder Moore was driving, I was in the passenger seat, Elders Packard and Parsons were in the back. In the distance I see this girl riding a bike in the MIDDLE of the street. Right on the yellow lines. We’re going 40 mph. All of a sudden the girl swerves right in front of us. Elder Moore slams the brakes and we swerve. The girl rides into the ditch and falls on her back. We freak out. Park. And run over to her. If we hit her she would have been gone. Dead. This other guy driving saw what happened and came over too. We all started talking to her and we helped her get up. We called 911 but she said that she didn't need the ambulance to come. Right when I started talking to her I could smell alcohol. The other guy left and we talked to her some more. We find out her name is Laura and she is like 30. We told her that we were missionaries (even though we were way dirty from football). We told her we didn't normally dress like that ha-ha. And she explained how her grandma had just died and she started drinking again because of it. She told us how a lot of crazy things have happened to her in her life. She said she wanted to stop drinking and all this other stuff. We explained that it was no coincidence that we almost killed her ha-ha. We all testified of the love that God has for her and how she can change. We talked to her for a really long time but she was very thankful for us and she gave us all hugs and her information. And now Elder Moore and Elder Parsons are teaching her because she lives in their area. WE ALMOST KILLED HER! Like so close. Now she's going to get baptized ha-ha. Hopefully.

So there's more: Later that night we all ate dinner at a members' house. They also showed us their 3D TV which is SO sick. Anyway we were driving home from that and this car next to us was swerving allllllll over the road. It was an older lady. And we knew she was drunk. And I mean drunkkk. She was stopping at green lights and stuff hahaha. We followed her and called 911 because we didn't want her to kill herself or anyone else. She pulled into this neighborhood and almost crashed like 10 times. She pulled into a driveway and parked. We all got out of the car and went to talk to her to tell her she needed to stop driving ha-ha. But she wouldn't open the door or roll down the window. Then she started backing out of the driveway. I think we scared her. She almost hit the mailbox and almost ran me over too hahaha. We followed her again and she parked in another random driveway. The cop finally came and we watched him talk to her. It was pretty funny. Then the cop drove her home. It was just a crazy day. You don't get to call 911 two times in a day normally ha-ha. So that was Thanksgiving Day.

Then the next day we went to the mall for black Friday to see if we could get some good deals on ties. They had some awesome deals but I didn't buy any. Then later in the day we went to the Turkey Rod Run at the Daytona Speedway. It's this HUGE car convention. People come from all over with their nice cars and hot rods. The cars cover the entire speedway. We walked soooo far looking at all the cars. We got in free because the scouts had a hot dog stand thing. So that was sweet. Then Saturday we helped the Lunas (recent converts) put up Christmas lights. Awesome family. Then Sunday we tracted this area that wasn't too ghetto. Still ghetto. But not way ghetto. Then got picked up the go eat dinner at a member's house. We ate about 3 pounds of fish each. It was SO good. Anyway...he took us in his truck to go pick up the bikes and take us home. And someone stole my front tire, rim, disk brake, and front light. Not cool ha-ha. I was surprisingly chill about it though. I’ve learned to be that way. The Lord has helped me with that a lot. So if you could send me that other Visa gift card that I have as soon as possible it would be great. I need a new rim ha-ha. Thankfully this week is our car week and it happened the last day of our bike week. Maybe they needed the rim more than I did. I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.

But other than all that crazy stuff...this last week was pretty slow for the work. Thanksgiving put a lot of things on hold. Oh something cool though. Alvelo was supposed to come to church but didn't make it. We went by his house in the morning to pick him up but he wasn't there. Then when we were waiting for Brother Barrett to pick us up for dinner, guess who comes walking down the street to us? Yep. Alvelo. We were way far away from his house too. He said that he was over at his father's house for the weekend so he couldn't make it to church. But he said that he's been reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. He's so cool. He'll get baptized. The Lord put him in our path. So cool. No such thing as a coincidence! Never! So that was my week. Love you both!

--
Elder Austin Gable Engemann aka dubEE fresh