May 19, 2014

We've actually had some pretty crazy things happen this past week.

Elder Hopoate, who was one of the missionaries serving here in New Plymouth, is now up in Hamilton. He and his companion were riding down a hill last week and he wrecked on their way home. He ended up having an AC separation. I think that's what it's called. He basically tore the tendons that hold your collar bone to your shoulder. I think. So he got moved up to work in the Visitors Center at the temple in Hamilton, and we now have a new missionary in New Plymouth; with a pretty cool back story. He's originally from Australia, but served the last 8 months in the Ukraine. Apparently he showed up in the Ukraine at about the same time that all of the civil unrest started, so he spent most of his mission having to be really careful of where he was going and who he was talking to. They had a couple of lock downs, and some old empty missionary flats got broken into where the people were trying to kill the missionaries because they're westerners. Sounds pretty crazy. The guy even has an old gas mask from one of their investigators that took it off a special forces guy they beat up. How nuts is that? He got shifted into the mission about a week ago, and President was having a really hard time figuring out where to put him. They kept running through ideas but nothing seemed right. Then Elder Hopoate crashed and it all came together quite nicely. Not to mention the fact that President Rudd was already planning on coming down this past weekend for District Conference, so the ride worked out perfectly to get the two switched.

Needless to say, with the  stuff that happened, we ended up doing a lot of running around, and it seemed like, yet again, we weren't abel to spend enough time in our area. All good though. So long as nobody wrecks and hurts themselves this week, we should be set to just go out and get stuff done. I reckon I'm pretty satisfied though with how everything has been going. Even though we haven't been able to spend a hundred percent of our time working in our area, it seems as though when we do have a bit to get going, everything works out. People are home and we're able to teach some awesome lessons. Doors are opening and people are progressing, and that's what we're looking for.

Hopefully everything is going alright back home. It was awesome to be able to skype again. Now we just gotta wait another 8 months. And by then who cares, I'll be almost home! haha.
 Love ya!