Best bus experience of my mission

Dear All,

 This week was better. It wasn´t a great week, but it was better. We are getting to know the area and the members and figuring out how to find people. We had a zone conference on Tuesday and we talked about how if we want to be a normal missionary we do things that all other missionaries do. If we want to be excellent missionaries we do things that no one does. So we put it in practice. The next morning we stood in front of the bus and contacted everyone at once. Half of the area is apartments, so we made a list of all the members that live in the apartments and went and tried to visit them. And if they weren´t home we knocked all the doors on their floor. We´ve gone to the farthest parts of our area, where I don´t think missionaries have ever set foot, just to contact and look for old references. Hopefully we start seeing some serious fruit cause honestly I am super exhausted.

But yeah this week was chill. We did exchanges with the Zone Leaders and had some fun. There was one point where we got on a bus and it was the best bus experience of my mission. First off there was a very heavily tatooed lady with several piercings in various parts of her body, holding a newborn baby in her arms. About 3 minutes later, she starts breastfeeding the baby. Which actuallly is not that surprising in this country. And then the bus started to climb a hill. A really big hill. And as it went up it went slower and slower and the smell of smoke grew stronger and stronger and then all of the sudden the motor stopped and we started rolling backwards down the hill. WOOO rollercoaster but without any form of security. I may have peed my pants. Luckily the young bus driver got it under control before anything got too bad and guided us to saftety at the bottom of the hill. So yeah. What a wonderful experience. 

But yeah the ward here is pretty cool. We went to go visit a family where the grandpa and all of the kids are mailmen in the US. So they all speak English and are super cool. And then I come to find out that they have a relative that lives in Georgia, but it´s not close to where we live unfortunately. 

Also hahaha I almost forgot there was one day that a truck crashed into a light pole by the apartments in my area. And a sidenote to that: everyone here is stealing electricity. The main power cable runs along the side of the street and from that main cable string many other little illegal cables that hook to houses. And the government comes and cuts the lines from time to time and so there are probably hundreds of these little power lines hanging down. Its pretty ghetto haha. But anyway the whole power thing is just kinda sketchy here anyways, so when this truck hits the light pole, like 3 transformers blew cause some lines crossed or something and anyway long story short the whole neighborhood was without power. So finally everyone came outside of their house. It was kinda cool cause we could just contact everyone. And it was way funny cause probalby 9 out of ten people told us they were dying without being able to have internet and get on their facebook. Moral of the story, go outside once in a while, you probably won´t die.

Anyway that was my week. Not super exciting but definitely not a bad one. You guys keep being cool and always read your scriptures and pray.

Los quiero mucho, 

Elder Rawlings