A Popped Tire

Dearest Mother,

Didn't we move into our house on the 29th of February? Or is that just something I made up because I thought it would have been cool if we had moved in on that day, and so I have always thought it my whole life? Either way it is pretty cool that I can say we have only lived in our house for 4 of todays.

Tell all of our neighbors that I miss them too!! Also ask Lorraine if she could tell you how to make the beans from those Mexican restaurants. I think she said that she knew how to make them, and I want to know how so that I can make them at home instead of having to go to a Mexican restaurant anytime I want refried beans.. hahaha

This week has been pretty great though. Here's a funny story for y'all. I will send a couple of pictures to go with it, but I didn't get too many because I walked away for most of it. So yesterday, we had three meals appointments that we had to go to in the space of 4 hours. The first one was a birthday party for our 97 year old investigator. That was awesome, but I was super nervous about eating her food. It was really good though:) We were there for a little bit longer than we had originally planned, and so we had to text the member family that was feeding us lunch after and told them that we needed to push lunch about 30 mins because we were running a little late. Eventually we head out, and are on our way to the member's home to get there at the time we had told them we were going to be there, when I'm driving along, and there is a loud bang. I realized that I had run over something, and looked immediately in my rearview mirror to check to see what it was. All I could see was a tiny strip of metal that was quickly disappearing. Looking back at my dashboard, I switched to a screen that allows me to see the tire pressure, and I watched as our tire pressure went from 40 to 10 in about 5 seconds. We managed to pull over at a safe spot and out of the way of traffic, and low and behold, the tire was flat. Whatever we had run over had ripped our tire. super crazy. We call the member and tell them that we had just gotten a flat and so we were going to be even later than we had said. They asked us if we needed help, and I told them we would definitely appreciate it if they came to help. Mind you, we have all the tools, and the spare tire, and I know where all of those things are located in the car, but I didn't know how to jack the car up to actually change the tire (which I did know how to do.) Plus we are in skirts, and its Sunday. Anyway, as we were getting all the stuff out to be all the way ready when the members got there, there was a homeless guy who couldn't talk that came up and tried to tell us what to do. He used gestures and seemingly tried to tell us that we needed to change our tire, and we politely tried to tell him that we appreciated his help, but we did have people coming to help us. (Honestly, it wasn't that he was speaking with a heavy accent that we couldn't understand, it was literally that he couldn't talk to us.) He did help us figure our though that we have those car brake things that you put on tires to keep it from rolling away when you park on a hill, or you do something to the car and so it is on the back tires or whatever. So that was nice of him. When the member got there, it was the father, their son, and one of their daughters. I wanted to go find the thing that pooped [popped] our tire, so I took the daughter with my companion and went up the road to find the thing that pooped [popped] our tire, so that no one else would get their tires popped. We left the boys there to fix our tire while we left (which is why I don't have many pictures of someone actually changing the tire). When we walked up the road, we saw one of two other cars that were changing their tires too because they had hit it as well.. Essentially it was a metal strip about 8 inches long with a bolt sicking out of either side (so two bolts total). We are going to see if we can somehow cut it so that each of us can have it as a souvenir. Super funny. By the time we got back the tire was fixed and the homeless guy had left, and so we were able to quickly go to our 2nd meal appointment for the day, but much later than planned. After we got done there, we had to go on Post for our dinner appointment with a less active family that was moving (which is why we agreed to have so many meals) but we had to switch cars with the Elders because Post is kinda far, and you can only get on it through the end of the freeway (unless you want to kill a bunch of miles, and when that's limited its not really worth it), and I didn't feel comfortable going so far and so fast with a spare tire. It was weird driving a Toyota car, because my whole mission I have only been assigned to Chevy Cruses. We were super blessed though to be able to eat all the food that was given to us, even though we might have possibly gained 5 pounds in doing so. Super fun.

Also we had an investigator go to Atlanta for a Doctor's appointment, and then she never came back. She took all her money out of her bank account and closed her bank account and her phone number and is disappeared. She lived with a member family here and they haven't heard anything from her, nor has any of her family. Super crazy. Keep her in your prayers. We honestly have no idea what just happened with her.

We had to say goodbye this week to many of our friends on post because they are being moved with the army. One of them is moving to Colorado, and the other is going to Utah because they just retired from the military. It made us super sad to have to see them go, because we had been working closely with one of the families to get them baptized, and the other family was their good friend, and ours as well. The second family was also a part member family, so I hope they will get the help they need in their journey to Christ that they couldn't get here. Pictures to follow.

Love you all! And I hope all is going well with you:) I love you and I miss you, but keep moving strong. It will all work out:)

-Love Sister Walker