Crazy is starting to become the new normal

Well its been another crazy week here.

First I'll start with the good stuff. So like I mentioned in the earlier emails we are in a really small town where most people work out in the fields so there is not ever much to do here during the day. We really have wanted to find some service so we had gone to the city hall like 3 different times and gave them our information and asked if they had any service for us to do but they never do. Anyway, so we were teaching english classes on Tuesday and only one person showed up for the advanced class, Cielo so her and I just started talking about random stuff so she can practice conversation since her english is really good. Somehow we got on the topic of how she volunteers at the red cross so I asked her if she knew of any service we could do for them. She got super excited because they were having a service project planting some bushes and stuff that Saturday. 

So on saturday we got picked up by the red cross ambulance at 8:30 and went to their building which is outside of town. We got there and one of the paramedics gave us a tour of the building, showed us all their boats and stuff which was pretty cool. After that a few more people had showed up and we started working. We ended up digging like a 75 ft long 1 foot deep trench with hoes and pickaxes cause the dirt here is super dry and rocky. I loved it cause we finally got to do something active haha but my comp not so much 😂😂 anyways once we got done digging the trench they told us we were going to get breakfast. So we all piled in the back of the ambulance and headed to a local restaurant. The owner is friends with the red cross people so they invited us right in to the kitchen and just told us to grab a plate and take whatever food we wanted. It was so weird like 20 super dirty volunteers just grabbing food out of pans with our bare hands definitely would not have passed sanitary health codes in America. Anyways we finished breakfast and headed back to the red cross where we finished up the work. They were all super happy to have us there and asked us if we could come help them teach classes about the dangers of drugs and alcohol with them in a few weeks so we said we would if we didn't get transferred. So we went upstairs and did some preparation for the classes with them. It was super cool cause they pretty much were teaching the word of wisdom haha they even talked about how coffee can be an addiction and everything. Basically all of them are already keeping the word of wisdom so hopefully we will be able to get some future investigators out of this. They asked tons of questions about missions and about the church all day! 

So after the class we went back to the restaurant to have lunch. Here at restaurants lunch is like a 5 course meal, i didn't know that... so the first course came out and it was a huge slice of spanish tortilla. Basically like a thick thing made of eggs and potatoes so I barely was able to finish that and looked over at my companion and said dude I'm stuffed, he just started laughing then told me there was 3 more courses coming still hahah. I don't understand how they put so much food down here its nuts.

So we decided we want to do more stuff for the red cross because apparently every time they buy everyone food!! 

So anyway, later that night we had told Celia we would stop by to talk because her and her husband are having lots of problems. Her husband is Antonio the guy who we have been trying to help keep the word of wisdom so he can get confirmed, since he smoked the day after his baptism. So anyway we were at their house having a good discussion about the scriptures when Antonio came in and they got in a huge argument. Celia wants a divorce because she feels like she's given him tons of opportunities to change and he hasn't, its just a difficult situation because she loves the church and the gospel so much but Antonio is starting to become anti because he doesn't want to follow the rules and stuff.  It was really scary because he was yelling and jumped up out of his chair and I thought he was going to hit her or something because she's told us he has abused her before, so I was like getting ready to jump up if he did, it was crazy. My comp used the fake phone call thing we have on our mission phones to pretend we were getting a call and went outside to call Richard our branch president for help. He was in Murcia like a half hour away so he told us to just stay there till he could get there and help. Somehow he was there in like 15 minutes we have no idea how but it was a miracle. When he got there we were finally able to leave because it was already past our bedtime. 

We found out the next day at church that after Richard left at like midnight Antonio went into a rage and almost got into a fight with Hector, Celia'

s brother who lives with them, then got in his car and drove off. They haven't seen him since.  Anyways so that whole deal was kind of scary and really sad.

Oh yeah one more funny story, so yesterday after church Hector and Celia invited us over for lunch so we were on our way to their house and stopped by Celia's store to get some meat. They parked the car on the side of the road then went into the store while elder maldonado and I just waited in the car. So anyways we're just sitting there when a big truck comes around the corner and totally side swipes the back bumper of the car. It was super loud and the car was shaking a ton and stuff. So i jumped out of the car to see the damage and the truck just starts driving off so i grab my iPad and started sprinting down the road after it trying to get a picture of the license plate. When they saw me taking the picture they stopped and the guy in the passenger seat jumped out, you can see him in the picture ill send haha anyways he was like why are you taking a picture haha but i didn't know how to say "dude you just hit our car" in spanish so i just kinda like pointed at the car and hit my hands together to symbolize like a crash haha at this point Celia and Hector had come out of the store so we showed them. They were both like "oh no pasa nada" My comp and I were like what!? Your car is all scraped up and you don't even care!? They didn't care a bit, it was so weird haha they just acted like it was a completely normal thing... 

Other than that not much has happened here, we still haven't found any new investigatiors so that is kind of disappointing. Transfers are this next week so maybe I'll get moved somewhere where there's more people to teach. Apparently Mazarron is like the smallest town in our whole mission so not much ever happens here. The recent converts we have are the first ones here in the past 6 years. 

I forgot my camera when we went to the red cross but they took a bunch of pictures so I will try to get some next time from them and send them.

Love you guys.

Elder Childers

Here is a picture of our dumpster which got burned completely the night of Halloween.