I have a Stalker

Happy Birthday to Dad and Lacey. I love what Lacey did, and I want you to know that I thought of you both. I miss you guys, and I wish I'd have been able to talk to you and tell you how much I love you, but rules are rules. I'm technically not even allowed to write letters on any day but Monday.

Before anybody dives into this week's email, I need you to sit down. Are you sitting down yet? Well, yeah, I mean it! Go get a chair! Okay. Ready? Good.

I got into a car accident. Wednesday. I'm fine and so is Sister Thomas, and so is the car actually, but it is currently not drivable because it needs to be repaired. We were driving to an appointment and got stuck in stop and go traffic for about ten minutes. In the time it took for Sister Thomas to glance at the dashboard, a bus two cars ahead of us came to an abrupt stop, as did the two cars in front, but Sister Thomas, who was stepping on the gas a bit when she looked away, had to look up and then hit the brake. The Tiwi box (A driving monitor we have installed from a company in SLC. They're in twenty missions, so the boys better hope they don't get called to one of them if they don't want to be violated. TJ would have to drive like a grandma, haha.) scolded us with a loud "AGGRESSIVE DRIVING" as we hit the car in front. We pushed all the way into the middle of the intersection when Sister Thomas decided that she didn't want to ever drive again and started crying. I tried to calm her down and told her she needed to drive through the intersection and pull over where the other two cars involved were pulling. It took about a minute for her to respond. When we finally got over, I called the mission office and started pulling out all our insurance, registration, and the accident report from the glove compartment. She was still fairly hysterical, which switched me into Mom mode. I gave her some paperwork to fill out because she needed to try to focus on something, and I went out to take pictures. None of the actual body is dented, thank goodness, but the plastic bumper and the lights were pushed out of place. We got really lucky. We were the third accident in the mission in three days. Salt Lake has to approve the cost of repairs ($3200 estimate) before anyone can drive the car, which means we get to use bikes.

Only I haven't used my bike yet because we went on exchange, and I didn't need a bike. Then on Saturday, as the elders came over to repair my tube that was popped by whoever put it together (and fix what they hadn't done right), a big red truck broadsided a Jeep Cherokee and pushed it into our parking lot under our window. We rushed out to help them. Nobody was bleeding, but the lady in the truck was pregnant and had to be taken away in an ambulance since she'd been broadsided on the driver's side. The people driving the truck were a Mexican family who were shaken for very different reasons it seemed. They didn't speak any English. The elders directed traffic around the accident (we live on a busy road and the accident blocked our entrance and took up a lane of the road) until emergency crews came. That was insane.

I still haven't been on a bike because we spend all of Saturday with the Adams (senior couple) going to visit investigators. By the way, I hope you're still sitting down.

Saturday night, our district leader came by to talk to Sister Thomas about a guy she'd been teaching before I got here. I've never met this guy, but he had to be dropped about a week and a half after I got here because he'd been texting Sister Thomas to tell her that he was falling for her. He's a big black guy in his late thirties, and has a history of violence. Remember that. So we gave his number to the elders who have not gotten a chance to teach him yet because he makes up excuses. That has not stopped him from coming to church to stare at Sister Thomas. Elder Taylor (our DL) has been bothered by it all week and wanted to let her know that he'd prayed about it in the temple and that he was going to tell President Wall. Which he did on Sunday.

So after church on Sunday, he called us to tell us that we were being ET'd (emergency transferred). Sister Thomas, because the President wants her out of the way of this potentially dangerous man (who has apparently cut people's fingers off), and me, because I am in training. We're leaving tomorrow to stay in Baton Rouge until President knows where to send us. We're being replaced by elders. One of the ward members offered us a place to stay the night because he thinks it's too dangerous to leave us in our apartment, and President agrees. We actually had a guy come over at ten thirty at night a few weeks ago and knock on the door, then sit in his truck (which, oh by the way, was missing plates) for a long time to take notes or something. So now we've been smuggled out of our apartment like Jews in Nazi Germany, and we're not allowed to be alone until we get to Baton Rouge. My life has turned into a movie.

But I do have a funny story to tell. When the elders were here during the accident and to fix my bike, their real motive for coming over was to share a pizza from Papa Murphey's with us. It was delicious. After the hullaballoo with the accident, they showed us a video they'd taken. It was them on their bikes, stopping on the sidewalk and picking up a pizza from the side of the road. They folded it in half, stuck it in their backpack, and that's where the video ended. We'd just baked and eaten that pizza. I told them that it would take a lot more than that to gross me out.

To top that though, a few months ago, Elder Taylor had made a big pot of jumbalaya for Sister Thomas. He used rabbit meat, and afterwards he showed her a series of pictures he'd taken of himself picking up a dead rabbit from the road, putting it in a box, skinning it, cutting it up, putting it in the freezer, taking it out, and cooking it in a big pot. This story had only been relayed to me, but when I heard it, I asked whether they'd run over the rabbit themselves. They had, to which I responded "Well, as long as you kill it yourself, it's okay to eat." Really, it'd take a lot more to freak me out I think. I'm finding that in a lot of ways I think more like an elder sometimes than a sister.

Well, I have to go finish my P-Day and get ready to make an emergency exodus. I'm so glad Dad got working again. I've been praying hard for that. I'm super excited to hear where the boys are going. Don't send any mail to me until I write Mom back with my new address. Tell anyone you know who's written me, which is basically just my bookstore people, so tell Jessica to relay that. Take pictures of the backyard! I want to see! Hug Tonks, I miss her soooooooo freaking much. She's the best freaking dog in the world. I'll write you next week! LOVE YOU!!!