The Car Thing

Mommy thank you so much for your letter this week! It really meant a lot to me to have your testimony of the plan of salvation in writing. I got to read it yesterday at the memorial day BBQ that we had in Bearcreek park. The missionaries in Citiview where nice enough to bring it up to me from the office. We've got temple today, so I don't have a ton of time to e-mail, but the Zone leaders told us that we were good to come beforehand to the college to write e-mails. Anyway, I loved your letter and also the package. The lotion and E-oil you sent is amazing. I've only been using it for a couple of days, but it's so nice. My poor scarred legs aren't so bad. Except that now I'm working on new scars since being attacked by more bugs. Man. They are huge here.

My week was a little stressful, but good. Hermana Hastings and Hermana Wardle are great. The three of us had some great experiences together, but I'm so happy to have Hermana Taets back. She came home Sunday night--I drove down to the airport to pick her up. She's really excited to be home soon. It's kind of hard for her, just because she wants to get right back to work and normal life and everyone is treating her really weird. Either not talking to her at all, or just not talking about anything except that her father's just died, which, thank you, she remembers. She's so strong. It's a real inspiration to me. Obviously she's in a lot of pain and needs some love and understanding from everyone, but I'm of the opinion that healing comes with time more than anything else and that the best thing to do is just seguir adelante, and she feels the same way. It was kind of a rough first day back for her, but she's cheerful and I know she'll be fine.

She had a lot of stories from last week. I haven't gotten to hear them all yet, just because she's barely been back, but she has told us some wonderful/funny/heartbreaking things about going home to be with her father in the hospital for his final hours and then having to plan and attend three very Catholic funerals in two different states.

Mother, remember how you want to be buried in a plain pine box? Just letting you know, it's the most expensive one apparently. Everyone was a bit slap-happy at the funeral home after having cried all weekend. The funeral director was getting annoyed.

There was a place on the program to put a scripture but Hna suggested that the put ACDC lyrics instead since that sort of fit her dad's personality a little better. Her aunt said, "As long as it's not highway to hell." which made everyone laugh pretty hard for a WHILE.

Also, she got blessed by a Catholic priest at the funeral with her nametag on and everything, which she said was the most surreal experience that she had to try not to laugh during.

Right after her father passed away her younger sister said, "Dad always said that if anything every happened to him, everything we would need is in the acorn." So they ran home to search his house for this ceramic acorn that they both remembered seeing floating around somewhere, kind of. After tearing the place apart, they finally found it and figured out how to unscrew the bottom of this big old rock thing that kind of looked almost like an acorn, they found his will inside. ('There's always money in the banana stand.")

The saddest part of the whole experience is that as his legal... decision making person... Hermana Taets had to be present at the hospital to make all the medical decisions and this includes when they told her that they could either do a surgery that might save his life, but leave him as a vegetable or let him pass away. She said it was the most horrible, nightmare part. She was agonizing other the decision for a long time. Or what seemed like a long time. She prayed and basically just said, ‘I don’t know what’s right. Please help me do what’s right.’ And when the moment of truth finally came, she had a total stupor of thought, and the only right thing seemed to be to let him pass away.

We had a good long talk last night, and we decided that she probably won’t really start grieving until after her mission, when she goes home and has to try to pick up where she was without him. They were planning to buy a house together and fix it up.

I know that she’ll be fine. She’s very strong. Even if she doesn’t have much spiritual support from her family, she has a double portion from the Lord. And we’re all here for her tooJ

Urgh… now to business.

Mom and dad... I don't want you to start dreading my letters or anything, but I've got more bad news. This isn't nearly as bad as last week's bad news, but it's still going to be pretty upsetting to you. You see, I got in a car accident and it was totally my fault, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to pay for the damages. And when I refer to myself, you'll understand that I have no money, so I'm really refering to the abstract concept of you, probably needing to pay for my mistake and then I pay you back at a future date when i eventually have a job/money again. I was REALLY hoping to avoid this situation through my whole mission and I was doing great until the I hit that pole. Basically what happened was... well, I don't really know actually and neither does my companion, we've been trying to figure it out since it happened. Remember how I used to misjudge the distance in the garage way bad and hit the mirror? Well, the mirror was fine, but I was at this weird angle so I mised the mirror and than somehow managed to get the car jammed awkwardly between this pole that holds up one of those fake-roofs in apartment complexes, and the curb. So--I couldn't go up onto the curb at all, because it was too high and the angle was such that the car wouldn't let me, and I couldn't move backwards and forwards in either direction. Long story short, we eventually got the car unstuck, but not before scraping up the side something nasty.

So nobody was hurt ect. But I've been commanded to refer to it as a car accident, Because I had to fill out a report and they made fun of me when I called and said, "Err... I had a car thing."

"...A car thing?"

"Yeah."

"You mean a car accident?"

"...No... It was just..."

"Is the car hurt?"

"Yes."

"That's an accident, Sister."

Okay. So I'm kind of a dummy sometimes. I don't know how much it's going to be, but it's dented up all ugly. I really hope it's not too bad, and I'm SO so sorry. I don't know why I'm not black dotted already. I really thought they would just take away my driving privileges, but they haven't. I made Hermana Hastings drive all last week as a result of just not wanting to deal with it. Plus, she likes driving.

I really have to go. Sorry to close on a flat note there, but I figured I should let you guys know… The office will probably be calling you as soon as they figure out how much is owed.

I love you all! (I hope you still love me:)

I miss you, but I’m working hard. I won’t be ready to come home until the very last second and even then… I know that there’s a part of my soul that will always be here. But I am excited to see you all again.

Love, Hermana Lillywhite

P.S. A lot more stories later from this week... but I've got to go!