I just need to do what I just did three more times!
Hello, everyone! Elder Bowlby here.
Can you believe I'm 1/4th of
the way through my mission? The past six months have felt like nothing.
Heck, the past two weeks in Bosque have been a blur!
The curent living situation
Living in a cramped house with four other people is not all that it's cracked up to be but who cares because we all get along.
Except sometimes we don't
Basically
we're not perfect. Every person has their quirks and I'm learning bit
by bit to apreciate others for what they do right and not what they do
wrong. It's not very easy for me. I seem to be stressing and getting
frustrated more rapidly... Huh!
One of the most stressful (and funniest) weeks we've ever had
Okay, so, this week has been a rollercoaster ride for sure.
Monday the 9th of October:
We
had no money. Like, nothing. We also had no food. Soooo we didn't buy
any food like we normaly do. That was bearable. I don't eat much dinner
anyways. The portable air conditioning was sucking up a ton of energy
and the lights repeatedly went out in our little apartment, but we slept
well and the power ceased to be an issue until...
Tuesday the 10th of October:
Instead
of our normal work routine in the morning we went to see if we had
recieved any form of money whatsoever with which to buy food. Luckily an
Elder in our house recieved some sort of reimbursement for his spending
in the past transfer, and with that we were able to buy food. After
returning home from a day of work, we turned on the portable AC and sat
down to rest, when the power went out and failed to return like it
normally did.
Two Elders went out to check if there was anything
wrong with the power box (because here in Mexico, your power monitor is
out in the street for any ol fool to tamper with) and they returned with
news that it certainly wasn't a problem with any wires outside of the
building (which could have been an option due to the strong winds that
night), and that the house was still recieving electricity. It was
probably a problem that was inside the house.
We opened the windows
to let the air in, and to secure that nobody would try to reach in and
open the door by means of an open window, we locked the door with a
secure bolt and keys,
Wednesday the 11th of October:
Now, this day we had an
important meeting with the Mission President outside of the Tampico
Tamaulipas Temple, and since meetings with the mission president are
incredibly important, it was reccomended that we arrived early.
We were all ready and set to leave, and as we gathered in front of the door, the question arose:
So... where are the keys?
We
can't open the door and are trapped inside of our house because the
door is locked shut and we need the keys to open it. Unlike the
wonderful doors in the U.S, this door has no way of manually unlocking
from the inside without the keys, and because we live in Mexico, to
deterr thieves and criminals, all of the windows are barred on the
outside (basically extra security because let's face it sometimes glass
isn't enough.
Each of us denied that we had the keys. Now, the
question arises about who has the keys or what happened to them. There
are four suspects and a few theories.
The four missionaries in our house are:
1:
Elder Bowlby (Me, guilty of the problem). It was my suggestion in the
night that we lock the door with the keys because with the windows open,
I'd like to be sure that nobody reaches in and opens the door in the
middle of the night while we're sleeping. It seemed like a good idea to
the other Elders, so we went through with the plan.
2: Elder
Vazquez (Apparently sleep-talking when this all went down). When asked
where the keys were, he basically said that they were on his desk. And
they were! But he had no idea that we asked permission to take the keys
and lock the front door. Buuut we did anyways.
3: Elder Estrada
(My companion, the one who got up and locked the door). Very kind of
him, really. Got up in the dark house, managed to grab the keys, lock
the door, and return to the room without issue. When finished, he tossed
the keys onto the desk of Elder Vazquez (and we heard that yes, they
landed on the desk), and went to bed.
4: Elder Thurgood (Companion of Elder Vazquez, sleeping on the floor.)
Had
no part in this really, but this night he was sleeping on the floor by
Elder Vazquez's desk (because there are only three mattresses). He does,
however, get up and get ready much more quickly and readily than the
rest of us.
Well, we were stuck. Keep in mind that there is also
no electricity in the house, so we have no light. Frantically, we
emptied Elder Vazquez´s desk, but found no trace of the keys. We checked
the floor. Nothing. We checked underneath the AC and the beds... but
nothing.
Well, we were stuck. Keep in mind that there is also no electricity in
the house, so we have no light. Frantically, we emptied Elder Vazquez´s
desk, but found no trace of the keys. We checked the floor. Nothing. We
checked underneath the AC and the beds... but nothing.
We were
already quite late. As we hastened to find a solution, Elder Vazquez
managed to find an escape route through a window (ripping his only
unripped pants in doing so), just big enough for him and I. Elder
Estrada and Elder Thurgood were trapped inside the house. We agreed that
Elder Vazquez and I would go to the meeting with the Mission President
as Elder Thurgood and Elder Estrada would continue looking for the keys.
We
arrived late to the meeting and our cell phone battery died (because we
couldn't charge it at home), so we couldn't keep in contact with our
poor, trapped companions. Fortunately, after the meeting and a bit of
charging, we recieved the message that our companions had found the keys
to the house, and they were waiting for us at our meeting place for
lunch.
We didn't know where the keys had been until we arrived
and sat down. What had apparently happened is that Elder Estrada and
Elder Thurgood had cleaned the entirety of the bedroom, taken everything
out, and put everything back in. After failing to find the keys after
all of that, they decided to take a nap.
Elder Estrada began to
question Elder Thurgood about his missing 100 pesos (a mere measly 5 U.S
Dollars), because it was all that he had for transportation money and
he believed that Elder Thurgood had his misplaced money.
Defiantly,
Elder Thurgood said he did not have any of Elder Estrada's money
whatsoever, and he would prove it by taking everything out of his
pockets.
The first things he pulled out were the keys to the house.
We
worked normally until our return home. Arriving, we encountered that
the problem with the lights was merely that we burned a fuse outside of
the house (that we didn't see) and all we had to do was replace it.
Tired, we all retired to bed.
THE REST OF THE WEEK
Went normally. How lucky!
So
that's my weekly update for you. I love you, Miss you a ton, and hope
that you are all quick to remember God in your daily lives.
Until next week,
-Elder Bowlby
No comments:
Post a Comment