21 January 2013
Hola mi Familia!
Happy Martin Luther King Day! It's been a while since I have written a handwritten letter
home. And since we don't get to
email until tomorrow, I decided to go ahead and write today for a bit.
Right now, I'm sitting in a doctor's office. Elder Rauckhorst is having a
checkup. He got hit by a car last
night. He's fine. Don't worry Mom. In fact I am pretty sure he enjoyed the
whole experience. I mean, how many
missionaries get to say they got hit by a car? And in truth, it was an exciting experience for both of
us. The driver tried to run a stop
sign by skipping the cars in front of him who had stopped. It didn't work out too well for
him. What was, I'm sure, supposed
to be a cool stunt, ended up being a major embarrassment to him. Knowing that Elder Rauckhorst is OK
makes it a funny story now, but in the moment, I was pretty sure we were about
to be spending the night in the hospital.
I heard the squealing tires and turned around in time to watch Elder
Rauckhorst go tumbling over the handlebars. The driver looked terrified/shocked and I'm pretty sure he
was considering leaving the scene cuz he was looking around as he started
pulling away. So I busted out my
planner and wrote down his license plate number. As I was doing this a bunch of cars started honking at
him. So I'm guessing he realized
there were too many witnesses to pull off a successful hit and run. Anyway, Elder Rauckhorst picked himself
up and I helped him carry his bike out of the street. He told the guy he was fine and then he (the driver)
immediately started justifying himself with "oh I didn't see you"
types of excuses. Obviously, he
was in an awkward situation, he had just almost killed a missionary, so it
makes sense why he felt the need to run his mouth and make excuses for
himself. However, regardless of
his awkward situation, I was ticked.
Things were almost so much worse, and all he was doing was trying to
justify his stupidity. But I chose
not to chew the guy out when I saw Elder Rauckhorst reaching into his pocket
for a pass along card.
It was a perfect street contact. He was the most excitedly willing person I have ever met to
have the missionaries come visit him sometime.
I'm sure it helped a bit that he had just hit Elder Rauckhorst
and he wanted to try to make it up to him. But you never know...maybe he was genuinely interested. The Lord has been known to work in
mysterious ways, and maybe, just maybe, this is one of those ways. Hmmm, it's an interesting thought.
It's to bad the guy doesn't speak Spanish though, otherwise
we could teach him. That would
have been super fun. Looks like
I'll just have to one up Elder Rauckhorst someday and get hit by somebody who
speaks Spanish. :-) But either
way, it was a fun street contact to be a part of. He even accepted my invitation to come to church.
Well, we are about to leave the doctors office, so I'm gonna
finish this one up. We have a
bunch left that still needs to get done today. And we have less time to do it. We have been cutting our Pdays 1.5 hours short for the past
few weeks because it is the only time one of the families we are teaching are
able to meet with us. Basically it
just means less time for basketball because we can still get everything done
that needs to get done. But today
is gonna be a bit tougher. The
mandatory doctor appointment that the mission requires after any type of collision
has used up some time, but additionally, we have a Zone activity this week that
we are supposed to go to. So it's
a super busy Pday.
Love you all!
Your Son/Brother
Elder Ostler
P.S. Right now
(Tuesday morning - I forgot to put this in the envelope and mail it out
yesterday) I'm grateful I held my tongue when I was about to chew out the guy
that hit Elder Rauckhorst. He just
called to tell us that he has been thinking a lot since that day when he hit
Elder Rauckhorst. And even though
he knows we work more with the Spanish people, he feels like we can help him
figure out some questions he has and help him find the right path. He told us that he has been looking for
a church for a long time and that "meeting us on Sunday night really
impacted him" (Isn't impacted such an excellently hilarious word
choice?)
So anyway, it seems he is genuinely interested. And due to the circumstances of the
situation, Elder Rauckhorst and I have received special permission to leave our
area (he lives barely outside the area) and teach him! Exciting huh?
Well, love you all!
Hasta Luego!
Elder Ostler
