Meh this week was pretty horrible. Started out
all right but then not so good:
Monday we went and had our P-day and visited
with G and M (another lady we know from going to the Church of
Christ Bible Study) for a while. He is still doing good, just tired from not being
so accustomed to working 40 hours a week, but it is good for him and he has
been enjoying it otherwise.
Tuesday we went and visited D for
a while and he was not doing so well health-wise but is still strong with his
testimony, doing all that he can at the present time. After that we stopped by
a few others Elder Stoker wanted to say good-bye to and had lunch. He packed a
bit and we went out to the Hill Top Manor and helped the old people play their
Bingo game again, which was pretty good. I had as good as a conversation as I
could there with A. After that we came home and Estevan Elder's came, had
dinner, and then we had basketball night, which was really good, especially
compared to the last 2 weeks. More people came and we got a pretty good game
going, and were able to give a Book of Mormon to a new guy that came out with J (guy who has come every-time) and he said that he wanted to read it before we
could even invite him to, so that was good. We then came home and Elder Stoker
finished packing.
Wednesday was not the greatest of days. We got
up and drove to Moose Jaw for a Zone Training Meeting and to drop off Elder
McRitchie and Elder Stoker for transfers, but it was almost white-out
conditions the whole way, so no one was passing anyone except this one
impatient truck-driver didn't feel like waiting so he passed us and blew snow
everywhere, so bad that we couldn't see literally 2 inches in front of us for
like 30 seconds and the other Elders were following behind and couldn't see
either and almost hit us!!! It was probably one of the scariest moments of my
life!!! And the road only had like 1-2 feet shoulders on the side of it and
then a few minutes later, I kid you not, a house, larger than any house I have
ever seen being transported on the road, appeared out of nowhere oncoming and
nearly hit us; probably missed us by less than a foot and that's no joke!! I
should invest in a dash cam. Then we drove past Rouleau, SK, the location of
"Corner Gas", unexpectedly and later arrived in Moose Jaw safely and
unharmed and had a good ZTM. Afterwards, since Elder Stoker was being
transferred to Moose Jaw, I took him and the original Moose Jaw Elders to their
apartment to drop off all of Elder Stoker's luggage. Then as we were proceeding
down the slight decline to a 4-way stop, the car decided to not stop and went
through the intersection and smashed into a big half-ton truck.... It was super
stupid and I was super mad. I wasn't even driving unsafely, but apparently that
had just been graded and polished so we slid through and crashed. No one was
hurt and the guy was super friendly and not mad at all about it. It was a good
opportunity to share the gospel with him, even though he wasn't interested and
already had a Book of Mormon and had been invited by his friend in the past to
learn more about the church. The cop came and since the road was so icy she
even slid through the intersection, even with her winter tires. Everyone who
drove by were telling me how mad they were at the city because it's always
horrible and they never put sand down in time. But any-ways, we didn't get a
ticket because the roads were super bad and the guy I hit told the officer it
wasn't even my fault, even though it really is, and the tow truck guys didn't
want to tow it because it was just the wheel-well that was preventing the car
from being able to turn left fully so they bent it far enough and the cop said
it was good enough so they left it at that and all went their own ways. But we
drove off and it was rubbing still so the Zone Leaders lead us to a place where
we could park it, so we left it there and went to lunch and then walked to
McDonald's and a member family bought all the missionaries dessert and had a
good visit with them, followed by us walking to the Zone Leaders apartment and to
the church to fill out the accident report online and then getting picked up by
the same member and us being taken to the Moose Jaw apartment for the night. We
got there and they didn't have any extra blankets and at that point we were
actually homeless so Elder Dillon literally had to use newspapers in place of a
blanket that night.
Thursday we didn't really do much. Elder Dillon
and I went to take the car to Zone Leaders home to park it in a more secure
place and when we went there the man who owned the house we parked it in front of
was mad that we parked in front of his house, so we shoveled his side-walk and
driveway in a way to say sorry and in the process Elder Dillon accidentally hit
and shattered one of the guys little solar-panel lights, so the guy was a
little more mad but said not to worry about it, so that was kind of funny. We then
called SGI (the car insurance company in SK) because they were closed by the
time we could get around to it on Wednesday, so we called them and the soonest
they could get us in was on Tuesday of the next week, so we parked the car at
the Zone Leaders house and were with them the rest of the afternoon and they
didn't have their car either because the transmission was all messed up, so we
walked for like 5 KM to the church and it was snowing hard all day and the city
never clears the snow and it was super cold. Elder Dillon's face almost froze
off. After institute we went home and wehad blankets this time.
Friday we washed our clothes because that would
have been the 3rd day in a row wearing them and then Elder Dillon and I
embarked out into the city and tried to hand out copies of the Book of Mormon
to people but only were able to share two because no one was outside because it
was freezing. So after about 3 hours we made it to our destination, but on the
way we were lead to this one house where this Ukrainian guy lives, who is
working here on the Rigs to get his family over to Canada. We kept feeling
prompted to ask him about his family because he was being super suspicious and
said he was the only one there when I saw some mistress lady pop her head
around the corner to see who was at the door, then she went back. Spirit was
super strong and after we left we both felt that we had been prompted to stop
by there and remind him of his family back home and to smarten up. Was pretty
neat experience. After that we met the members we had originally planned to
stop by and then we went over to the Williams' home (knows some family in
Medicine Hat) for dinner with 6 other missionaries, which was good. After that
we walked home and slept.
Saturday, after surviving getting hit by a dump
truck in the brand new minivan, the new Elder's who were coming to Estevan and
Weyburn arrived in Regina and picked up the Estevan car and we were able to
finally escape from Moose Jaw with them. And we got to change our clothes,
which we had been wearing for 4 days straight. Then we had lunch and Elder
Dillon went back to Estevan with Elder McGregor and Elder Hornberger and I went
to visit G and then trekked home a few miles in the swamp and slush that was
now Weyburn.
Sunday Bro R came and picked us up for
church and when we got there and one member was a little upset because we
hadn't cleared the snow like we usually did, but he understood after we told
him we hadn't been there all week because for a time we were homeless in Moose
Jaw, but we had a good church meeting. Sister L felt bad because she had to
cancel our meal appointment because her husband’s father died and he had to go
back to Korea, so she brought us a ton of ribs and alfredo fettuccine from
Costco and the Regnier's had brought us a bunch of muffins. Then we went over
to the M's for a super good lunch and shared an object lesson with
them and read the Book of Mormon with them for like an hour again. They took us
home to store our food and then took us to the "Gospel Discussion"
meeting and that was interesting, still pretty good. We were able to talk with
a ton of great and friendly people again. Then we made the long trek home in
even more slush and mud and swamp, with the mounds of frozen dog poop that have
started to emerge now that it was melting. We got home and the water leaking
from the light outlet (I call it the light faucet) was worsening but the spot
where water was leaking onto Elder Hornberger's face right over the head of his
bed had ceased to continue leaking! So that was good. We had dinner and weekly
planned and let Elder Hornberger know about as much as I could tell him about
the new area.
Today we got up and studied and then trekked out
to the chiropractor one last time and talked with a guy a bit who turned out to
be an autobody worker so I told him what happened and showed him a picture and
said the damage done to the car is a round 3000-3500 so that's no good. We went
to the post office and then now I am at the library e-mailing.
-Love Elder Shane Dola
