So you know those moments in life when you think, "Ya know, someday we'll look back at this and laugh." Well, Elder Starks and I aren´t laughing yet, but someday, we will. And I can't think of any reason why you guys can't.
So imagine the only both-white companionship in the most dangerous city in Mexico. (That's us.) Now as you can probably imagine, the mission keeps a pretty close eye on us. Now imagine the utter PANIC that would spread across the mission if these two elders turned up missing.
Rest assured, we weren't missing. Rather, we were sleeping. Quite soundly, actually. It was kind of nice. The solid concrete walls, the brand new bedroom door that our dueña recently had installed, the the soothing hum of the shiny new air conditioning unit blocked out the noise of the crazy borrachos celebrating the new year.
Well, it also blocked out the sound of various members pounding violently on our front door in the middle of the night.
Now I want you to imagine the terror of waking up to a man flashing a light and yelling at you through your window. Now when this happened, my first thought was, "Well crap. This dude is going to kill us." Because we live on the 2nd floor of a house. There's a balcony on the front of the house, but the only way to get to the balcony is through the house, or so we thought. After my life was done flashing before my eyes, I realized that the guy at our window was Horacio, a member of our ward.
When I realized that it was Horacio, my next thought was, "What the heck are you doing at my house? It's 12:30 in the morning. Where is you wife? Why did she let you leave the house at this hour? Go home. I want to sleep." But then he said, "Elderes! We've been searching for you for hours!"
Ok, so let me explain. Last night at about 7:00, our phone busted. We didn't drop it, it didn't get wet, the battery didn't die, it just turned off and we haven't been able to get it to turn back on. So we tried to tell a few members that our phone has stopped working, but everyone we passed by was out partying. So we just went to bed. Well when our district leader couldn't get ahold of us, he called one of our members who told the stake presidency, who told the mission president, who told every missionary in the mission the Elder Starks y Elder Aldrich were missing.
We woke up this morning to learn the magnitude of the problem. Presidente told us that everything was fine and that he's just glad that we're ok. So someday we'll look back and laugh. Hopefully tomorrow. But yes, we're ok, but now, just tired.
So that happened. Cool story, huh?
I hope everyone had a great new years! I love all y'all!
-Elder Aldrich
Pics:
1) The view from Jardín Palmas.
2) Grandma Aldrich's Dream
