Monday, May 8, 2017

Crazy... Birthday....

Hola!

So we had a lot of crazy happenings this week. Well, okay, what week doesn't? But this week was crazy in an awesome way.

First, we had exchanges with the district leader on Wednesday. I stayed here in Viveros and the district leader, Elder Estevez, came here while Elder Garcia went more uptown. Elder Estevez is the other Dominican in Nuevo Laredo, and let's just say that while Elder Garcia is super excited in a Dominican way (those that know Dominicans will know what I'm talking about), Elder Estevez makes him look as calm as a summer's morning. It was a crazy, fun, Domincan Wednesday.

Before I begine this story, let me tell you that there is a surplus of speed bumps in Nuevo Laredo, and that I'm normally really good at getting over them on my bike. I don't know if this speedbump was simply having a bad day, or if I looked at it funny or something, but while Elder Estevez and I were on the way to our lunch appointment, this cpeedbump came out of nowhere and threw me off my bike and on to the asphalt. luckily, we were in a rather quiet colonia, so there were basically no cars on the road, but it was still rather exciting to get speedbumpwhacked (I'll pretend that's a word) in the middle of the road. My arms still look like my campanion has been beating me, but I promis everything is OK. Elder Estevez now knows how good of a bike rider I am. :)

So after that exciting ordeal, we came home to discover that we had left the swamp cooler/air conditioner thing on all day, and because it's not exactly in the best of shape (or maybe it was just installed wrong), there was a giant pool of water by my bed. So while we were looking for mops, we found a second (much newer and fancier) air conditioner, which Elder Estevez wanted to try using, so we plugged it in. It worked really well-- for about 40 seconds, when the power went out. We looked around for a breaker box, found it, and flipped the breakers, and the power went back on. Once the power went off again about 30 seconds later, we realized that maybe there was a reason that we weren't using the newer AC. We unplugged it, and tried to flip the breakers again, but nothing happened. We aren't exactly electricians, so we couldn't really do anything. We couldn't call anyone because our cell phone just died, so we kinda just tried to sleep in the heat. That was rather fun.

The next day, I turned 19 (Happy Birthday! You have no power!). We met up with Elder Garcia and he got a little mad when we told him that we officially had no power. We had to go to a member's house to charge our phone, and put together the investigator report that we send every week to the zone leaders. Turns out, when we could finally get a hold of the leaders to pass them the report, we discovered that they had been trying to call us all morning, because we were late in submitting the report. Kids, make sure your phone is fully charged before you plug in a second AC in your tiny Mexican house and kill the power.

Anyway, we also called the landlord, and it turns out that there is a second breaker box that we tripped that we didn't find. I'm not sure who designed that. But now we have power, so that's all good.

Because it was Star Wars Day--I mean, my birthday, we decided that we had to get a cake. Elder Garcia insisted on buying the biggest, most chocolatey cake we could find. I was not opposed, so we did so.
It turns out, it's a Latino tradition to throw a cake in the face of the one whose birthday it is. I was naturally rather opposed to this tradition, being a clean-freaky American, but Elder Garcia also insisted that I at least get a little bit on my face. So this happened:

The only other exciting event of the week was that, since it was Mother's Day yesterday, I got to call the family. The mission president authorized a Facebook video chat, so I logged on to Facebook for the first time in 5 months. I kinda forgot how to use Facebook, because it took me a while to figure out how to start a video call. But finally, technology started to get along, and I had a great call with my family. Everyone is doing really well. I have now called the family twice. Only two more calls before I return home! That's crazy!!

Anyway, this week was crazy, but crazy fun. We have a baptism on Saturday for Daniel, so check back next week and see if I have baptism photos!

Love you all!! Happy Late Star Wars Day!!


May the Spirit be with you,

--
Elder Jakob Schramm

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