Week #15 - What a crazy ride!

Boom!!!!
So, I had a very interesting week this week. Lots of crazyness. Let's dive right in!

Thursday was my first division, or splits, with the zone leaders of our area in Manaus. I was to stay in Mauazinho and Elder Hubbard, the Zone Leader, came to my area and would see how I was doing as a new missionary. I was a little nervous at first but he is a very cool guy and we talked a lot about Halo, cars, and generally really awesome stuff! He has only 1 month left on his mission but he is focused and he can speak very well.

We went to lunch at 12 to Irmão Machado's house and we had some great food and..... ice cream!!!! I dont know if I have mentioned this member yet, but Irmão Machado makes ice cream for a living, so we get ice cream or popcicles from him about once every week. It was awesome!!! Hubbard talked forever with them until about 1:50.

We then left to begin our teaching day! We had a lot of appointments and it was going to be exciting. Elder Hubbard had never been to Mauazinho before and he had heard about how cool and hard it is, so he was excited. We had to go to a community, or biarro, called Jardim Mauá. To get there, we have to cross across a 10 foot rickity, sketchy bridge, which goes to a dirt sand ledge and that goes to a old, broken cement stairway down into the road to get to Jardim Mauá. On the right side of all of this is a 10 foot drop into a huge pile of garbage and the left is 25 foot cliff to the bottom. WAY COOL! I cross this place about every other day. Well, thursday I was walking across and just as I was almost to the concrete stairs I slipped and fell. I caught myself on the stairs with my hands, stopping my fall. But I also smashed my chin into the concrete as well and it really hurt. I thought " dude, you get up you idiot. You fell infront of your zone leader!" So I quickly pulled myself up off the side which lead to the garbage pile and cleaned myself off.

Quickly, yet very slowly, Hubbard followed and came to see if I was okay. I felt fine but a little stupid and in pain. For some reason I touched my chin and found my hand was covered in blood. Great... I had scraped up my chin and now I was in the middle of no where with no members or people around that we knew and no phone because last week our phone had been stolen from Elder Soelberg, on the bus. Great... We had no idea what to do so we walked farther down the stairs and came up to a little marcadinho, a little market in somones house, and the guy there was so nice. He gave me cotton, a rag, alcohol and a band aid to clean myself up, all while Elder Hubbard was talking to him about the Church!!! Way cool!!! We figured, "okay, we will just go on and keep teaching."

We went to our first appt. with a girl, Esilege. She was going to be baptized this week, but her mother said no and the she was a bad daughter and did not deserve it. So we were going by to comfort her. She saw my face and FREAKED!!! She got a mirror, a fresh bandaid, and more alcohol for me. This is when I finally got to see what had happened. I had cut open my chin, deep. Really deep! And I could do nothing about it. So, what did we do. We kept on going and we helped out Esilege and then went to the house of Patricia.

She thought I was crazy and she really liked Elder Hubbard. We talked with her about going to church and about eternal marriage. She seemed even more interested and curious but she told me I had to go to the "Ponto de Saudé" in Mauazinho. Brasil has public health programs and the Ponto is a free aid station for civilians. We went and got there at 5pm, just as it was closing! They said I need 2 stitches and that I would have to go to the hospital. GREAT... We have to go to the hospital and we have no phone to tell the other missionaries or the Mission President.

We decided to catch a bus over to the hospital and the lady said it was to be a 40 minute ride. We asked her twice to tell us when to get off. But.... when it came time to get off, she forgot to tell us!!! So we had to wait for the same bus to loop back around.... I was on the bus with an open wound covered in just taped on gause for 1 1/2 hours!!!


We got there at 6:50 and this hospital was..... sketchy to say the least. I am sure Brasilian hospitals are great but this one was more like a small aid center. I was taken back into another room and had to wait until the table was free and the doctor was free. The Lady in front of me had cracked her head and was bleeding on the table. When they fixed her up, they moved the bloody plastic off the table and put a new on and then told me to lie down! I was freaking out to say the least. But I stayed collected on the outside and mainly just yelled in my mind. They cleaned my wound, gave me 2 stitches, and the whole time the doctor spoke broken english, which did not help me feel any better. Then I got 3 x-rays and was sent on my way with a perscription for pain meds.

All in all, a crazy experience. Now, I cannot shave and have a awesome beard and because of inflammation, I cannot go out in the sun for too long and I have to avoid direct light. Sooooo we can only work half the day and I get to wear a WHITE FEDORA!!!! I feel the beard and fedora are blessing, because I hate shaving and love hats.

Anyways, I am actually fine. But I will have a wicked scar on my chin, like you DAD!!!!! HAHAHA. Maybe it will work for me to get a beard card at BYU? Besides that, my week was kinda lame. The work is slowing a lot and people are just not willing to keep commitments. We caught a boy trafficking illegal drugs and one of our investigators is drinking again.

Also, this last Tuesday, we were just standing at a bus stop when all of the sudden a short little women came and stood right in front of us!! She did not say a word but just stood there. Then, randomly she stuffed 20 reais into my companions pocket and ran away! It was sooo weird but a huge blessing because our lunch fell through that day and we had 20 reais to buy lunch!

Nevertheless!! I am good. I have a hat! And we found out the for the next transfer, 6 weeks, me and Elder Soelberg will be staying together!!!!!!!!!!! Smiles.

Please, no one freak out. I am fine. Mom, I am mainly talking to you and Rachel.

Love you all!
Elder Asa Laws