Actually funny story with the shoes. So the problem with the shoes was that I wore down the inside of my left shoe super badly, but I didn't wear down the outside of that shoe at all, so it made me walk super lopsided. So, I went to get new shoes, and I tried on a whole bunch and didn't like any of the ones they had in the store we went to. We were pretty low on time for the day, so we decided we would try another store the next week. The next morning I was looking at my shoes and thinking that if I could just take the part that isn't worn down off, the shoes were in pretty good shape. So I grabbed a serrated kitchen knife and chopped it off to make the shoe level again. I figured if it worked it wouild preserve the shoes for a while longer and if it didn't work I would just be buying new shoes anyways, and it worked great, so I'm still using those shoes.
Now, I don't have a ton of time, but there was a lot that happened this week, so I'm going to skip the transitions and try to cover everything.
First I was made fun of for trying to speak Spanish. Usually what I do is I talk to people as much as I can, then if they start saying too much stuff I can't understand or I'm not having any words come into my head I just say "¿Podemos darle un folleto?" (Can we offer you a pamphlet?) Then I wish them a good day/evening/night and move on to the next person. This time however we had run out of Spanish pamphlet. So, I started the conversation, then a little ways in I was really sure where do go and didn't have a cop out. So I stood there without saying anything for a couple of seconds, then I told them sorry, I don't know very much Spanish. Then this woman asked me if I had schooling. I kind of nervously chuckled not sure if she said what she thought I said, then she told me to go and learn more Spanish. I was pretty surprised, I'm not sure if she didn't think I knew what she was saying or if she just didn't want us to talk to her. So we talked to her friend who aparently could speak perfect English the whole time for a bit, and went on our way.
The next day we talk to two gangster guys who were pretty cool with us. They weren't very interested, but they did tell us if anyone ever gave us any trouble we just needed to let them know and they'd take care of them.
A few doors later there was a house with a gate around their yard and a Beware of Dog sign. I rattled the gate without opening it to make sure I wasn't going to get eaten, and a dog started barking inside of the house. I figured if the dog was inside we were safe to go into the yard. I opened the gate and walked halfway to the house when the door opened and a very large pitbull came out and stopped a few feet in front of me. I had heard you were supposed to stand your ground and keep your hands low in that situation, so I stood there and braced myself to get mauled. For a period of time that felt like a a very long time but probably was actually only a few seconds we both stood there with him barking but neither of us moving anywhere. Then the dog turned around and walked back to the house and kept barking at me, which I took as a good opportunity to turn around and duck back outside the gate. I'm not sure what the owner was doing throughout this whole thing, but I didn't die, so that's as favorable an outcome as I think I could reasonably hope for. 😉
We had a general authority name Jorg Klebingat come and talk to the mission yesterday. He was super awesome. He started off the mission by telling us that he was from Germany and he did not have the gene that made us Americans sensitive and worried about hurting other people's feelings. He didn't mince words at all and had an excellent understanding of the scriptures, so I learned a ton. I would love to say more, but I am super out of time, so I'll just leave it that.
Have a great week! I love you guys! Also next week P-day won't be until the middle of the week because we're going to the temple, so we're excited about that! Things are going great here, hopefully it's good for y'all too!
-Elder Clark
Oh, also looking through pictures I remembered I broke a mirror this week. Remind me next week and I'll tell you how it happened.
