[Technically] Half Way There!

Subject:	[Technically] Half Way There!
Date:	Mon, 18 Sep 2017 13:08:09 -0500
From:	Brett Hogg

Well as of right now my go-home date is for September 13th, 2018. So I've technically reached my half-way point this week! However I'm pretty sure that Sept. 18th isnt even a transfer day. I did the math though at some point and I think that's wrong and that it should be for sometime in October or November. But then I did the math again recently, and figured that by the end of this transfer I will have 6 months here, 3 months in Plano, and 3 months from my time out before, and that would make 12 months, meaning I'll actually hit my half-way mark at the end of this transfer Oct. 3rd [2018], but that's not a transfer day either I don't think. So, not sure when i'm coming home, but we have about a year to figure it out haha.

This week I got to try some weird food. First off, our branch mission leader took us out to vietnamese food. First he ordered everyone shrimp spring rolls, and pot stickers as an appetizer, but the spring rolls were the size of small burritos, so we were already starting to get full by the time they came around and asked for our order, so I asked our ward mission leader what he recommended and he recommended the egg-noodle Pho. It's a soup with noodles, quail eggs, shrimp, pork, squid, and imitation crab, and who knows what else. I'm not a big fan of sea food but when in Rome, you know? And then Elder Rodriguez ordered some chicken thing, and the ward missionary sister, and the ward mission leader's wife didn't order anything else, and our ward mission leader just ordered 2 more spring rolls! So we felt weird eating a ton of food in front of them, but they were full, so we ate. And my Pho actually wasn't that bad, it was just huge! I took the rest home lol. 

[Note from Mom: Brett hates seafood!  Had shrimp once and never would eat it (much less even a good ol' Wisconsin fish-fry!  I was shocked... haha]

I also got try menudo for the first time! Menudo is a soup made with cow stomach. Hispanics love it and usually make it for special events. I've always heard white missionaries say it's nasty, and hispanic missionaries say its really good. Well there's a restaurant that one of our hispanic members owns, and they serve menudo on the weekends, and they said we could come in and try it. So we stopped by (we usually stop by anyway, not even to eat just to check up on them, they're a really cool family) and tried it, and its honestly wasn't that bad. The meat of course was weird texture, definitely what you think a stomach would feel like. But the broth (or consumé, or caldon) is actually really good. It's basically pasole, another Mexican soup, just with weirder meat.

And then Bang! Friday we got into a car accident. We were driving north on Hampton and I was going to turn on Jefferson so I slowed to a bit, but changed my mind .02 seconds later, so I started to get back up to normal speed. Well in that .02 seconds a guy in a beige Chevy Avalanche thought he could turn on Jefferson and tried to make it before we got there, well it didn't work out, so he hit us on the front drivers side. What the heck?? I feel like he had plenty of time to stop, but I guess not? 

Anyway it pushed us a little bit and made the airbags go off, which made it seem like a way bigger crash than it really was, because it made it way louder and now there's smoke everywhere. Well then the other guy backs ups, hops the curb, and drives off! The nerve of some people. I guess the thing is that here there's a lot of people who don't actually have licenses, insurance, or legal status for that matter. 

Anyway the ambulance and fire truck get there to make sure everyone's good, and help us push it out of the street. Then the police came and took our info. We figured out that the car was still drivable so they said we could drive it to the shop where it needs to go. The only problem was there was a bunch of metal and stuff rubbing against the tire, so the officer guy takes out this giant crowbar he has and gets to work bending it all out so we could drive it. We got the airbags out of the way (using an extra tie we just so happened to have in the back), and drove it to Addison, TX. Elder Wilson, so super cool and awesome vehicle coordinator here in the mission met us there and gave a ride to the Mission Office where he let us borrow another car they happened to have, while this one is in the shop. Anyway not that bad of a crash, just airbags went off and crunched the corner of the car, but most importantly, it wasn't our fault!

They accepted a Book of Mormon 

fixed airbags with a tie!  All set!

We ended the weekend however on a high note and I got to interview someone else for baptism, and It was in Spanish! It was actually the mother of the three kids I got to baptize a couple of weeks ago, so that was cool. Then one of our other investigators got married this week at the chapel so that was neat. The wife is a member already and they've been together for a long time anyway, getting married was just kind of a formality haha. Originally she was waiting for devorce papers from Mexico (a usual thing out here actually, when someone gets married in Mexico then moves up here its some kind of process to get the documentation you need from over there to get remarried). It was a small thing, mostly just the Branch President marrying them and then someone made them a small cake and the Relief Society made a bunch of food. Hispanics love any excuse to cook a bunch of food/have a party.

Anyway, I was worried this wouldnt be that exciting of a week to report on lol

Love,

Elder Hogg