Hola Familia,
I'm super happy for you two. It's a WELL deserved vacation. You are always so busy and working so hard, I hope you all can take this time to enjoy yourselves and relax. Ben was commenting on the vacation that John and I were going on to Florida. We left the kids at home to go to school and spent almost a week all by ourselves. It was fun!
This week has been great. One thing that was super strange was that we had a huge hail storm. Élder Eraso is still recovering from his surgery so he can't walk large distances. He came to the offices to stay with my companion, and I left to proselyte with his companion (Élder Pin). We left to their area and it was raining really, really hard. Like I couldn't see anything at all, the rain was so strong.
We got to the house of their investigator and she wasn't home. So, we continue out even farther to the project housing to look and see if another person was there who would receive us. Then all of a sudden, someone threw a ping pong ball (at least that's what I thought it was) at us. I was really surprised when after a few seconds another one falls, followed by 3 more, followed by a downpour of buckeye sized hail.
Naturally we're freaking out (we didn't have an umbrella). We start running to the nearest door, clapping our hands (that's how you knock a door down here) begging for someone to open up the door to no avail. [Important Detail: all of the doors are flush with the side of the building and the only way to escape would be by someone inviting you in]
We ran from door to door for about 2 min. clapping our hands begging for someone to open up the gate to their patio. Finally a nice old lady opened her gate for us and we sat out the following 6 min or so waiting for the hail to stop (it was still raining really strongly). Once it stopped, we ran back to the church (about 12 min from where we were).
In this poorer area there isn't any good drainage on the roads, so on our way home so we were walking through 2 foot deep icy rivers the whole way. It was probably one of the funnest memories I think I've ever had here in Montevideo with the weather. Afterwards it looked from a distance like it had snowed, but upon further inspection you realize that it was just marble and buckeye sized balls of ice. [See uploaded video in my DropBox account called ¡Graniso! that should actually be spelled ¡Granizo! It's in my folder ¡Granizo!
We got to the house of their investigator and she wasn't home. So, we continue out even farther to the project housing to look and see if another person was there who would receive us. Then all of a sudden, someone threw a ping pong ball (at least that's what I thought it was) at us. I was really surprised when after a few seconds another one falls, followed by 3 more, followed by a downpour of buckeye sized hail.
Naturally we're freaking out (we didn't have an umbrella). We start running to the nearest door, clapping our hands (that's how you knock a door down here) begging for someone to open up the door to no avail. [Important Detail: all of the doors are flush with the side of the building and the only way to escape would be by someone inviting you in]
We ran from door to door for about 2 min. clapping our hands begging for someone to open up the gate to their patio. Finally a nice old lady opened her gate for us and we sat out the following 6 min or so waiting for the hail to stop (it was still raining really strongly). Once it stopped, we ran back to the church (about 12 min from where we were).
In this poorer area there isn't any good drainage on the roads, so on our way home so we were walking through 2 foot deep icy rivers the whole way. It was probably one of the funnest memories I think I've ever had here in Montevideo with the weather. Afterwards it looked from a distance like it had snowed, but upon further inspection you realize that it was just marble and buckeye sized balls of ice. [See uploaded video in my DropBox account called ¡Graniso! that should actually be spelled ¡Granizo! It's in my folder ¡Granizo!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6p744mo0tfqwckw/%C2%A1Graniso%21.AVI?dl=0 . This is the video that Élder Galeano and Élder Eraso took while they were here in the offices working.
Afterwards the city drainage system went crazy and exploded a tile from the floor in the reception area in the chapel. The chapel and gym filled up with water, so Elder Pin and I got some giant floor squeegees and got got rid of the 2 inches of standing water. For 2 and a half hours we pushed the water, ice and garbage back down the hole where it came from.
Now everything is back to 70° and sunny skies like nothing had even happened
It was a funny experience and I'll make sure to send better photos next week. (you could search google "Montevideo Granizo" and that should give you an idea as to what it was like)
The mission Corolla got a little dented up and the crack in the windshield got a little bigger, but other than that we all survived with minor bruises on our hands from when we were covering our heads with our hands.
We're into paying rents now and my companion is taking on a huge load and can do almost everything in the offices without my help, I think he's ready to train the next Financial Secretary in the next few weeks. And I am definitely super ready to get out into the field again.
I love you all so much and Hope that everything is going well with band school and work. Happy birthday Lily!!!
Love ya,
Élder Benjamin Taylor
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