"Out of nowhere, this gigantic wave crashed......and totally drenched Elder Hansen! I saw it coming and narrowly escaped. We took that as a sign that we needed to get back to work." 

Dear Family and Friends,

     This week Elder Hansen and I were walking along the road from an appointment and we found this HUGE, black, semi-smashed scorpion in the middle of the road. I poked it a little with my foot to see if it was dead, and the tail slowly raised up and tried to strike, haha. Then the legs started moving too, like it was trying to get up. I was wearing my sandals too, so we got out of there.

     I've had a head cold all week. Only it's still not cold here. But the first day it came, I couldn't sleep that night. I had a headache, stuffed nose, and coughs. So I finally got up and busted out the drug bag I got from Sister Erickson before I left and popped some Advil PM. The bottle said to take 2... I still couldn't sleep though. I rolled over in my bed and saw my guitar chilling there so I decided to try and softly pluck myself to sleep. I was playing "Under the Bridge" from the Red Hot Chili Peppers when it woke up Elder Hansen. He was sooo confused, haha. He just said, "Is everything ok?  I just told him I couldn't sleep and kept playing and he knocked out again. The next morning he said it was really strange to wake up to nice guitar at 2:00AM. So all that day I was really trippin. I felt like I was dreaming; all floaty and deja vu-ish. I realized later it was because I had taken 1000mg of that Advil. That's was it said to take, but it was way too much. It reminded me of my Vicodin days after getting my wisdom teeth out, except this time I hated it.

     We got really distracted one day as we were climbing along the shore towards one of the villages in our area. We noticed that there were tons of crabs chilling on the rocks farther out into the water. So we got on this enormous rock and started to rain down on them from above with small rocks. It was fun target practice. But I don't think the Lord appreciated his missionaries terrorizing his skittering little crab creations, so he gave us a rebuke. The rock we were on was really tall and had waves crashing on it below. Out of nowhere, this gigantic wave crashed on it and totally drenched Elder Hansen, haha! I saw it coming and narrowly escaped. We took that as a sign that we needed to get back to work.
     So we're having fun, at least. We're working with G. to get him baptized.  I 'll let you know when that happens and send some pictures. We want to work on him, then his family. We've gotten some other people to teach, too. So the teaching pool is just building and building.
    That wasn't a crab shell in my mouth. It was the whole crab, haha. The crab is really good here. I wish we could do service here. It's really hard to do service in this mission. Nobody wants you to help them. They all have a kind of  'No, I can do it' attitude. It's frustrating sometimes.

     Niece Eva asked Elder Doggett what kids do for fun there….this was his answer:  The kids here make little cars out of old cans, pop lids, and string. They pull them around everywhere. Some of them play soccer. Others play a jumping game with plastic bags tied together to make a rope. Playing here is a lot different. We aren't teaching any kids, but there are a lot of fun ones at church. They love to play with the missionaries!

     It's still raining here! A lot, actually. I love the rain, it makes things stay cold. But it’s still really hot here.

Love, Elder Doggett