Elder Justin Thiel

October 27, 2014

This week came with lots of adventures for me and my companion. I did get your package and I loved it. Thank you for all the treats and contacts. They were sorely needed.  And tell Matt thanks for the gift card.  I have yet to use it but I will in the coming week. 

This week we were able to see Jeffery and Nicole.  They are still doing great and are progressing toward baptism.  We watched the "Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration" video with them and they loved the whole thing!  After seeing what the prophet had to go through in this life, and for nothing but the cause of truth, put the importance of this work into their perspective.  They were unable to come to church so we had to move their baptism date to a week later then the past date. 

We were able to see a man named Jimmy that me and Elder Hunsicker taught back in July.  We were only able to teach him the restoration before we lost contact with him, so then we taught him.  We taught him the restoration lesson and he really liked it and said that it made a lot of sense to him.  We focused big time on the need for baptism and repentance in the lesson, and invited him to be baptized.  He said "yes" immediately, which surprised me.  He said that he has never been baptized, and has been putting it off for far too long and that he would loved to be baptized.  He is going to be baptized in December.

So the biggest event of this week and the scariest... was that me and my companion were hit by a car this week... we were off the side of the road and were going to throw away some trash that we had in the apartment dumpster, when a car came up behind us.  I had just put up the kick stand and got off my bike when they pulled over so that they could throw away their trash.  When I saw the car slowing down, I thought nothing of it and was about to start walking toward the path to the dumpster, when I heard the car engine rev.  I looked back with one thought in my mind: there is no way people hate missionaries this much in Georgia. I looked back just in time to see the car speeding toward me, and my first reaction was to turn around.  I was hit by the car and flipped over the hood of the car.  The impact caused me to travel with the car about 5 feet before completely going over the windshield and landing on my back in the middle of the road.  Luckily there weren't any cars coming down the road at that time.  I got right up and walked back to my companion, who was on the ground next to where I had been hit, and asked him if he was okay.  He said he was okay, but didn't get up.  The lady pulled back around and when she got out of the car, we saw that she was about 70 years old and was shaking, only repeating the phase: "Oh no!" over and over again.  My bike was trashed and so was my companions bike, but we were fine. My bike got a vengeance on her car and ripped the bottom of the bumper off and punched a hole in the side of her car.  We called the mission president and the police.  The lady said that she would replace the bikes and helmets.  We didn't go to the emergency room because we didn't feel like we needed to.  This was Thursday. This happened around 12:30 in the afternoon.  We went back to apartment and rested until 6 when we went out with a member to go teach some people that we had planned.  We went to the doctors the next day with a member and they checked us out to make sure that there wasn't anything wrong with us. The only injuries that I had was a bruised hand, and my butt on the left side was sore from where I took the impact.  That was it!!  The doctor said that I was extremely lucky that we got out the way that we did.  Most people don't come out of something like that with nothing wrong, let alone walk away from something like that!!  My companion said that I jumped into the air, but I don't remember that.  I'm pretty sure that the angels of God carried me and protected me from the crash.  It is estimated that she hit us at about 20 mph and my glasses didn't even come off my face and there wasn't even a mark on her windshield from where I hit it.  We will be getting new bikes on Friday.

I found out Saturday that I will be being transferred to a new area.  All I know is that I will still be training and will be a district leader.  My mission president is going to come on my behalf and pick up my new bike and bring it to me.  So I was tempest tossed and transferred this week! 

I hope that Jacob does well in his basketball. That is awesome that you got to see that movie!  I wish I could see it again.  I hope that you all get to enjoy Halloween!  We have to be in our apartment at 6 pm that day for the night, so I don't know what I will do yet.

I love all of you and hope that you have a great week!

love,

Elder Thiel