Elder Nicholas Berrett is currently serving in the Billings Montana mission (serving most of Montana and a good portion of Wyoming) for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He is excited to serve the Lord and the people of Montana and Wyoming for the next two years!

Monday, September 14, 2015

Basically, Run!

A couple of extra emails today-  (The first bit are excerpts from one of my emails to him, which I only include because he referenced them in his letter.)

Elder Berrett- :)
I think it’s actually been a couple of days since I wrote last.  Weird.  I can’t even think of what we did yesterday.  I mopped.  Woo-hoo. I think that’s it.

Maddie had her friend over and they wanted to go to Bahama Bucks for the orchestra fundraiser, and we had one of those punch cards you kindly left for us, so I had your dad take Christopher.  (Zach was at a birthday party all day.  He probably told you about it.)   Anyways, your dad took them to Bahama Bucks, and they redeemed one of your punch cards.  And your dad got Christopher an Avalanche (the biggest one they make, since the free shaved ice can be "any size") with ice-cream in it thinking he might share.  Sure he shared.  Like 3 whole bites.  Or however the story goes.  “I was eating for a long time!” Apparently he had to take a break because he was shivering violently, but he finished it. 

The baseball game was good, the kids had fun.   It even came with like $10 in free food for each person.  One of the treats we got was their version of a dessert hot dog.  Which was basically one of those bar donuts (frosted in chocolate) cut in half like a hot dog bun, then a churro (as the hotdog) in it, then topped with icecream, chocolate, nuts, caramel, and whipped cream.  Which was tasty, but really only good in theory.  They give you a spoon to eat it, but the icecream makes the donut soggy, and since they cut it in half, the chocolate frosted side is face down, and it kinda glues itself to the bottom of the container, so you can’t pick it up and eat it like a hotdog.  The churro itself is way too tough to cut with the plastic spoon they give you, so it’s quite the challenge to eat, and you end up all sticky when all is said and done.   Maddie still thought it was the greatest thing in the history of the universe, (until she got sick afterwards.  Although we all shared just the one, it was still dessert overload) I just wish I had a steak knife to cut the churro.

 Anyway…. I can’t wait to hear from you tomorrow.  Monday is seriously my favorite day of the week, and you are my favorite thing to talk about.  I was an extra 10 minutes late to RS because I talked to a couple of people in the hallway about you J   

And that’s about all the exciting news from Gilbert…

Need anything?  Want anything? Let me know how we can help you and support you.

Love you.  Miss you.  Keep up the good work.  LLAP


♥♥♥Mom

Hey Mom! 
I love you so much, just starting with that.
I love all of the pictures! especially the one with Christopher and the empty Avalanche. crazy.
Sorry that I haven't had too much time to respond lately. P-days are crazy. 

That dessert hot dog sounds like the most Glorious thing ever. thank you for sharing that image with me. 

I am sending some pictures from my camera now so expect quite a few emails. :) (still haven't gotten them- he must be having technical issues) 

This mission is insane I love it! It's been spiritually hard at times, especially when you are praying about a decision and you feel like you just aren't getting answers but its been an amazing growing experience. 

It really makes me happy to hear that you guys got to go out as a family and do several fun things! I've been saving all of the pictures on my Ipad so that's been fun. 

I hope that you guys enjoy my email this week. I know it's a little jumbled but it was an amazing week.
Also sorry I don't have too much time today, apparently there is this miracle Horse guy who owns a ranch and has been able to medically take care of missionaries with his knowledge of horses and how to medically take care of them. Anyways he has offered to take our district Spelunking!!!! and take a look at my knee and see what he can do for it. I'm pretty excited considering:
1.its free
2.other missionaries have sworn by him
3. we wont have a car in 3 days and I may or may not have left my cool MTC fancy brace back in Billings at the mission home with one of my nametags (the cool magnetic one :/) 
4. apparently he also has some miracle horse hair shampoo that is beautiful (as my companion put it)

Anyways I love all of your emails. seriously, even the mundane things, I literally spent a few min. laughing when I read "I mopped.  Woo-hoo." You are seriously the best. the only thing that I could ask for is love, emails, and peanut butter jumbles. I love you! I need to run bye!

And then a few hours later, I got this email....

Hey mom,
I really love you. Seriously. You are the best. 
So I'm currently writing this coming back from caving and I have a "funny" story to tell. I'm safe. I'll start off with that. I'm safe. In fact we are all safe. 

Now I know what you're thinking, that something happened in the cave. Funny enough it was actually hiking back down the mountain. The cave was fantastic. Amazing. Wonderful. We had all come out feeling amazing! We took pictures, stood around the entrance a bit, laughed, then looked down at our watches and realized that we had to start heading back if we wanted to be exactly obedient to the rules. 

About 1/2 of the way back down one of our guides (brother Bailey the miracle horse guy, who funny enough did actually have some horse muscle regrowth paste for me) stopped and got real silent. He was in the back with me and my companion (who had never been caving before!). A little curious I decided to walk over at which point he turns to me, his face white as ever, and whispers "run". 
So of course I did the only rational thing I could think of......... I stood there and tried to see what he saw. It wasn't until I saw something move in the bushes that I started to actually to walk away. It was at that time that our other guide, an investigator, came over asking if he saw a bear or something  meanwhile brother Bailey this whole time is telling us to run and just get away. Suddenly he jumps up and starts yelling "Get! Shoo!" And turns to us and yells cougar! Run! 

At that point thankfully I finally decided to start running down the mountain. Unfortunately because of my knee and the cave I had been using a huge walking stick to hobble down and was trying to get down as fast as I could with my knee constantly giving out. Faster. Come on faster. Was the only thing I was thinking when I fell. The huge walking stick slipped out of my hands and started rolling down the mountain. Not only was that my means of running/hobbling but that was my only means of protection if it came after me. Thankfully my companion was ahead of me and safe and that I had the investigator guide by my side who reached down and pulled me up right as we hear it stalking us behind us and to the left. This great man pulled me up and told me to keep on going and that he would be right behind me. Thankfully I was able to hop on one leg as fast as I could down the mountain and made it to the cars with my companion helping me along the way. Also thankfully bro. Bailey and our other guide (named Dereck) had been yelling at the cougar while running down and basically distracting it till we could all jump in the cars then they ran for their lives. 

Sorry it's 6 and I have to end. I love you. The work is continuing now. 

-Elder Berrett

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