I Lost My Fathers To A Motorcycle Accident! (LONG EMAIL ALERT)

Hi friends!

Before I start I feel like I should clarify a few things:

Yes, My companions (fathers) and I was in a car crash

No, they did not die

But...

I have not seen them since they left for the hospital

I'll tell you more in a bit. (Hope you are ready for a very detailled recounting of the events of Tuesday)

In the meantime, here's how my hectic week went:

Monday - Oct 9th

After a few weeks of activities and busy p-days, today has felt very relaxing, which is good. Resting is a good way to prepare for the rest of the week, and I didn't know it at the time, but this rest would be very much needed later on in the week.

While we were in town (Las Vegas) for today we stopped by a general store to buy new shoes for Elder Miles. I also spent time uploading photos for you guys to see, and troubleshooting the problems that always come from that. (You can see my photos with this link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/g2QAHn4xdMnPx4JT8).  

Along with uploading photos, I downloaded everything I could from the latest general conference. I want to really dive into the talks given and really study what they mean for me.

After p-day time (which is from 6:30am to 6pm) we went out proselyting as usual, and we ran into Francisco Mateo out in the plaza where all the drunk people hang out. We nearly had a heart attack when we saw him because we've been teaching him about the Word of Wisdom - something he particularily struggles with.  Luckily, he was just chatting with some friends on his way to a nearby pulperia (a pulperia is a little store that is found all over the place here in Honduras).

Tuesday - Oct 10th

I wrote the previous day as fast as I could so I could get to today. Today is the big day: All your questions will be answered here.

Now. To answer the biggest question of all: What in the world happened today?

Today started out like most other days, with the usual studies and heading out to proselyte. I've been put in charge of leading most of the lessons, so I was participating a lot on what we were teaching.

After three lessons we had finished our rounds in Mocho Abajo and were on our way to La 21 to visit some members who lived there.  To get from Mocho Abajo to La 21 we usually walk along the side of the main road for about a half a mile from the entrance of Mocho Abajo to the entrance of La 21.  

Something to be aware of here in Honduras, is that speed limits almost don't exist here. People just need to use their best judgement on what speed they should go, and they have to frequently slow down to pass over the speed bumps that are littered all over the place.

That main road that we use is situated along the side of a large hill (the hill where La 21 is located) and is always curving, but usually not by too much. However, on the way from Mocho Abajo to La 21 there is one 80° turn where we go from walking due South to walking due West. 

As we were approaching this curve we heard the sound of a motorcycle approaching - a very common noise in Honduras - and a motorcycle appeared around the corner.

Motorcycles speeding around a corner is very common here, and not something to usually be worried about, but this time something was different. When I noticed this, I immediately knew something was off.

The motorcycle wobbled. The man driving the motorcycle seemed to be trying to turn, but was unable to maintain it's balance.

We were right on the side of the road, and the motorcycle had just come around the corner, turning only about 40° of the 80° necessary to make the turn.

We were at this 40° mark, and the motorcycle was heading straight towards us at a very rapid speed.

The man must have aborted the turn, because in the blink of an eye the motorcycle went from facing towards us to facing 90° away from us, on it's side, orange sparks flying out from where the shell of the motorcycle is scraping the road.

At about 20 feet away from us this abort took place - a last ditch effort to stop the motorcycle before imminent impact.  

This was not enough. 

There was too much momentum in the motorcycle, and it continued at it's original speed heading straight at us.

We had barely taken two steps and the motorcycle had gone from out of view and around the corner to right at our ankles.

In the split second it took to recognize the danger and decide what to do, we responded.

Elder Miles, Elder Franco and I were walking in a single file line, in the order I just listed.

The motorcycle hit Elder Miles first.

He jumped to try to avoid the back tire of the motorcycle, but his jump was just barely too short and the motorcycle caught his ankles. He lost balance and landed on his back, his bible driving into his back.

Next was Elder Franco.

He was not able to notice the motorcycle as quickly as Elder Miles and I, the motorcycle being obscured by the posture of Elder Miles. He managed to jump, but too little too late, and too low to make a difference.

He was hit by the base of the motorcycle, at the lower leg and ankle, then he was pushed back to a nearby mound of dirt that we had been walking right next to.

After Elder Franco, it was my turn.

In the split second I had to decide how to react, I decided to jump towards the mound of dirt I just mentioned, with the intent to gain height over the motorcycle.

Similar to Elder Franco, I jumped just a little bit too late.

The front tire of the motorcycle smacked my right leg just under the knee and I awkwardly flopped onto the mound of dirt.

With my final collision, the mound of dirt, and the three missionaries pinned alongside it, stopped the motorcycle.

It's done. We were hit by a motorcycle. Now it's time to respond to it.

The exact moment of the collision is something I don't remember. I only remember the second before and the second after the collision, where I jumped, and where I ended up. 

As soon as I opened my eyes, the second after the collision took place, I immediately moved to make space between myself and the motorcycle. My last wish is to be resting next to the engine of the motorcycle and to burn myself.

I hopped up onto my feet. My right leg throbbed, but not so much that I couldn't stand on it. There was a streak of dirt where the motorcycle's tire hit my leg, and the rest of my pants and shirt was covered with dirt splotches.

I examined my body - my right leg throbs. My left leg hurts, too but not so much. My torso feels fine. My arms look fine as well, and I don't feel any pain on my head either.  

It seemed like only my leg was affected, but then I lifted up my hand and found blood covering my right index and middle finger. What happened? Where is the cut?

I found that the blood was coming a cut along the first knuckle on my index finger. Not too big though, I just need to apply pressure and wait for the blood to clot. Unfortunately, I'm covered in dirt from the accident, and leaving the cut open and uncleaned leaves it open to infection.

With my self examination done, I concluded that I was fine, and that my biggest need was to clean myself up.

I looked over to Elder Franco and Elder Miles.  Elder Miles looked pretty good as well, except his right arm was covered with dirt and blood was coming from his elbow. Elder Franco showed no physical signs of injury, but he hadn't stood up yet. In fact, he was grabbing his right ankle, and laughing uncontrollably!

Shock had just set it. In a split second we went from walking along the side of the road, to thrown across a mound of dirt with injuries on the right side of our bodies.

Elder Franco and Elder Miles responded to the shock of it all with uncontrollable laughter, and I was tempted to join in. What just happened is crazy! What in the world are we going to tell our families? How are we going to continue proselyting with the mess we are in now?

I was certainly in shock, but I was determined to try my best to stay calm and reasonable in responding to this event.

The man who was driving the motorcycle walked to us and asked if we were okay. He must have jumped off the motorcycle and rolled, or have been pinned under the motorcycle for a moment because his right arm and leg were badly gashed.  Out of all four of us, he seemed to be the most badly hurt.

The man explained that he missed the bus for work and that was why he was speeding down the road on his motorcycle. He continued, saying that he really needed to get to work so he wouldn't lose his job.

He picked up his motorcycle, asked us one last time if we were okay, and then tried starting the motorcycle. Once ... twice. Maybe the motorcycle was damaged too much to continue working. Nope. On the third attempt the motorcycle started up, the man shifted a part of the plastic shell of the motorcycle to it's proper place, and then he drove off.

Not even an "I'm sorry". In many ways this was like a hit and run. We were hit, and then the guy left.

Clearly this part of the road is dangerous, so Elder Miles and I asked Elder Franco if he could stand. He could, but it was clear that it really, really hurt. 

Without an idea of what to do next, we decided to first go to the members that we had planned to meet with next. We managed to very slowly hobble over to the entrance of La 21, not even half way to the members house, but it was clear that Elder Franco was in too much pain to keep going.

There is a bus stop right in front of La 21, so we decided to wait there catch a mototaxi back to our house so Elder Franco could rest his leg. Unfortunately, there are about 50 stairs up to our house, and because Elder Franco could barely walk on flat ground, it was clear that we couldn't even make it to our house.

We decided to head to Las Vegas to visit a clinic, and through a series of trips - first from our home to a Pharmacy, then from the Pharmacy to an actual clinic - we managed to get Elder Franco's leg checked out. 

I'm going to stop my fancy narration here and try to wrap up this day very quickly.  We informed the other missionaries, the bishop, the APs, and the mission doctor of what happened, and then simultaneously planned what we would do for the next week with all of them.

Today was the first day that I decided to NOT go out with a backup stash of money, and I really regret it today because of all of our unexpected expenses - rides, doctor's payment, food, etc. For those of you who are reading this far: remember to alway be emergency prepared, because the first day you aren't is the day the emergency comes.

The doctor we visited really struggled to determine if there were fractured bones because of the swelling around the ankle of Elder Franco, so we were told to get an x-ray as soon as possible in one of the hospitals located in the big cities in Honduras. We got that news pretty late at night, so we decided to send Elder Franco to the hospital the next morning and to have him sleep with the Elders in Las Vegas because there aren't many stairs to their house.

The Elders in Las Vegas only have two mattresses, so we decided to do send Elder Porter up to our house to sleep in one of our 3 mattresses.

Once we were back home I informed my family of what happened, and cleaned up for the night.

By the time I went to bed my finger had stopped bleeding and I had washed it off. Additionally, my leg stopped hurting and there was no sign of bruising of my knee.

Now. If you have made it this far, I applaud you very much because SO MUCH happened in such a short period of time today. To reward you guys, I will attempt (and likely fail) at having the rest of the week be shorter than today.

I've already been writing for two hours and I'm not even one day into this new week.

A final note for today - Today was the day Elder Franco celebrated one year into his mission. It's pretty nasty irony that he celebrated his accomplishment with an injured leg.

Wednesday - Oct 11th

Today is a lot like Tuesday: Pt 2, because everything that was left undone/undecided yesterday was done and decided today.

It was decided by the mission president and APs that Elder Franco would need to go to the hospital in San Pedro Sula, and that he would need to stay there or a while until his leg healed. 

It was in our plans that Elder Miles would leave next week to start his new calling as Financial Secretary of the mission, but those plans were moved ahead to today. The new plan was that Elder Miles and Elder Franco would go to San Pedro Sula, and Elder Miles would stay there to start his next calling, and Elder Franco would come back ASAP.

Because my two fathers would be leaving, with no set time for them to come back, we all packed up our stuff and left our home in El Mocho.  I would live with the Las Vegas Elders so I can still proselyte and serve, and the other Elders would live in San Pedro Sula.

In the morning I said my final goodbyes to my companions and started working with Elder Porter and Elder Van Dyke.

What a great way to celebrate hitting 100 days in my mission.

I've only been serving for 3 months and I've already had 5 companions: Not a good look for me. If you examined me only by my stats, 5 missionaries in 3 months indicates that I'm a very difficult companion, but I assure you that that is not true! It's just a very hectic 3 months!

Thursday - Oct 12th

Today was my first full day with my two new companions.  I don't know how much time I'll spend with them, anywhere from 1 week to 1 month.

First impressions with them: They work very differently than Elder Miles did. Las Vegas has a much high concentration of people, and members, than El Mocho, so we interacted with a ton of members. I found it very fun to finally get to know the members in my ward, and to finally start learning the names of the leaders in the ward.

I'm now 100% in charge of my area, being the only one who knows the area and the people in it. I now have the phone assigned to my area, and wow it's stressfull having to respond to every text message and phone call.

A tender mercy I had today, was that I was able to visit my area to do a bit of proselyting. We went to San Juan to talk to some friends there, including Victor Manuel, and it was comforting to see people I recognized. For the time being, Elder Van Dyke, Elder Porter, and I need to maintain both areas: Mochito 1 and Mochito 2, which is a giant responsibility.

Another tender mercy was that I was kept 100% busy today. We talked to SO many people, and didn't really have time to do anything. This really helped me to focus more on the work and less on my worries.

Friday - Oct 13th

Today was a day with non-stop lessons, even to the point where we had to end some lessons early to attend to emergencies.

We gave 3 priesthood blessings today. It seems like sometimes we'll go weeks without giving a priesthood blessing, but then we'll suddenly be asked to give a ton of them in a single day.

I have two notable things to mention with the blessings we gave today. 

1) We gave a blessing to a newborn baby, so I can now say the youngest person I've given a blessing to had 0 years of age.

2) We gave a blessing to a woman who wasn't feeling very good, and after leaving the home Elder Van Dyke commented that he got the impression that she was pregnant.  It's interesting how we can get impressions for all kinds of things, and I'm curious to see how things will turn out for that family.

This morning, we didn't do language studies because a member came to our home to exterminate all the bugs.  There is an exterminator that visits all of the missionary homes each year, and today was the time for both of the Mochito homes to get theirs done.

It was really cool to meet this member and talk with him, and we discovered that Elder Van Dyke's neighbor was the one to baptize him 44 years ago.  

Sometimes this giant world shrinks, and we run into the neighbor of the person who baptized us, and we realize how connected we are to each other. Everyone is connected in more ways than one, and I love witnessing moments like these.

Saturday - Oct 14th

Double dinner day!

There is a new member family in our ward who is pretty amazing. They are so kind and loving, and they have had the amazing opportunity to be united as a family through the gospel.  As we ate dinner with them today I got to learn about some of their history, and I learned that the father was once a drunk, and always angry - but once he discovered the gospel he completely changed. He is now super happy and loving, and I can't even imagine what he was like beforehand.

The dinner we got was a FEAST. I could barely finish the first course, and when I was done they brought out giant bowls of watermelon to eat, and after that more fruits, and after than cookies for desert.

I left that meal with a lot of stomach pain, because there was so much stuffed inside of me.

Luckily, we had 1 hour to work off the food before the next dinner.

During that hour we went to visit a young women that Elder Van Dyke and Elder Porter have been preparing for baptism. These past few weeks they have been emphasizing the Law of Chastity to her and her boyfriend, because it is a very dangerous commandment to break, and they are in a very fragile position to break it.  

We went to the house of this young lady to teach her and help prepare her, but when we got to her house we discovered that this young woman wasn't living in the house anymore, but was living with her boyfriend.  This was sad to learn because this means that she is breaking the Law of Chastity. 

For those of you who are wondering what the Law of Chastity is, it can be summarized in one sentence: No innapropiate sexual relations.  

Innapropriate relations include big words such as Fornification, Adultery and Pornography, but it really means: keep the sacred power of creating a family inside the marriage of a husband and wife. 

This law is to protect individuals from physical and spiritual harm, and to build love and trust in the family.  Breaking this law in any form is the quickest way to complicate your life.

The reason this young woman was breaking the law of chastity was because she was living with someone of the opposite gender (who was not family) outside of marriage. This situation is filled with temptation, and can lead to other aspects of this law to be broken.

It's sad to find out that any baptism plans for her has to be put aside for the time being, but there is always time to change. There is always time for repentance.

Sunday - Oct 15th

Today was fun because we visited my area today.  I was put in charge of where we would go and who we would teach because I was the only one who knew the area, and while that was super stressfull, it was also fun as well.

We planned to meet with Francisco Mateo and to check up on how he is, but when we went to his house we were told he was in the plaza.  The plaza is the place where all the drunk people hang around, and when we found him there we discovered that he was very drunk.

We've already taught Francisco a number of times about the Word of Wisdom (another commandment that states that we should not eat or drink Coffee, Tea, Alcohol, Tabacco, or Illegal drugs) and it was sad seeing him there, drunk and depressed.  In many ways, it felt like what happened yesterday, which broke my heart.

One struggle that Francisco has, and one that I have had as well is that Francisco doesn't like to say 'No'.  When people offer him things, he feels a lot of shame to decline, so he'll usually accept whatever, even if he doesn't want to.  

When I was working in a fast food restaurant I hated saying 'No', but I often found myself miserable with shifts I did not want to take, but also couldn't decline because I didn't want to say 'No'. Something I'm learning is that no is sometimes for our benefit, and that we can be happier saying no.

Because Francisco was drunk, we sent him towards his home and decided to go contacting instead. The Holy Ghost lead us to some people who were receptive to what we had to say, and I thought that that was good.

After spending time in my area, we went back to the home in Las Vegas to do weekly planning for both of our areas. This was my first time doing weekly planning by myself, and it was both scary and thrilling. I found myself thinking about each person I was teaching and what could help them this week, and it was amazing to feel this way. It felt like I had power to make a difference here, and I hope that that is true, because I want to leave my area better off than when I found it.

Before dinner we stopped by the next door neighbor of the Elders here in Las Vegas to read some of the Book of Mormon with them. It was amazing to see him and talk to him, and he had questions for us about things he read with us and on his own, which made me excited to here. At the end of the lesson he told us that he heard that Latter Day Saints to baptisms for the dead and asked if that was true. We told him that it was true, and that he could learn more about it, after we give him a foundation of the principles that baptisms for the dead are built off of.  I think that it is really cool to see a person interested in the church, and someone that has questions about it as well. He certainly is golden.

Monday - Oct 16th

Oh boy, I'm almost done with this email. I've litterally been writing this email this whole morning - for at least 3 hours.

My main plan for this day was to update you guys about what is happening in my life and to prepare for this next week. Tomorrow we have a Multi-Zone conference planned, so I need to prepare for that.

Because it is still so early in the morning for me, I'm not fully sure what the rest of the day will look like, but I do know that we will be going to get burgers for lunch in a bit.

Spanish word of the week

Atropellar = To Run Over / To Hit.

I used this verb a ton this week because everyone wanted to know what happened to the missionaries in El Mocho! When you want to say you were hit by a vehical, you use the verb atropellar and it's conjugations.

For example, I frequently said "Una motocicleta nos atropelló" which translates to ''A motorcycle hit us'.

Scripture of the Week

1 Nephi 4:6 - "And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do."

This week was filled with a ton of I don't know what to do. This week was a giant learning experience for me, and I'm starting to learn better what it means to be lead by the spirit. I recommend for you guys to read the scriptures and pray to God for his spirit to be with you more, so you can be guided when you do not know what to do.

Final thoughts for this week to leave it off on a high note.  

We got knews that Elder Franco just bruised his ankle, and that nothing broke. That means that he can come back to serve with us this next week.

The plan to reunite with Elder Franco is to meet up with him during the mult-zone conference tomorrow and then head back to our area.

This was a big one-week adventure, and even though it was far from perfect, I'm glad I could have it and learn so much from it.

Check out my photos! https://photos.app.goo.gl/g2QAHn4xdMnPx4JT8

Don't forget you can email me for any reason. I won't bite! mgrant@missionary.org or reply to me here on this email.

Thank you so much for your support, and I applaud you if you managed to make it this far!

 - Élder Grant