Week #47: Rain trapped and Mother's Day Skype

It's been a very rainy week.  I guess it is officially time to be soaked yet again. For those of you who don't know, it rains alot here and not just a lot but enough to make that California rain look like nothing...oh wait you are in a drought back home so you may not remember what rain is, right?

The highlight of the week was finally being able to Skype our families.  On Mother's Day we didn't have the chance to Skype our Mom's. Up here in Rio Blanco there are 15-20 missionaries out serving in the world, so that would be around 8-10 families trying to skype at any given time of the day.  With this in mind, we changed our Skype night.  First we thought we would do on Monday, but with bus problems and delays we changed it to Tuesday.  This turned out to be a very good thing since at about 4pm in the afternoon the power went out in all of Rio Blanco and didnt return until about 10 on top of everything else.   Tuesday night was a very special and awesome moment not just because I had the chance to Skype the family and more specifically my amazing mother, but also because one of the youth was set apart and had his farewell this same night. This also kinda made skyping the family kinda fun because all of the little kiddos in the branch were there and loved to be able to see my family as well.
     Last week I mentioned that this week is the semana de la familia. But it turned out to be the week of freezing cold rain, hail, and many sick people, me included. It's kind of weird to have to plan your day around the rain. In the coast you can get wet all you want and you won't really be to much worse for the wear.  However here things are just a bit different. If we get wet here we pretty much immediately have to get back to the house and change if not we are out of order for the next little while.  In the same way it's always fun to be trapped by the rain.  This week almost everyday we have been rain trapped. This is a situation when we are in a lesson when the rain starts to fall and we are stuck in the house until it stops. I guess a little quote from Forest Gump could probably explain the rain best. "One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways, and sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night...". More or less this will be our life here for the next little.  While this lasts I just hope that the people start to be a little more merciful and let us into their houses and out of the rain.
    The Activities this week were all pretty cool. A lot of people couldn't actually come due to the rain but they were fun none the less. One of the days this week we were over in Rio Hondo teaching and rain trapped in a lesson. About an hour and a half into the rain someone called us pretty frantically telling us they had just gotten to the church for the activity and the water had somehow gotten into the church. They were shoveling and bucketing it out but needed our help. Shortly after the call the rain stopped or let up enough so that we could make our way over to the church. Though we had a forty minute walk on our hands we put some serious pep in our step to make it to the church right as they were finishing up.
     The best of all of these nights was the talent night. These youth here are super funny. They put on some of the funniest little skits I have seen in a talent show.  The next best part was Elder Saxton and his cheering. In all talent shows there are the little kids acts and the ones that are well in the show. He made it his personal job to be the person in charge of the random applauses to get everyone else cheering. His girlish screams might have just been one of the greatest talents of the night.
    Its been a pretty fast week. I can't help but wonder if I am in my last week here in Maclen.  I hold six months and one week in this area and these people are my family.   I've been here so long that some of these kids probably think I am part of the family. I dont know If I will have changes but one thing's for sure, this will probably be one of my favorite areas in my mission.  Well at least until my next area...