Argentina Neuquen Mission

The dogs in Argentina are super common and 99% of the time they don't cause any problems, but every once in a while they do. One time, towards the end of my mission, I was in Bariloche, which is a very touristy, very popular area in the Neocan mission, and I was walking on the street and there were a ton of dogs, like always, and one dog walked right past me. It didn't bark or anything. They normally bark. It didn't, and then all of a sudden it just turned around and bit me right below my knee. I had to go to the hospital. I got some different shots and got it all cleaned up and taken care of, and I couldn't walk for just a little while, but then it got all healed up and it was, it's all good. But yeah, just watch out for those crazy dogs.

So one fine Saturday morning in Comodoro Rivadavia, I think I was in the kind of downtown in Nuevo de Julio. Anyway, I think I was with Elder Granco and we went out to start contacting people on the street and I think I must have spooked the guy. He was walking with his two little daughters who were maybe like eight and ten years old and I was like, hey brother, you know, nice to meet you. We want to teach you about the gospel. It's just super energetic and without shaking my hand or anything, he just straight up punched me in the face. It didn't hurt too bad because he didn't punch like directly on my nose. He punched me on my cheek and my face just felt like it got a hard slap. But that was a pretty crazy experience. I don't blame him. I felt a little dizzy. I said, you know, it's okay. We love you. We'll talk to you later. His daughters were yelling like, don't do it, daddy. Don't do it or something like that. And he left. But that was a fun experience. Kind of crazy. Doesn't happen very often.

Another day in Neuquen. My companion and I were, we started off our day on the, probably the, we started off on the right foot, but as we were leaving our apartment, we had this dog that really hated our guts, and it was out of its cage that day and came up and bit me in the leg. Luckily it didn't pierce the skin. But then to add to all of that, as we were going about the rest of our day, we decided to take a shortcut from one member's house and we crossed under a fence and I ripped my pants right up the crotch, and wasn't really sure how that was going to go for the rest of the day. So then I had to carry my scriptures right in front of myself the whole day, and then it started raining. It was like the craziest day ever, and as we were on our way home, we decided to go and get into some houses, and on our way down the stairs, I slipped and fell down the flight of stairs all in one day. Crazy.

One time, I think I was with Elder Belinsky, and we were on our way over to visit some investigator, I think, with the bishop, and he took us in his little, his little Fiat, and me being a bigger guy, I didn't realize how much I weighed, but I was pulling myself out of the back seat of his Fiat, and I put pressure on the door handle, and I broke it to clean off the door and fell on my face, and I just remember my companion laughing his head off. I couldn't help but laugh my head off, and the bishop just about died as well. He was, we were all in tears. It was so funny, but one of those moments you don't really expect to happen.