This week was a crazy week was a crazy week. I don't wan't to shy away from the Spirit of Love, but this story needs telling. Friday, August 30th I was at Mission Council, or in other words the inner sanctum of missionary leadership. Haha nah, but I was at a meeting all day. Another District Leader and I drove down to the mission home while Elder Herdt and Elder Bezzant stayed in our area and got three new investigators, good kid, makin me proud. Anyway, I get back and we have dinner and while we're eating a freak storm hits and the roads are flooding and its crazy cool( I love that about the mid-west). Our appointments had fallen through, and we were out just doing some stop-bys. We stoped at this investigators house and and went to knock on the door and or course the dogs start barking and there is yelling for them to be quiet( I love dogs because its like a 5min long doorbell :)) So she comes to the door and is about to tell us now is not a good time, and her dog, about knocks her over as he pushes past her and out the door and attacks Elder Herdt!!! AHH! It's chaos and Elder Herdt is trying to push the dog away and the dog is chewing on his hands, and she is trying to yank the dog back by the collar and I'm standing there not really sure what I should be doing and she finally gets the dog away and says you guys had better get out of here, I don't know what has gotten into him. I start walking towards the end of the porch, and Elder Herdt is trying to follow and the dog escapes her grip and comes at him again, and this time he kicks the dog and the dog tries to bite his leg and Elder Herdt falls through the front bushes into the front yard and takes off with the dog on his tail and continues until Elder Herdt is off the property and the finally starts listening to the owner. I hurry back over to Elder Herdt as he is holding his hands and limping and we jump in the car and we pull out the first aid kit and start bandaging him up. I called President Fenn and asked what he felt we should do, and in accordance with our thoughts told us to go to the hospital. So just so you all are aware, Elder Herdt it fine. It looked and sounded way worse that it actually was, but he did end up with lots of scrapes a few deepish cuts and a couple of puncture wounds. She came out while we were talking to President and bandaging and apologized and asked if there was anything she could do, and assured that the dog was up to date on his shots and was really flabbergasted ($10 word) because he had never done that before, ever. We assured her we didn't blame her or the dog and that it was all going to be alright and we'd keep in touch with her. We had an appointment in a few minutes that we were going to miss and Elder Herdt was really upset and was refusing to go to the hospital and miss the appointment. President had insisted already and Elder Herdt was literally shaking and I decided to stop and just cancel the appointment. He ended up not being there and that was the Lords way of telling us to get to the hospital. We went to the ER and they took us in and checked him out and cleaned him up and bandaged him up real quick. No stitches or anything like that, I guess its not good for dogbites because it locks in the saliva. But then it was more about paperwork and reports and the cops had to come because of the dog bite and then they had to go to the investigators house and yeah... kindof a mess. And yes, Elder Herdt is really fine. Doing great actually. We've gotten down to just bandaids and he's still on the antibiotics. So it didn't even phase him. Definitely a lot better than it could've been. The dog was a pitbull, and I almost don't want to mention it because of stereotypical reasons, but if he had truly wanted Elder Herdt he would've had him. So... Whew. Oh the life of a missionary.
Until next time,
Elder Engler
Stay Stong, Keep the Faith, Build the Kingdom
