2 car 1 bus Fatality accident which involved 2 elders in Florianopolis brazil

So by reading the title you can see that this week was pretty exicting.

We went to Jaragua do Sul to do a baptisimal interview. In this interview the man responded to the question with some slang. I understood the significance but not the details. As I was thinking about it later I started thinking oh my goodness maybe he has had a problem and I didn~t ask about it. He said, It was resolved (or so I thought) what he really said was I am very resolved (which means I don~t play for that team) So I had to call him and ask him the question again and ask details and it was very embarassing and stressful for me and my phone was running out of batery and he wasn~t answering the phone so i was kind of freaking out it was pretty interesting and a little rough. That was thursday,

So after I calmed down from that we got on our bus...

Friday Night we had a church activity. Because of some problems on the bus we actually didn~t make it home until Friday morning. We ended up sleeping with the Zone leaders in Joinville until friday when we caught our bus. Friday we spent the day getting the stuff ready for the activity that we planned and were organizing. That was all of friday. The activity started at 700. At seven we just had our investigator there..... So I got stressed again and kind of started freaking out again but it turned out to be a great activity and the members loved it.

Saturday we started working in our area. Because my companion and I have the same amount of time on the mission I was scared that he would be judging me for the work I do. It was an unwarranted concern but it was still something that I worried about. So saturday I got all stressed again about how we would work together and if we would be able to teach well or anything. It was a little rough. And I was stressed again. Sunday he told me he wished we could work two transfers together so I calmed down from that.

Sunday I had a talk in church. I was expecting a 15 minute talk followed by the concluding speaker. Well as I was sitting in sacrament meeting the 1st conselor announced a youth speaker. I quickly connected the fact that if there was a youth speaker that means that I am... the concluding speaker..... uh oh. So I quickly re wrote my talk and got up and basically talked by the spirit. It was amazing. I just had bullet points and things I wanted to say. And it just flowed. My portuguese was really good, from what I could tell, and I just felt calm infront of the branch. It was a good experience but stressful too.

So basically this was a really stressful week but I learned alot and am looking forward to another week in the Lord´s vineyard.

I love you all so much,

Love,

Elder Noel

PS oh yeah thursday night... so we leave the bus station. About fifteen minutes after we leave the station (we are on a huge grey hound bus) we heard what sounded like the bus hitting a car (it was infact the bus hitting a car) Then the bus swayed and we heard another similar sound (it was the bus hitting another car) then we felt what felt like the bus jumping over a 2 foot brick wall (it was infact the bus jumping over a two foot brick wall) and then it felt like we were stopped by a brick wall ( as it turns out we were stopped by a brick wall). (In all reallity it felt like the bus lost controle of the breaks and ran up and over the little wall until it was quickly stopped by the big one)

The lady who had just walked past our seats to go to the bathroom was thrown forward onto the ground but wasn~t hurt. We got up and started waiting for people to get out of the bus. Well the front door of the bus was smashed in so we were just kind of standing there. Elder wellling hestitantly grabbed the emergency hammer and started to break the window on our side. I was busy kicking glass out of the other window on the other side. ( I know heroic right) We grabbed our back packs and jumped out of the bus (Which is like 7 feet high! And a seven foot jump from a bus window onto broken glass and twisted Iron (there WAS a fence there) is a little scary) But we jumped ok. Elder Welling put a hand down and got his hand cut but it was ok. He washed his hand in the broken water main and we used our first aid kits to bandage it up (Eagle scouts:) )
I called the zone leaders and let them know and then got a call from President, remember how I had a low battery? Yeah my battery died as he was asking about us, I am sure he loved that:)

Turns out there was a car driving the wrong way on the road. The driver of the bus tried to avoid him and nicked ( and by nicked I mean destroyed) the front corner of that car. The bus then lost control. Hit another car and ran over a lady who was waiting for the city bus. (She died, or in missionary slang we gave a reference to the missionaries in the Spirit World) No one on the bus was hurt but I think that lady who was walking will be pretty sore.

But we are ok. Heavenly Father was watching over us:) Unforunately my camera didn~t have batteries so I didn~t get to take a picture. I am a little upset. If you google search this you should find it: accidente do onibus catarinese joinville 8/3/2012

Anyways happy to be alive :)