Eventful Week and the Continuation

Hello Family!

How are you all?  From what I heard, it sounds like you guys had quite the....hmmm.....¿eventful? week!  Guess what, me too!!  Wanna know what happened?.............................I'm going to assume that you do.  Here's the story:  We got in a car wreck!!!!!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!  Okay, Mom please stop screaming, don't call the mission office, and just keep reading.  Here's the highlights.  One peaceful Monday, July 9th, 2012, Elder Taveras and I were working away.  Well, part of our work was fixing up a house so that we could entregar (Sorry, I can't think of the English word--like when you give a rented house back to the owner) it.  Well we needed a few things from the hardware store so we headed to Ochoa.  (Closest thing to a Home Depot that there is here).  Well, we bought our stuff and were out.  Alright, now comes the part where you have to use your imagination real good.  Here's the circumstances.  4:30 P.M.  Sunny and Clear.  Road Conditions- Dry.  So the road we are talking about is one of those less intelligent roads that have the divider with cute little trees and stuff in the middle.  Anyway, I pull up, look to the left, look to the right too (cause we are talking about the D.R. here) and pull out.  I then do a very smooth head check, turn on my blinker, change lanes, and enter into the little space to give a U-turn.  All is good right?  Well, we sit there for a few seconds--completely parked--watching for a spot to pull in to go the other direction.  It is during this delightful little moment that we hear BOOM!!!!  I look at my comp and say, "What the heck was that?"  Well, then I look in my mirror and see two guys jumping around like crazy!  My mind then put 2 and 2 together and realized that we got slammed into by a motorcycle!!  We jumped out to make sure they were okay and to evaluate the damages.  First of all, they were fine.  In some pain, but fine.  But boy did they do some damage!!  Anyway, what happened, is they came around the corner going who knows how fast, lost control and slammed into my pretty little parked truck.  :( First off--it wasn't my fault!  The truck was 100% in the middle, and, well, I was parked!!  Anyway, they banged up the back driver's side door, the bed, and a little part of our tie-down bar!  Exciting story right?  Well anyway, right away we took it in to the body shop, left her there, and they started to fix it up.  Now, she is good as new :)   But during this time, we had to drive our gigantic white Hyundai H-1, 15 person van that Elder Brimley and I named Moby Dick.  I know that I'm going to get about 15,482 questions about this next week, so I'll just answer the questions instead of trying to explain everything.  But anyway, that was the highlight of my week!    

Sorry, I have to go be ambulance!  I'll write more later!!!  

Love you guys!


The Continuation........................

Well, I'm done being ambulance for the day!  I think.....anyway, I don't really remember where I was...so I will answer/ask questions!  To answer Mom's questions, my family from San Cristobal is struggling a little bit.  They are going to church every week, but are struggling on getting married.  President wants to do a conference call with me and them to try and give them some animo.  Keep them in your prayers! 

Elder Brimley is from Sandy.  I don't know if you remember, but he was in Madre Vieja Sur when I first started.  He had about 8 months when I got to the field.  We had a lot of fun back then, and then we both got put in the office together, him as assistant and me as office elder.  He now has 18 months.  We have a ton of fun together!  My companion is a really great guy!  We have a lot of fun, and we get along just fine!  Its kinda stressful in the office, so I probably have more fun experiences with Brimley because we just talk and have fun in the calm moments. 

So Sven is getting recruited by the big dogs!!  Congratulations!  I'm gonna be honest....I am about 1,000 hours away from my niece right now, so she better be closer when I get home!  Speaking of which...I did get the DVD!  She might be the cutest thing I've ever seen!  But really, that's a great opportunity, I guess the only thing I can say is ask the Lord.  If I have learned anything from the mission, I have learned that the Lord answers prayers.  He is anxiously waiting to answer our prayers. 

The song that always comes to my mind when I'm feeling a little stressed, overwhelmed, anything, I think of the primary song, "Heavenly Father, are you really there?  And do you hear and answer every child's (or adult or missionary) prayer?"  The response is so clear and powerful that He is really there.  He really does hear and answer every child's prayer.  I don't remember if I have said this before, but something that really has changed my prayers is something extremely simple.  Lots of times I pictured praying to my Heavenly Father and Him being a long way away.  Well, I think that it is a lot better to think of Him as being right there by my side.  Every night I can just pour out my thoughts and feelings, and am lifted up by His strength.

Change of subject....guess what I did this week.  I sang in Sacrament Meeting....wait wait wait..........what?!?!  Yeah it wasn't by choice.  One day we were sitting in sacrament meeting and they said, and now we will have a special musical number from the Priesthood!  Well, us being priesthood, we went up.  Problem...no one decided to come with us!  Well, us, the 6 missionaries from our ward, ended up singing by ourselves!  Yeah, chalk that one up in the "firsts" column! 

Oh news.  President finished transfers, and I'm staying here with my same comp!  He now will be in his 7th transfer here in the office.  Looks like I just might spend the rest of my mission here, ha ha. 

I love you all so much! 

Elder Riley Ted Reeder
La Iglesia De Jesucristo De Los Santos De Los Últimos Días
La Misión Santo Domingo Oeste, República Dominicana