Red 4, Standing By

Family,
Well email time is really early today, just sort of how it worked out. So I haven't gotten an email from dad yet, but maybe that will show up as I type this. The week has been really crazy a lot of random things have happened. First off for the card reader/pictures mom, I can't really think of anything else I need right now. I have just about everything necessary. A new tie would be nice. I would say go for something colorful, not silk, moderately shiny, and looks good, but really any tie will do. Also, don't forget this one, will you get Alex's mtc address. I have his mission address, but he is in the mtc till October and I had something to send him, only I don't know what mailbox # he has, that would be marvelous! I am excited that CJ has left on his mission! He will love it! How long is he at the MTC? I assume a long time.
First event of the week, Sunday after church. Elder Tanner and I went to the mission home to get a bike for a missionary. The bikes are all in a giant pile underneath the back up water supply (a 900 gallon tank) so we are digging out the bike we need when all of a sudden the pile of bikes falls on the pvc pipe that connects to the water. The pipe breaks and all the back up water starts spewing all over the ground, so elder tanner and I are freaking out, so elder tanner holds the pipe together to slow the water and I go to find a way to stop it. The back up water pipe is built poorly, has no stop valves. In the end I took a bag and shoved it up the pipe, put a rock up the pipe to put pressure on the bag, put a large flat rock under that one to prevent it from falling out and then put the lower part of the pipe under the rock. In the end it all held itself together and the water had stopped. I wrapped it up with a lot of garbage bags to ensure it held itself together and left it. We went to dinner, soaked and then called someone to fix it. They fixed it on Monday and all was good. My contraption had held till Monday and the plumber man was able to put it all back together with minimal water loss.
Second interesting event of the week, Monday. On Monday we drove 2 hours to Mandeville to move furniture. We got to Mandeville and realized that we hadn't brought any of the keys to the house. The nearest place with keys was 2 hours away. So we climbed up the back wall to the balcony, the door was also locked, so we forced the windows opened, slid our hands inside and unlocked the door, opened it, and unfortunately their was a big iron grill acting as a secondary door, and it had giant padlocks. We looked in the house for extra keys through the windows, nothing. Elder Garcia, one of the assistants was with us and he went home on Friday, he some extra money so we went to the hardware store and bought a giant bolt cutter and new locks. Went back to the house, climbed the wall, opened the door, and destroyed the locks. We got inside and had a successful move, everything worked out and we locked everything back up and left. That was a lot of fun, we proved that the missionaries home was not safe if a burglar was carrying around bolt cutters and could climb walls and figure out how to open windows.
On Thursday we had transfers. So it was a crazy day for everyone except me. The assistants took all my companions to use as driving companions and I was left at the office to work, which I didn't mind, driving for 5 hours would have been really dull. While I was at the office we learned that a new area opening up needed a car and the only extra car we had the battery didn't work at all, even if you jumped it. So I went to work and took out the battery in the cheesman's car and put it into the other car. So the cheesmans couldn't go anywhere but now the missionaries had a working car! The next task was to get a battery, which was moderately easy except for that the old battery had holes in it that spewed liquids that probably weren't safe to touch, I don't know, I never touched them, it just made it a hassle to move the old battery. In the end it all worked out and everyone had batteries in their cars.
Tuesday Elder Vinas came and that was fun! Our water was out so we went to president graffs to shower and sister graff fed us breakfast, while we were eating breakfast he joined us, it was weird no one knew what to say. He was a really nice man and a good teacher. We had a huge conference with him and 50 missionaries (who afterwards all went to a little restaurant like panda express and overloaded the place) After the conference we had a meeting with him in the office. It was really enlightening and good. He has a cool accent and enjoys making jokes. Overall a really good experience.
Well I don't have to much time, some of my email time was lost talking to elder cheesman, but oh well, I got the biggest highlights in from the week. Elder Tanner left to Yallahs and now it is just elder rebeiro and I so that is fun. We are having a good time and our area is doing decent, we spent all day working in the office for the last week preparing for transfers and we have gotten a total of 2.5 hours of teaching time! It has been really unfortunate but we are hoping for some good teaching time today and tomorrow. I still haven't gotten an email from dad or Nathaniel, but I guess that will just mean double email next week from them! I got another thing of photos from you, thanks for that!
Enjoy school starting this week! I must admit that I am moderately jealous, I would love to be in school taking a math class haha, but I am still enjoying myself and loving my mission. Things are going well, I am in good health and I am now in the 5th transfer! Wow, time is flying buy, I am so busy with office work/teaching that I barely notice the passing of time, the weeks are just disappearing.
Well That is it for this week, enjoy life back home and I hope everything goes well. I will keep you all in my prayers.
-Love you all,
Elder B. Kent Talbert