I leave at 8 tonight for the city of Poza Rica, and tomorrow at 5 AM I take a bus to Teziutlan from Poza Rica. The cool part is, I was promoted to senior companion! Tomorrow I am senior to a Mexican missionary who already has a year in the field. His name is Elder S. I briefly met him before at a multi-zone conference, but I was unable to talk with him. In any case, we are opening up a new area in Teziutlan. I think it's a smaller city about an hour outside of Teziutlan. Apparently, it's even colder than Teziutlan. The city of Teziutlan is about 23 degrees in the winter... and short sleeve white shirts aren't going to cut it. I will have to buy a coat, several sweaters, warm hats, and gloves at the least because I'm going to be there the coldest months of the year. (I am going to buy the stuff in some store in Teziutlan with the credit card. Sorry for the extra charges, but they're necessary) It's the only cold area of the whole mission because it's way up in the mountains in Puebla. It's also the only zone that's not in the state of Veracruz.
One thing that I thought when my district leader said I was getting transferred was... I will have four consecutive transfers in four different areas in two different countries with 8 different companions. Whew... but, after some pondering, I do understand it. My greatest strength on my mission is that I just plain love people, and the members feel it. The Lord needs me to love the most people as possible, even if it's only for six weeks at a time. And that thought will carry me through the rest of the transfers I have on my mission. Hopefully I can stay in Teziutlan for more than six weeks and actually use all these stinking warm clothes I'm going to buy! But who knows.
So, the most interesting thing that happened this week... a dog bit me. A big ferocious excuse for a pet. Imagine The Beast from the Sandlot latching his fangs onto a missionary's calf. That's what happened. My comp and I were walking down the street, and I told him, ''Look out, it's the crazy barking dog!'' We tried to make our escape walking, but the dog ran up behind me and chomped on my leg. It was pretty cool pulling out my own muscle to clean up a wound, I admit, but it did kind of hurt. It was actually a really gross injury and I took pictures, which yet
another P-day I cannot send... but it looked quite gruesome and I'm going to have a sweet inch long scar on the back of my right calf. There was another wound more minor that probably won't leave a scar, but we'll see. The good news is, the dog's teeth didn't break through my pants, and therefore no saliva or bacteria could have entered my body! Regardless, because the owners are lying idiots, a nice member from the ward has arranged for the police to put down the monster tomorrow and check it for rabies. If it has rabies, I'll get the shot tomorrow or Wednesday. It was certainly the most unique experience of my mission spending three days resting because I wasn't allowed to wear pants until it scabbed over. I have been taking penicillin and a hecka strong antibiotic to ward off anything that may have entered. At the end of this random story, please know that I'm okay, I just have a cool story to tell people about my mission and a manly little scar to show off. Maybe this week I'll get the rabies shot, maybe not. But seeing as the dog has been just as crazy all 6 weeks and it's still not dead, I don't think it has rabies. Also, the Lord prohibited the dog from actually making contact with my skin, which was a miracle. Not only did it save me a pair of pants, but quite possibly me from getting rabies.
Because I got bitten by a dog, I really didn't do a lot this week other than sleep, take medicine, clean my wound, and pray that a hurricane didn't come destroy my house. Fun times...
I was saying goodbye to one Sister of the last ward I was in and she just started bursting into tears. She said it wasn't that there won't be a pianist, that the whole stake is really going to miss me. She told me that I have a very special Spirit about me that people can feel, and that's the thing that makes me different from all the other missionaries. I almost started to cry when she told me that her family always prays for all the missionaries in the world, but for the rest of her life they are going to pray for Elder Dorrough. I have simply tried to love people as Christ would love them. It is the love in the missionary work that matters. It truly is the key. That's why the Lord prepared me to come here already speaking Spanish - I had too many people to truly love and I had to be able to speak from day 1 to do it.
The next time I write to you, I'll be in a different city in an entirely different climate with a new ward and new people, but the Holy Ghost and Christ's love are always the same. I hope to bring it to all the people I can.
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