As the subject suggests, it has been rather stormy here in Pensacola as of late. It's rained about every day. I've only gotten stuck in it once. I got absolutely soaked. My planner used to be beautiful. Now it's all crinkly and twice as thick. We were actually on our way to lunch at Firehouse (a local sandwich shop which is really good - we had a gift card) and it started to sprinkle. It then just came down. The roads quickly filled up and it got crazy. We made the final turn and started going against the rain. Man it stung! Those little rain drops stung. We finally made it there and went inside. We ordered our food and proceeded to leave a large trail of water and a puddle around our table. They have this cool machine called a Coke freestyle. It basically had twenty or so different sodas in it that you can select by a touch screen. But they also have flavors that you can add. If you want vanilla root beer, raspberry diet coke, or orange sprite so be it (I didn't like the orange sprite). I like to try several different flavors so I kept getting up and dispensing a little bit of a new flavor, leaving a trail of water in my wake. It was a good sandwich and the rain finally let up and we were about to make our way back to the apartment to get dry clothes on.
On a spiritual note, it was rather neat as we were able to give a blessing to one of the member's neighbors. They have been working with her for 6 years. The D's are wonderful, and their neighbor S happened to be having some medical problems. They saw the opportunity and invited her over for dinner. They also invited us over. We had a good conversation and the spirit was very strong during the blessing. She was very open and receptive to it. It was a wonderful thing. I really do love to give people blessings. I'm a little nervous of saying the wrong thing but I suppose I just need to trust in the Spirit.
I don't mean to alarm anyone but I did get scrapped up this week (it was actually miraculously much less worse that I thought). We were biking along and someone put their trash can out right in the middle of the sidewalk. I didn't maneuver correctly or did not have adequate space to do so because my handlebar clipped the trash can resulting in my bike taking a sudden hard right and the rest of me continuing on. I actually fell into Elder B's back tire and got my shirt pretty good (see first picture). I stopped my fall with my hand and got pretty dirty and scratched (see second picture) but that was all that really happened. I had a few chuckles after I had hit the ground because it must have looked rather comical. We rode to a nearby Walgreen's and I washed up. We then both got cool Pensacola t-shirts since they were on sale (see third picture).
Well, that's all I have time for today! Hope y'all are well and safe and stuff. Remember that I love you all!
-Elder Matthew Carlson
