Our good friend Elder McBride who served in the same mission as Jeff was involved in a very freak accident one week ago today. He and five other elders were at the local church to play basketball on p-day. Elder McBride opened a heavy, metal sliding gate so they could enter the church property. The supports for the gate were rusted and gave way so the gate fell and hit Elder McBride on the lower part of the back of his head causing him to fall to the ground and hit his head in a second place on the cement curb. There is much more to the story, but to summarize, Elder McBride was treated in the DR and then it was determined he needed to be brought to the states to receive more extensive care. He is home now and being treated at Barrows Neurological Institute. We have been impressed over the years with the top notch care available at Barrows so we know he is in the best spot possible receiving wonderful care! He is doing well, especially for the kind of trauma he has been through. Jeff loves Elder McBride and we love Elder McBride and his whole family! We are so grateful for the little miracles that the Lord has blessed us with in Taylor's situation and we continue to pray for his complete recovery!
We copied the entries from Taylor's missionary blog site about the accident into our email to Jeff this week so he could read them and have a better understanding of what has been happening with Taylor and how he is now. We knew Jeff would need to use most of his computer time reading those entries so his email this week is short as we anticipated it would be. He sounds great . . .
Hello Family and Friends,
I heard about Elder McBride when we called the APs this week, and I have been worried about him. He was one of the biggest influences on me in my whole mission. I am sorry, I'm going to have to make this very short because I am out of time.
Really quick, things are great here, we have a couple of baptismal dates, and those were ones that we put this week, a guy named Morice who has changed greatly and a mom of a member named Soledad.
To answer Dad's question, Papiamento is more like Spanish than English. I can read most of the excerpts from the Book of Mormon that we have in Papiamento now only having to look up a few words still. I'm starting to get the hang of reading it, but it's harder to speak, but I'm doing a little bit of that now too.
(Henry did some research and found that a man by the name of Jose Gonzalez was the first member in Aruba. He asked Jeff if Brother Gonzalez was still on the island anywhere. He also asked what kind of buildings the two branches on the island meet in.) That is soooo cool that you found that history about Jose Gonzalez! He is the Branch President up here in the Oranjestad Branch. I talk to that guy all the time!!! He is a way cool guy! The San Nicolas church is a big old house that sits right up on a hill there. You can see the refinery really well from there, and on a clear day you can see Venezuela!!! That is soooo cool! The church up in Oranjestad is actually a church building built by the Church, but we're moving out of it temporarily while they do a remodel and make it bigger.
I am so grateful that you sent me all of that information on Taylor. He is a great missionary, he did such a good job, and he did so many things for me and helped me so much! I am almost positive that he doesn't know what a big influence and help he was to me in my mission. I am so grateful for my lifelong AZ friend, and how he taught me how to be a good missionary. He is a great guy with a great testimony and love for the Lord. I am so grateful that I know Taylor and I'm really grateful that I had the privilege to serve my mission with him!
I am so sorry to be so short, I'm doing good, just out of time!!!! I love you and keep it up!!!
Elder DeSpain
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