Oh Hyderabad, Oh Hyderabad!!!

Last Thursday we received an email from Ryan's mission president, here's what the email said:

Dear Parents of Elders serving in Hyderabad, 

As you may know there were bomb blasts in Hyderabad today.  All of our missionaries are safe and have returned to their apartments this evening.  

We are grateful for your prayers on behalf of those affected.

Warm regards,

President Funk

As you can imagine I, Ryan's mom, was rather freaked out by this!!  Jeff was out of town working in Idaho and so I quickly called and informed him of the email.  He, of course, reassured me that the church would do everything they could to keep the missionaries safe. This made me feel better for a second as my sister Krista and I then searched the internet for news about the bomb blasts in Hyderabad.  Sure enough we were able to find what we were looking for and found that 2 motorcycles, packed with explosives, had been detonated in a busy marketplace in downtown Hyderabad.  15-20 innocent people had been killed and some 80 more terribly injured!  

I was so concerned and even though his mission president had assured us that the missionaries had all be been accounted for and safe I was still worried about him.  I prayed for his safety and also prayed that he/we would be calmed and comforted too. Jeff said that he woke up in the middle of the night early Friday worried about Ryan and funny thing was I had done the same thing. We looked forward to Sunday night when we knew we would receive his email for the week and we would be able to text/email back and forth for awhile so we could be reassured by Ryan himself that he was ok :)  So at 10:30pm when that email came through Jeff, Mitch and I were so happy!  

Hello everyone!

So I'm sure that you heard that there were bomb blasts in Hyderabad last week, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I am okay and safe! It was really cool to see the explosion though ;) just kidding mom! It was on the other side of the city, like 40 minutes away from where I was so all the missionaries and church members are fine! However, it did "blow up" the work here.. Haha! We were stuck inside on Wednesday and Thursday for a political strike going on and then Thursday night we were able to go outside and teach some investigators at church. On our way back to the apartment, the Zone Leaders called us and told us to get back as soon as possible and to go straight to the apartment because some terrorists set off some bombs in Hyderabad. It was really sketchy, and so they kept us in the apartment on Friday and Saturday. Cool right? 

Then, on Sunday, Elder Nepali got pick-pocketed on the bus by some punk kids and they stole our phone. The phone is really really important and so we needed to get it back. Our District Leader called them and told them we would pay them money for the phone and they told us to go to one railway station and to pay them 1500 rupees and we could have our phone back. So we called our WML and some members who work in the police station and we went to get our phone. The cops got them and we got our phone back and we didn't even pay them one rupee! It was an awesome experience. It was like a stake out or a sting operation! 

Well, our investigator is getting interviewed by President Funk today so pray that he passes! This week was a boring week so that's my letter. Thanks for all the love and support! 

I love you all!

Love,

Elder Head

It was good to hear that he was safe and 40 minutes away from the blast BUT then the pick pocket  and the "recover our cellphone" sting operation......wowzers :)  A new "green" american companion arrived this last week who lives in the apartment with Ryan and Elder Nepali! Ryan is doing this best to help him become accustomed to his new life in India.  Ryan said that "he is so American :)"  I said "why, is it because he doesn't like spicy food and likes toilet paper?" Aww....life in India!!