Elder Head in the Philippines - Week 28 - The "burn" of missionary work :)

We didn't hear from Mitch on Sunday evening like we normally do. We knew that it wasn't transfer-time yet so when I woke up around 4 am, checked my email, and still nothing from him I was a little disappointed and concerned. Thankfully, I received a text message from Janel Larson, Elder Larson's mom, telling me she had some pictures to share with us. I told her we were happy to get pictures because we didn't hear from Mitch the night before. She then promptly called and then let me know that on their p-day zone activity that there had been a motorcycle crash and that Mitch had sustained a burn on his calf.  I'm so grateful that she called and told me about this! Thanks Janel! Although this news was concerning, we were happy to know what happened and that not hearing from him was because he and another injured elder had gone to seek medical attention. Janel forwarded the photo of his burned calf. 

OUCH!! Poor guy!!

We were very happy that Mitch got permission to send us a really quick email last night so we knew he was ok :). Mission memories??  Here's our quick email exchange:

Hey Mom! Sorry about emailing a day late. Yesterday we had a zone activity going up to a waterfall and on the way up our motorcycle crashed and I got a pretty gnarly burn on my leg so I had to go
to Tagbilaran to buy medicine for my leg so I didn't really get to email yesterday but we got permission from the Zone Leaders to do it today. :) Also I accidentally gave myself a pretty deep cut on my finger earlier this week. Sige bye! Joke you could email back for a second and I'll tell you more about it. If not I'll just talk about it in my email next week :)

K love ya! See ya later! Bye!


On 4/28/15, MICHELLE HEAD wrote:
Are you ok???? Thankfully Janel sent me pictures this morning and told me what happened exactly?


On 4/28/15, Mitchell Head wrote:
Yeah I'm okay! Elder Larson is gonna send you some pictures from the start of the transfer. :) So what happened was we were going up to the Jagna Waterfalls (which was beautiful and it was so worth it) and we all took motorcycles to the place and the road was a rocky uphill slope at some points so we were riding up and we drove over a rock that wasn't secure so it fell from underneath us and the motorcycle fell over and Elder Larson and the driver fell back onto me. I fell onto Elder Robanakadavu who got pushed off the bike and landed on his shoulder and his shoulder was a little swollen and sore but nothing too bad. But for me my leg got pinned between Elder Larson's body and the muffler (which was super hot to the bare skin and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone) so I
got a pretty good sized burn up my leg. But it's cool cause I still made it to the falls, stayed there for 2 hours, then called Sister Tanner and she told Elder Robanakadavu and I to go to Tagbilaran. Haha.

Then for my finger, I was cutting a root crap to put into my manggo beans that I was cooking and I hit a rotten part of the root crap (Gabi) and the knife slid straight through and caught my finger pretty good.

On 4/28/15, MICHELLE HEAD wrote:
Wow, well I'm so sorry that happened to you! Why are you putting some many people on one motorcycle though?? :) Please keep it bandaged and ointment on it so it will heal properly and 
won't scar! Is your finger getting better?

On Apr 28, 2015, at 10:38 PM, Mitchell Head wrote:
It's okay! The motorcycle drivers wanted to make as much money as possible and a ton of people do it here in the Philippines so we thought it wasn't going to be wrong or that anything bad would happen. Haha. My finger is a lot better but still not 100%. The cut was pretty deep though so I dunno if it's gonna heal SUPER duper quick. I'll heal though. I have bandaids and Sister Tanner prescribed me this ointment that works better than neosporin. Haha. Sister Tanner was a nurse and told Sister Robertson (The senior couple Sister in Tagbilaran who also happened to be a nurse pre-mission) exactly what to buy and then I went a got it from them and she bandaged up my leg and now I'll be bandaging it up for the rest of the week until it's better. The ointment they got for me is the American
grade stuff that they use it the Burn unit in the hospital and should work like a charm. Haha

So I am just about out of time, Sorry I didn't write an email this week, I just wanted to let you know I'm still alive. Just tell the peeps that I'm still alive and that I played piano at church and taught another impromptu lesson and such. Also, I was in the woods this week.....tell Traci she was right about Banana leaves..... Haha

 K love ya Mom!

Happy to finally have a few photos. (Photo cred...Elder Larson) Mitch is serving in a beautiful place in the world!!

Becoming quite a cook :)