June 3 & 6, 2015

This was an unexpected letter from Zach and bad news too...

hey momma(:

so i just wanted to be the first to let you know that we got in a car accident, but we're okay! we were driving from one city to another and our GPS took us down this weird backwoods dirt road that was super crappy, and i was driving to fast and lost control. well we slid off the road into this ditch on the side. we're both fine, just a little sore, but the car is kinda banged up. so i dont know if the mission office will contact you about it or what, but it was comletely my fault so im gonna have to pay to fix it... good thing i was getting paid good at the scrap yard haha. i dont think it'll cost more than what i have in my account, so if they ask you guys to do some transaction use that. but they will probably contact you guys once we get it figured out. but we're okay, my neck is a little sore, kinda feels like i spent all night at a rock concert head banging haha. sorry to have you wake up to this email, but i didnt want the mission office to tell you first and freak you out, cuz we're both fine!!(: love you a ton, and we'll probably talk again soon haha(:

Jared's letter to Zach...

Zach,

I’m going to keep this very short. 

If EVER you needed to WRITE YOUR MOM A LONG LETTER now is the time. She is quite worried about you since the accident. I really think you need to write a detailed letter about the accident, and especially let her know you are ok – back to teaching and being a regular missionary etc. 

Love, 

Dad

His follow up letter explains it all...

Hey Momma!! 

I'm totally fine!(: before anything you gotta know that im 100% okay. i'm gonna give you the whole run down of what happened, but no freaking out!!(;

so elder mcgraw and i were in one city, then our zone leaders called and asked us to go to this other city to pick them up and take them somewhere else cuz they missed the bus. so we punched in the coordinates into our GPS, and the dumb thing took us completely past the city, then wanted us to come back on some funky little backwoods dirt road. so we had been on the dirt road for a little bit and it was taking way longer than we thought and we were late to pick up the ZLs, so we hit this straight away and i sped up. well its a cruddy european car with front wheel drive, and we lost traction somewhere on the road. we're kinda in the middle of nowhere and there's no one else around. and this dirt road has rain ditches on either side that are about 8 feet deep, and on both sides were just fields of weeds and stuff. so our car veered off to the left and we shot off the road at about a 45º angle, the front on the driver side hit this dirt burm and took the brunt of the impact, then the back end kinda swung around and we hit some other dirt mound on the passenger side. well hitting on the side made us roll. but like we didnt just roll, cuz the roof of the car doesnt have a scratch on it, the antenna is perfectly fine and none of the windows are busted, so we more flipped in the air than rolled across the ground haha, kinda like a kick flip on a skate board. then we landed perfectly right side up on some other dirt mounds, with the car pointing downward a little cuz the back end of the car landed about half way up the ditch hill. well i got out of the car really fast cuz i wasnt about to wait around and see if it was gonna catch on fire (DONT WORRY IT DIDNT haha), but my door was kinda stuck so i kicked it open (it made me feel really tough). then i ran around to the other side of the car where McGraw was to help him get out. he was totally fine too, he just didnt react as fast as me i guess. but his door was completely stuck so he climbed out the window which luckily was already down. then we both climbed up onto the road and kinda stared at each other for a sec, then did a self evalutaion. both of us were amazed, and we still are, to see that neither of us had any injures. no broken bones, no blood, no scratches, not even a bumped head or a chipped nail. then we called the mission office and told them, and we called our Stake President cuz he's a great guy, and he came out and helped us. he used to work as a car tower, so he had a friend come pull it out and take it back to his house, then our Stake Pres took us to the hospital. the mission office wanted us to go get checked out just in case. the hospital CT scanned Mcgraw and i and we were and are both completely fine. we we're a little sore for a day or two in the neck and the back, but not as sore as i've been after some lacrosse games. and not nearly as sore as my neck was after that Social Distortion concert haha. we went right back to working the next day. the only difference is that now we dont have a car haha, but the mission is trying to figure something out. so the crash was on Thursday, on Saturday we took a bus to another city to watch a baptism of some other elders in our District and to have a little 4th of July party, then after went out and found these sick pedal carts for adults. it was 5 bucks for half an hour! haha so we rode those around for a while which was super fun....... so that was my 4th of July weekend!! hahaha how was yours??(;

this might be a little frowned upon in the mission, but i know you're worried about me, which makes me worry about you cuz i dont like to see you worry. i cant call you, but the best way i can think of to prove to you that im perfectly okay is this: i didnt take any pictures of us playing around in the carts, but i did take a pretty flippin' sweet video, but i cant send the video to you cuz these emails suck. so what im gonna do is get on facebook for a sec and post the video to your facebook page (if i can figure out how haha, if not i'll post it on my page, but it'll be up on facebook!!). it's the best way i can think of to prove that im okay(:

and i would definitely say that my spiritual expirience that i had this week was after the crash while we were waiting for the towtruck. i had a little bit of time to sit down and think to myself, and it really is incredible that we walked out of there without a single scratch or bruise. i fricken rolled a car into a ditch!! haha, im just amazed at how much the Lord blessed elder McGraw and i. especially McGraw who gets concussions really easily because of some weird migrain thingy that he has, didnt even have anything wrong, not even a bump. probably the worst thing that happened was since we crashed into a bunch of weeds, once we climbed out, McGraw realized that he had a tick crawling on him, and he freaked out cuz he's terrified of bugs hahahaha, but that gave us both a good laugh cuz he was jumping and squeeling like a little girl haha. but that night i said probably one of the longest prayers i've said my whole mission, just reflecting on what happened and saying thankyou about 2.8 trillion times. i remember thinking throughout the whole expirience hearing modern prophets and apostles say how Heavenly Father never lets anything happen to us that isnt for our eternal well-being, so obviously it was for my learning and growing benefit, but im really grateful that he kept in consideration my mortal well-being too haha, cuz if you were to have seen us right after the crash, you would have never thought that we were the ones who had wrecked, you would've thought that we had just seen it happen and had ran over to help or something, because we literally walked away without a scratch. I just feel so grateful that he would protect us that much... its pretty humbling. 

But im totally fine!! so no more worrying okay?! later this week we get to meet our new Mission Pres... and i think he's pretty anxious to meet me haha, his 1st day as mission pres and he was already having to deal with my crap haha, it's too bad that i go home soon, cuz if we had more time together i think it's something that we'd laugh about pretty hard haha. 

but man it's super awesome to see all you guys in San diego, and those pictures of Ammon are soo sick!! what a stud! haha i cant wait to goof around will all the family again, everyone is gettin so flippin  big i cant believe it haha. and thats super sick that Brig had such a great time, i'll totally have to look into being a counselor, it sounds way rad. i'd love to do it down in brasil or something like that haha. 

well i gotta run now, but please dont worry! we're 100% fine, and 27% smarter now too haha(; but check out that video haha, i hope it proves enough that we're perfectly fine! and still proud Americans too!(; it's taking a while to load, so maybe give it some time!

love you guys! have fun in San Diego!! please take tons of pictures!! im sorry i didnt take any pictures this week, but i will do better this week i promise!!(:

Zach's response to His Dad...

so wrote momma a big letter explaining EVERYTHING haha, but i did lie a little bit. i took some pictures of the car right after the wreck, but i figured it would be a better idea to send them to you first, and let you decide if she should wait a few days before seeing them or whatever, the car looks kinda bad, but we're really totally fine. plus when we got our CT scans in the hospital, they gave us these CTs with the pictures they took of our brains (they're flippin sweet, and yes you can clearly see how much of a genius i am haha), but it all makes no sense to me, so i'll probably put it in the mail and send it home to you so that you can see it haha, but they said that everything is ship shape(: but so im gonna send you the pictures right now(:

love you pop!

The Proof that Heavenly Father watches over Missionaries!!

 flew off the narrow dirt road into a ditch, hit a sand bump, and the car barrel rolled

 some other shots of the Royal Goose in the ditch...... we fricken rolled the sucker, but there was no one around to even tell us how cool it look, no videos no nothing

first time i ever rolled a car...... the Royal Goose has been Royaly Cooked :/

here's me and my comp in the hospital waiting to get our CT scans. not a single scratch, not too shabby for a roll-over wreck haha(: