First Dog Encounter

 Ethan's missionary plaque hanging in the foyer at the church in Dubois.

 The "cottage" that they live in in Mountain Mesa.  It is behind an older couple's house (member). The area they serve in covers several rural towns in the Kern Valley.  It's in one of the Bakersfield zones, and the weather is still hot (but could be hotter).

Ethan's first companion (& trainer & "dad") Elder Hal--from Atlanta, GA.  "We have a lot of the same interest Star Wars, video games, movies, and so on), so we've been getting along pretty well.  He's a great missionary, and I've been learning a lot from him."

Ethan's first e-mail from the Lake Isabella included this experience:

"Family,  Ha, Ha, oh yeah.  I forgot to tell you about my experience on Saturday **Side note:  Aug. 27, 2011--which would have been his 3rd?? day there**.  We were tracting a street that was on a hill and a couple miles long.  It was only a few farm houses, but we decided to go ahead and try.  So we parked at the top of the hill and started making our way down (first mistake).  We knocked the few doors that we could (no success) and made it to the bottom of the hill.  We decided to try the last house and then head back up.  We went through the wide open gate towards the porch.  We had assumed there weren't any dogs loose, since the gate was open, but as we got closer, we saw the dog on the porch.  We hesitated, but then Elder Hall pointed out it only had 3 legs.  Right after he said that, we saw the big growling dog emerging from the doghouse right by the porch--this one with 4 legs.  We started backing up, but the dogs were getting impatient, so weturned around and booked it.  Luckily, they only chased us to the property line, or I might have had to use my ninja skills on those dogs.

So we wasted a bunch of energy running from those stupid dogs.  Then we had to climb the hill (at least a mile or more) back to our truck. 

**Side note:  Since their area covers the dozen or so towns around Lake Isabella, they have a truck & 2,000 miles/month.**

It was 110 degrees, and we were already half-dehydrated (I drank all my water on the way down because it was so hot).  So we both had some heat exhaustion by the time we finally made it back to our truck.

Luckily, there was a member's house nearby, so we drover over there and she gave us some Powerade.  So yeah, that was my experience.  We haven't had to worry about too many dogs around here, because mose people either chain them up and/or put up signs on their CLOSED gates, but this house had neither.