No Cop, No Stop

While learning how to drive, my friends and I always joked about this phrase. When rolling up to a stop sign we would look both ways, but hey if there were no police around, you could theoretically go through the stop sign, without stopping, and would not get in trouble. 

Well this time there was a cop, and he did stop me. We went to Puerto Montt to get a missionary that was coming from Brazil, Elder Ramos. The only word he really knew in Spanish was bautismo (baptism). He is also telling us that in the MTC the other missionaries taught him that Chileans add the word "po" to the end of words, "Sípo, "yapo", ect. But the kids in the MTC told him the word was "poopy". He was replying with "Sípoopy" "bautismopoopy". I was laughing so hard!

But anyway, I was fumbling with setting the cruise control and wasn't paying attention to the accelerator as we were coming up over a hill. Right as we get to the top, I see a police officer standing off to the edge of the highway with his radar. By the time I looked down to gage my speed, he motioned that I pulled over. Elder Mayuri who was with me in the van asked me how fast I was going. Even though we drive a soccer-mom van, it goes pretty fast, but I honestly had no idea how fast we were going. Well, he clocked me going 130 kph when the speed limit was 120 kph, so he asked so see my license and registration. At that moment I remembered that my license had so conveniently expired 3 weeks ago, and this was the first time driving since it had expired. Well I sure did feel dumb.

So the cop takes my license and the car information, looks at my license from California, hands the papers back to me and tells me that the speed limit has to be respected. Close call. Lesson well learned, obey the law. Somebody is always looking. Don't do dumb things, especially while on the mission. 

Love,

Elder Haddad