1) One of our Spanish sisters- Sister Pineda, has been really sick. Her neck was all swollen up and she hasn't been able to sleep or function or anything. We thought she had mono. After 2 weeks of lab tests and no improvement, a member took her to the ER. She had an infected lymph node and it needed emergency surgery. Of course President and Sister Hansen were out of town for a mission seminar or something.... lovely. And this would have been ok if our area had nothing going on ... but we are SO busy! And trying to fit in exchanges with sisters before transfers ... so we dropped everything and took care of this. Her companion- Sister Reza- joined us in a trio some of the time; we tried to find her member splits... then Sister Pineda needed someone to stay overnight with her sometimes so me and Sister Bill had to step in. Keep in mind- she's at the Layton hospital.... that's 30 minutes away from our area. We drove back and forth and back and forth, and ran here and ran there and had to cancel lessons and move things around and issue emergency comp exchanges ... and then Sister Reza wanted to go to the temple with her recent convert so we waited outside the temple until literally 11:00 waiting to pick her up... it was a mess. Sister Pineda's ok, though- she's recovering and doing a lot better.
2) A trio of our sisters got in a huge fight amid all of this. Sister T goes home in 6 weeks, she's trying to lose weight by starving herself, she hates her area and her 2 companions and decided to take her anger out by not talking to them or any members for 3 straight days. Her other 2 comps called us frantic and desperate... so we had to go intervene. We showed up at their house and I pulled Sister T out and was so tired and exhausted I was just straight up with her... but it didn't fix the problem, so a couple of days later we had to go on an emergency evening exchange and separate them before they ripped each other's heads off.
3) Found out our zone of almost all sisters has some disobedience issues and they've been, like, trading companions whenever it's convenient and texting each other just for fun and separating from their companions and sleeping in until 10 every day except for when they know we are going to stop by... just all sorts of stuff..... and all of this has been done behind our backs! It was kind of frustrating because we did so much to love them and earn their trust.... I honestly just care about them so much... then to find out they're depriving themselves of the blessings that come from obedience? This is why your area is struggling, sisters! I wish I would have known that before I spent all this time praying and worrying and brainstorming about how to help their areas.
4) Grandma (the lady we live with) had a stroke. Her son (our full time senior couple in the stake) found her on the kitchen floor a couple nights ago and they had no idea how long she'd been there. she's in really bad condition... we went to go see her in the hospital and it's bad. She probably won't live through it. It was so scary. I am SICK of hospitals. At the same time I'm trying not to feel guilty.... we weren't home at all this week... we slept at the house only once this week. Maybe if we were more in tune with the spirit and not frazzled we could have been there and found her earlier? It's hard not to blame yourself... Hope things get better. If she passes away.. the family will sell the house and we'll have nowhere to live. Good thing I'm leaving this area. By the way- I'm getting transferred. And we have 4 baptisms coming up - Robyn's this Saturday, which I'm supposed to speak at. Lovely.
5) It gets better. I'm getting transferred to an apartment in Rose Park (GHETTO) and will be sharing part of the YSA stake with the AP's. Now let me tell you... this area has a rep for being kind of an authority figure's area... so that's cool, I guess. It covers some of the U of U student wards and the LDSBC wards. My comp is Sister Tranchina from Spain. She is so sweet and so skinny (I hope it rubs off on me). I don't know if I'm excited or not ... to be honest, I'm sick of working with YSA's my age (by that I mean other missionaries, haha) so we'll see... I'm still a STL but only over 3 sets of sisters now instead of 6. That will be nice! I have NO idea how I'm going to pack all my crap... I am so beyond tired you have no idea. And how I will fit it all... one thing at a time, I suppose. I just really wasn't expecting to leave yet.
6) Our youth chat we've worked so hard to organize was Sunday night... we got called into an emergency transfer leadership meeting at the same time. We called Rich- had him go and be a "guest speaker" in our place. Thank goodness that worked out.
I've learned a lot this week. I learned the best way to forget yourself is to serve someone else. I have been really happy overall this week because I feel like I made a difference. I learned when life gets hard, stop and pray. Sister Bill and I had to stop and pray about what to do about a billion times this week. "Who should we put with sister Reza today?" "Help us know the things to say to break up this cat fight;" "please.... help us have enough gas to drive down to SLC, up to Layton hospital and back" (this was a Sunday, hahah); just over and over and over again. I feel like I'm a pro about praying to make a decision about something because I didn't have a choice. I know I wasn't alone this week. So grateful for a wonderful companion who pulled me aside, said, "I'm not letting you teach this lesson - go take a nap," even though I was determined to push through it. The gospel doesn't take your problems away .... but it sure makes it a lot better. A LOT better. I know I couldn't have done everything I did this week without divine help - trust me. I love being able to serve. And plus... I contacted a lot of nurses. ;)
Ogden temple rededication... I tried so hard to stay awake, but...... no. Ok, I heard most of it. We went to 2 sessions. They talked about how important it was to hold a temple recommend and to not take it lightly. It is a big deal, and a big blessing! It was pretty good. I feel bad I slept through most of it... hospitals are so annoying- how do they expect someone to recover if nurses come in every hour and those machines beep so dang loud? Stupid.
Okay, I'm done, thank you. If I don't email next week - it's cuz I got shot in Rose Park.
Heidi
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| Living at the hospital with Sister Pineda |
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| Transfer board |
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| I was having a really bad day and my comp saved it ... I don't know if you can read them but some are really funny! |
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| The ZL's brought us a gift .. and good thing, they owe us BIG TIME, just saying. It was nice of them though, haha |
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| Movie theater popcorn withdrawals ... one of our bishops came to the rescue! |
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