Sister Gummow had a little too much excitement this week! I assumed that her email came late because she was at the temple this week, but she never mentioned anything about the temple.
Dearest Family,
So this week we had an exciting thing happen... our boundaries changed! Ha ha this may not seem like a huge deal, but to all the sisters in our mission it is. So what happened was a lot of missionaries were wasting a lot of time traveling so instead of us all covering huge areas, if there are more than one set of missionaries in an area we are breaking it up. This means that elders are now allowed to teach sisters and we are allowed to teach brothers.... weird.. we now have like 2 or 3 male investigators. The thing that happened to us though is we got the awkward portion in the middle that the missionaries rarely go to... so we have only 3 out of our 9 baptismal date investigators still in our area. All the rest of our investigators have been handed over to the elders.
It is kind of funny because I was reading my favorite talk "mountains to climb" and I was thinking about how nice my mission life was now... (we were having tons of success and everything was just super ultra good.) Then... ha ha I made the foolish decision of saying to myself that I really really liked it this way and didn't want to pray for another trial... I think the lord decided I wasn't quite humble enough yet so He sent one...
Personally I am really excited to go out and find again. I LOOOVE finding and it is fun to sort of be opening a new area. It's not really new, but to us it is :) So I am really enjoying the new challenge.
However, there is one more challenge He decided to throw my way... so we were on exchanges with the Sisters in Danshui. Sister Nelson (a 3rd transfer missionary) came to Tucheng with me. As we started the exchange, I started to feel a weird pain in my stomach, but just brushed it off. So we went to go eat dinner, but I was too uncomfortable so I just awkwardly drank water while she ate... I said a prayer and the pain went away for a bit. Then as we were teaching a pass over lesson (passing our investigator to the elders) with the elders I started to feel weird again. By the time the lesson ended I was in so much pain I could barely walk... so I called Sister Day and asked if we could go to the hospital (this is not that big of a deal in Taiwan because everyone always goes to the hospital) it was on the way to our next appointment so I found a way there. At the hospital I was in so much pain that I was ya... like throwing up because it hurt to move... but don't worry ha ha I am just fine now! They did some testing and inspection and they are pretty sure I have a kindey stone. I went back and checked this morning and they said just to keep eating the pills they gave me (an antibiotic and a pain killer) and everything should be just fine. I will hopefully be able to pass it sometime soon... The real miracle of the night was that we were able to communicate all of this in Chinese. The cute girl I was with has only been in Taiwan for a few months so she was such a trooper following me around and just holding all my stuff.
The real miracle was the amazing priesthood blessing I received and the kindness of all the members. Since the girl I was with didn't know my area at all, I told her to call the elders for help so that they could find someone to take us home. The elders were awesome and got a hold of 2 different members who were able to help me that night and the next morning. I also requested that they give me a priesthood blessing before the member drove us home. In the blessing, the lord specifically told me that in about 3 hours the pain would lessen and that in time I would be healed. It was really amazing because that is exactly what happened. at about 1am the pain was better and it was good enough that I was able to sleep for a few hours. The past few days I have had absolutely no pain and now I am prepared so that if next time anything happens I will know what to do!
My poor companion has to kind of follow me around to the doctor visits :( she is so so awesome and super supportive. She has been really good at just checking how I am feeling and always asking to make sure I am doing ok. I am not really worried. I know the Lord will help me through this small challenge just like He has all the rest on my mission. I am grateful for another small mountain I can continue to climb. I didn't necessarily want to ask for it, but I am sure it is exactly what I need to help me grow even more. I actually read a really cool talk as I was in so much pain that I couldn't really sleep
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/the-atonement-covers-all-pain?lang=eng
It is really cool because it talks about the relationship of sin and physical pain. I am grateful that I can understand the atonement on a different level than I ever have before. I think really that is what all of our challenges in life are really there to do... help us understand our Heavenly Father and our Savior just that much more.
Daniel and Bry... don't mess around too much... you will regret not diligently doing your best at school. It is something that influences your entire future. My friend sent me a quote about Hebrew concept of time and they explain it like a song. if you don't hear the first notes you can't really understand the next few. they are all connected. Your decisions right now are all connected to your past and your future. You are in the process of writing your life symphony right now... you get to choose how it sounds. I have faith that you both will have the most beautiful symphonies out of our whole family and i can't wait to see what you both have been writing when I get home!
Please pray for me! I love you all so much and I hope you know that we are still seeing so many miracles everyday. I don't have time to share them all with you, but the lord is really directing His work. I know that missionaries all over the world are experiencing the same :)
On the brighter side it is also fun to learn some more health and doctor words in Chinese! oh and btw I think that either Easter weekend or the weekend I get back will be fine. It will be a bit hard to talk in English, but I'm sure it won't be a problem! I really don't have an opinion so whatever you think would be best for the family members who might want to attend is good with me. I do have a request though... can we get tickets to general conference because I really want to go!!! :) alright I think that is everything! LOVE YOU!!!
Sister Gummow
No comments:
Post a Comment