Are you ready for some cool stories about what happened this past week????!! I hope you laugh along with me. Many funny things happened.
THIRD TIME'S A CHARM
I have come to the conclusion that my stomach is not the strongest part of my body. And by that I don't mean abs-stomach. I mean stomach-stomach. The insides-of-my-stomach stomach. For the third time since being here in the Philippines I had the stomach flu this week! That's right. Diarrhea. Or "Loose Bowel Movements" (LBMs), to be more scientifically accurate. It was really fun and lasted three days. The first night of the flu I remember waking up and feeling so bad and dry-heaving over the kitchen counter at three a.m. in the morning and wanting to cry because everyone else was asleep and I missed home and basically I was a little girl again and I missed having my "Mommy and Daddy" stay up with me and give me all the medicine in the world and comfort me and soothe me to sleep. The second night I woke up every single hour to use the bathroom. When Karyssa (Sister Wilhelm) gets off her mission and reads this - if ever she does - I want her to know that I officially, sort of know how she felt when she had diarrhea/the stomach flu for weeks straight and was almost sent home due to sickness. My stomach, my best friend.
"SOMETHING LIKE HIVES"
The story doesn't even stop there! So my LBMs started on Wednesday morning and ended on Friday. By Saturday afternoon, after the LBMs had died down...guess what attacked next! Red splotches! The same kind that I got on Palawan, three weeks ago. Good thing they weren't as big and widespread as they were the last time--the last time they literally covered my entire body. This time they were just at random places and they were smaller in size. Sister Lemmon (our medical coordinator here) probably shed a few tears of laughter with me as we wondered how these things were just coming at me one after the other. First the LBMs, then this allergic reaction. She and I STILL have no idea what I am allergic to; could be chemicals in the air...or maybe there are just insects crawling in my closet that I don't know about. IT'S MORE FUN IN THE PHILIPPINES! Sister Lemmon also concluded that these splotches were "something like hives." HIVES! I had hives this week. Diarrhea and hives.
I BROUGHT PALAWAN HERE WITH ME
No one in Manila, at least the missionaries, ever gets their water cut in their apartments. Especially not here on Manila. Palawan is a different story. But water going out here in the missionaries' apartments in Manila? Unheard of, said President Ostler. I met and spoke with him on Saturday (right before the hives) and he was saying that this Palawan luck must be sticking with me...because the night before, meaning Friday night (as well as last night), our water got cut. It was only for an hour or two, nothing big like what we experienced on Palawan, but this event brought much needed comic relief to an already stressed-out week of physical ailments. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, if you want water in your houses, don't let Sister Teo in!
A REUNION
Alright, alright. So those three things were more or less the big physical roadblocks of my past week. In the middle of it all I definitely felt a little discouraged, but the start of the week balanced it all out and made it all worth it, because...I saw SISTER LOCKWOOD AT ZONE CONFERENCE ON TUESDAY! As well as fellow missionaries from my batch, from the MTC! Elder Clark and Sister Muller (my companion at the MTC!). I was estatic! When I left the MTC on November 19, 2014, and flew to Palawan as the lone ranger of that batch, I never again saw these friends and fellow missionaries. You can only imagine my joy when I saw the very people that I started out this journey with. I was most grateful for the time I spent with Sister Lockwood. I met my "kapatid" (sibling) - her name is Sister Narag and she is Sister Lockwood's second trainee. Here in the Philippines they like to call the trainers "Nanay"s (mothers) for sisters and "Tatay"s (fathers) for elders. The trainees are called "anak," meaning child. Thus, Sister Lockwood has two children, myself being the "panganay" (eldest) and Sister Narag now being the second. Which makes us siblings! Either way! I loved seeing Sister Lockwood!
I could go on and on and on and we didn't get to speak a WHOLE lot but whoever arranged the zone conference groups must have been really nice because they put both our companionships together, meaning we sat in workshops together and were able to catch up on all that has happened! Some friendships are from God. I love Sister Lockwood.
ERLINDA AND MARY CHRIS
If there is any one thing that I have learnt since now being in my second area, it is that this truly is the Lord's work. It was a little hard for me to understand that on Palawan, but this past week, what with not having been able to leave the apartment at all to teach, our investigators STILL came to church on their own. They STILL progressed. Even without us having gone to their houses, they still acted on their own. This has proven to me that as missionaries, we do our part, but these people do theirs to. And the Lord helps them. Nanay Erlinda and Mary Chris are two of our investigators getting baptized this Friday, at 3 p.m. I am so happy for them and I know that they are ready to start anew, to start afresh. Keep them in your prayers!
2 CORINTHIANS 4:8-9
And so, everyone, that was more or less my week for you. Thursday night we attended a double wedding at the church. The elders had two pairs of part-member couples getting married and THEN baptized (beautiful!) and I couldn't miss it (even though we had to go to the bathroom every ten minutes). The brides were GLOWING and I was so happy that they were finally taking the first steps to be man and wife. I am more excited, however, for their temple sealing in a year from now! After all that has happened this week, I decided that this was a scripture that I could seek solace in:
"We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed."
Storms make trees take deeper roots.
Here's to a better, healthier, more eventful week...filled with lots of hard work!
With love,
Sister Teo
No comments:
Post a Comment