On Monday we had to ship one of the Hermanas in our district down to Piura to get some medical care. Over the past week or two, Hermana Ruano from Guatemala had been having some terrible pains in her legs and back. She tried to just work thought the pain and stick it out, but the pain just got worse and worse. She went to the hospital here in Tumbes to get some tests done but they thought it would be best for her to go down to Piura to get a full body MRI to figure out the cause of the pain. Since they’ve been down there in Piura, things have gotten even worse. Her pain escalated even more, and for about a day she was put in intensive care, with extreme pain throughout her whole body. Right now we are waiting on the results of the MRI to figure out how serious the problem is. I feel so bad for her because she’s only been here in the mission about three weeks, and doesn’t want anything more than to be here preaching the gospel. If you can, keep her in your prayers! But yeah, that was definitely the cause for a little drama and stress for us this week.
This week we were able to work a little bit with Olivia. As I mentioned two weeks ago, Olivia was supposed to be baptized last Saturday, but she wasn’t able to pass her baptismal interview. We moved her baptism up just two weeks so that we could teach her a few things better so she can be 100% ready to enter the waters of baptism. Olivia is super awesome, and is making some really cool changes and sacrifices in her life to come closer to Christ. About 2 weeks ago, we invited Olivia to stay at church for all 3 hours. She wasn’t really a big fan of the idea, as she told us that she desperately needed to stay home after sacrament meeting to sell her fish so that she could put food on the table for her little 10 year-old daughter, Dayanara. After a short sermon on keeping the sabbath day holy and also trusting in the Lord, my companion Elder Thompson and I promised Olivia that if she came to church, the Lord would bless her and she would be able to sell ALL of her fish. Well she did as promised, and she sacrificed her time for the Lord by going to church instead of selling her fish. When we showed up the next day, she told us excitedly that she had in fact sold every single on of her fishes. It was really cool to see her learn a lesson of faith and sacrifice in such a personal way. Sometimes we just need to take that leap of faith and do what the Lord asks of us even when it’s hard. We always need to be willing to trust him and know that he will provide, as he did for our investigator Olivia. Olivia should be ready to be baptized this coming Saturday.
Well some old problems have returned… Over the past few months my infamous toenail problems have come back for revenge. I don’t know if I have too tight of shoes, walk in a funny way, or straight up just have messed up toenails, but I have ben painfully bothered by ingrown toenails my whole mission, haha. On Saturday we went in to get two more of those bad boys removed. Everything seemed to go well, apart from the fact that they didn’t give me enough anesthesia in my toes to numb them up before taking them out, so I just clenched my teeth and fists and embraced the pain. :) Hopefully the toe problems are done away with from now on.
This week we also went to town on some improvements for our apartment. Now that the water problem is fixed, we were able to clean things up around the room and get some new parts for the sink and toilet. We also went out shopping and got permission to buy a new dresser for a whopping 500 nuevos soles that actually has functioning drawers! We were pretty dang excited to bring that big guy home. Now we don’t have to live out of our suitcases anymore. Before I leave this area I’m going to get this room looking like a million bucks.
Conference was great! I absolutely love hearing from our living prophets and apostles. I felt so inspired from this conference and I can’t wait to study each talk for the next 6 months. I invite you all to do the same. :) I also love the idea of the new 2-hour church schedule! I think it will help simplify things and help us focus on the most important meeting we have which is sacrament meeting. How cool is it that we have a church that is guided purely by revelation? We as missionaries talk to so many people out here each day that simply think God doesn’t talk to us anymore or that he is no longer a God of miracles. How blessed we are to have the knowledge that we have that God is still a God of miracles and speaks his will to us through his living prophet. We thank thee o God for a PROPHET!
Avanza su verdad!
Elder Bailey
(Rumor has it that next conference it will be announced that tithing will only be 5% of our income… just kidding.)
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