On the Mend

Howdy everybody!

How are you all doing? I hope that you are all doing wonderfully, and that you have had just a marvelous week!

Last week I mentioned that I had a cough that was just nasty but not affecting me, and that I thought I was on the mend... boy oh boy, was I WRONG. The cough developed into some nasty virus thing that literally made me feel like I was just hit by 1000 bricks. I don't even think I am exaggerating when I say this is the worst I have felt in a very very VERY long time. Possibly even in my life (ok maybe that's exaggerating a lil bit). I'm talking constant fever, the feeling of swallowing razor blades, inability to taste anything, shivering, stiff neck (this was the weirdest part... I literally couldn't move my head), pain in the abdomen, pain in the back, stiff joints, coughing, running nose, toothaches. The works. I had quite a few consecutive sleepless nights. Now if I was at home I would have just hibernated for a few days, but due to the fact that this is Sister Smith's last transfer, I could not live with the thought of making her stay inside all day, so I just took lots of Paracetamol and braced the cold, wet days and pressed on.

Then one morning I was reading through the health book they give us, and it says "if you are experiencing... [every symptom I listed above] with a fever, call your mission president's wife immediately." Then I was like "OH NO, AM I DYING?" (so dramatic, I know), so I call up Sister Stevens and she was like "well, let's just keep an eye on it and if it gets any worse, let me know." And then of course, proceeding that I began to feel much better haha. It always seems that right when you make a fuss about it to someone, you begin to feel better. I am now actually feeling much MUCH better and can officially say I am on the mend! The fever is gone, the aches are diminishing, and I don't feel as much brain fog, which is very refreshing!

Due to the fact that my mind has been a hazy mess all week, I don't remember anything in particular that really stood out. There were some painful meal appointments due to the fact that swallowing was almost impossible. We talked to lots of people, hopefully planting some seeds in their hearts. BUT I do remember a great lesson we had with an investigator named Andrew. Lemme tell you a little bit about him. He referred himself to us through the church website a few weeks back. When we met him he told us that he had just recently married a woman who lives in the States and she is a member of the church. She is currently living there, and he is here trying to obtain a visa so he can move over there. He just wanted to find out a bit more about the church, and so ever since then we have been teaching him and we have been seeing a great change! It started out as more just him learning information, but the message has truly began to touch his heart. He is progressing so much, and as we met with him this week, we extended him a date to be baptised. We originally extended the date for March 12th, but then he proceeded to say "well... I would really love to have my wife here for my baptism" and we were like oh dang, she's in Oregon, that's going to be rough but then he was like "you might actually get to meet her! She's coming in on the 17th!" so we were like "OH! the 19th! the 19th!" and so he will be praying about that date to see if it feels right. Please keep him in your prayers!

Sunday was sooooo great! We had a wonderful spirit-filled sacrament meeting. Andrew was there and he has really connected very well with the members. Favourite comment made by him:

Member: "Are you a member?"
Andrew: "Not quite yet, but I'm working on it!"

A big focus at church this week was the Holy Ghost. Sister Smith and I had the pleasure of being told we were teaching Gospel Principles at the last minute (which isn't new, so we pretty much just expect it now haha) and the topic was none other than... the Holy Ghost! Man oh man, it was just the funniest lesson ever. The grouping of people that come to this class are a very funny bunch. We have our ward mission leader who is from Africa, Kathy the hilarious Chinese woman, we had the only two youth in the whole ward because their teacher wasn't at church, one of the youth's mother (also a hilarious woman), and Andrew. We are going through our lesson and ask people to share experiences where the Holy Ghost has influenced them. Kathy goes on to tell a hilarious story about when she wore a helmet because she had a prompting to, and then she went down the wrong side of a ladder (at this point we were all just laughing so hard because that is SO something Kathy would do) but the helmet stopped her from banging her head into the wall. And then she said "well actually... I still did bang my head into the wall, but it would have hurt a lot worse if I didn't have the helmet!" Then our ward mission leader goes on to tell us about when he was a sheep herder in Africa, and a leopard showed up, but that he just felt at peace, so "I just walked along beside it, looking it in the eyes, and then we parted ways." We were all just like WHAT?! He was just so chill about this story, like it was no big deal hahaha! It was an entertaining class.

So sorry I practically only talked about being sick and Sunday, but that's about all I can really remember! I will attach a random picture I forgot to send weeks back when we went to London, but I just love it so I gotta send it. Love you all! Have a fantastic week! Make the most of every single day!

I <3 Mormon and Big Ben 

Bonus picture: one of Sister Smith and me for good measure haha (don't mind the messy flat oops)

Love,
Sister Syddall