Needles in the Dark

Familia! As you can see from the subject, it´s been an interesting week. First, here are my mission tweets for the past 2 weeks:

"I want this picture on the front of the 2014 mission prep manual: me, wrapped up in my snuggie, eating animal crackers and nutella during companionship study.

"Well, I had better eat this giant package of cookies" Me, before every fast

I literally just ate a block of salt. #diabetes

Remember that time when I ate 3 bananas during personal study?

Remember that time when all of our investigators actually came to church so they could get baptized??

Remember that time when a lady came into my house at one in the morning and tried to give me an IV? Good times. #livingnightmare

What´s worse that Isaiah in English? Isaiah in Spanish.

Tender mercy: Definition: When you leave your agenda on the bus and someone throws it out the window at you as the bus is driving away.

My thought process, como misionera: "Well, we´re meeting with President tomorrow, better wash my hair tonight."

Okay, so my week. Well I got sick Sunday night, but my comps both got sick Monday. We all ate something Saturday or Sunday, and yeah. The other sister missionaries in our ward (there´s 6 of us, 2 trios) got sick too so our zone leader got really worried. Anyways, he called  at like 10:25 pm and I answered the phone and he was like, "You guys are sick, we have a member who is a nurse, and we can send her over right now" and I was like, no way José, we´re fine, seriously, we just ate something bad, don´t even worry about it." so then 20 minutes later I´m woken up by Herman L... talking to someone on the phone, and then she told Hermana  F... that the nurse was coming over soon. We have a mission nurse who lives 45 minutes away, and we called her and she said we just needed to rest and we didn´t have to work the next day if we couldn´t. So I was like how the heck is a missionary going to take public transportation all the way here at 11:30 at night? That´s against a good number of rules. But then I fell asleep before I could ponder it any more. So then at 1 in the morning, Hermana  F... wakes me up and says, "hey, the nurse is here, we need to leave the apartment to go meet her" and I was like...leave the apartment into sketchy Ecuador at 1 in the morning? Okay, sure, that´s a good idea, not against the rules at all. So we leave, and not the mission nurse, but a lady and her 2...daughters, I think? are like hey! can we come in? It was the nurse I told our zone leader not to send. So she comes in and she´s like, oh, Hermana Carter, you can´t sleep on the top bunk, because it won´t work with the IV´s. Except it was all in Spanish and the word for IV is Suero. So I had no idea what was going on, until she pulled out the IV bag thing, full of some sort of liquid that I did not know, and I started to freak out. Basically I just sank to the floor and said, "no, nope, no, not going to happen" over and over. And Hermana F..., the saint that she is, was like, yeah, this is definitely against the rules, in just about every way. So the member left angry, and I was like, yeah, going back to bed, away from this living nightmare. So we basically stayed in bed for three days, being sick is normal for me so I was fine after Monday, but my comps weren´t. So Thursday during our zone meeting we pulled aside our zone leaders, and we tried to explain to the disobedient leader why what he did was completely wrong, and he just told us to calm down, and then he experienced I think about 50% of my wrath but I´m not sure because it was in Spanish. and then after his companion was like, thank you so much, I hope this helps. What?!

Anyways, health wise, don´t worry too much about me. All this week I ate rice and peanut butter sandwiches. I found nutella and bought 2 things. But yeah, my bowel movements haven´t been normal since I got here, and I asked the mission nurse today and she said it´s basically the same with her, and she has 8 months. Comforting. But the good news is that today I ate Subway. Yeah. Hahahaha I´ll be fine, it is strictly forbidden to get medical advice outside the mission, or take medicine not authorized by the mission nurse, such as random IV´s at 1 in the morning.

Okay, so the prueba of my life is actually not my health, it´s that zero of our investigators are progressing. Not only have I not had a baptism since I got here, I haven´t even been close. This Saturday the other Hermana´s had a baptism, so we went to support them, there was like 15 people there, including the 8 missionaries that were there....but yeah the time came and there was one very important person missing...the person getting baptized. Suffice to say, we haven´t had any baptisms in this ward. I don´t know why. I´m trying so hard to be obedient, diligent, work as hard as I can, what bothers me isn´t that we don´t have baptisms, it´s that our investigators don´t progress. Hermana F... told me that if the ward won´t retain their converts, they won´t receive anymore, and we have a bazillion menos activo people here, and we´re starting to work with them more. Speaking of the mystery family I mentioned last week, the brother still hasn´t returned, but we´re pretty sure we will, and we found and taught his sister, who is less active, she came to church yesterday, and she is willing to receive us. So that´s basically it. It´s the hardest thing in the world, because we´ve tried everything we can to have success, but nada.

Okay, other than that, I´m doing pretty good. Lo siento mucho for the times when my emails are negative, it´s not that I'm struggling in general, because I´m really doing pretty good, I´m basically over the culture shock, my stomach doesn´t seem to agree but thus is the life. It´s just that I´m struggling that day, or in the moment, because 99.9% of the time pday is more stressful than any other day of the week.

Okay, one last thing. First, I love all your emails. I hope the computer, and car, can be fixed. I love tender mercies. Like when we saw our one investigator who wanted to get baptized but couldn´t, randomly in the street, and she said she was still praying and staying strong. Dad, you are a hero for working with the missionaries. Mom, good luck with your triathlon. Stockton, keep plugging along. I had a dream the other night, right before we woke up, that we were all at Benjas in St. George and I was looking at the menu trying to decide what to get, and then my alarm woke up. When I get home, I´m going to eat sandwiches and salad for the rest of my life. Vegetarian for eternity. Speaking of sandwiches, we were teaching Crazy Rosa the other day, and I wanted to see if I could eat an entire PB&J without her noticing, and I totally did! Good times. My comps were cracking up.

Ooookay. Here is my one last thing. Thank you so much for your support. As always, it is my rock. One thing I´m afraid of is that when I have more time in the mission, like 10 months, a year, etc, everyone will forget about me. So please don´t forget me here, I don´t know why I have a fear of this, but I do a tiny bit. You guys are my rock. Give all of our family my love, and how dare you eat green chile burritos at Michelle´s without me.

I love you all so much!!! Have a great week!!!

Love, Hermana Carter