Craziest week ever.
But first things first, favorite text of the week from our American ward member Brother Singletary (Meng Xin's stepdad) about the church's Christmas initiative LIGHT THE WORLD:
How in the heck am I supposed to light the world when I'm having trouble lighting my stove???
It has definitely been an insane week, and let's just say I've never related so much to Rapunzel in my life because I've stayed inside a lot. I'm so excited, let's get started:
Quick background info: My companion, Sister Scharman, came to Taiwan the same time as me, last March. In her first few months, she got her appendix taken out, and she's been having health problems ever since, I'm not even kidding. She was put on bed rest for a while on her mission, and she gets up periodically to do missionary work. She has been an amazing example to me of enduring to the end (plus she's a soccer player, and she has learned to hide her pain really well, cause in soccer if you show pain, you get out of the game. (That is one skill I want to learn).
Monday night, we had another, more American Thanksgiving dinner at Brother Singletary's house. My poor comp was in pain that whole night. We made apple pie from scratch (first time ever, and it was good) and cheesecake. Everyone complimented on how delicious my mashed potatoes were :) It was funny to see the Taiwanese try gravy for the first time. They liked it.
Afterwards, that's when it started to get crazy. My comp recently had been taking medication for her face because it was hurting like crazy from the acne she got on her mission, but it turns out it was acutane, which is super strong. We got it from a dermatologist the week before. She was fine until she started developing side effects, which sent us to the emergency room at 11pm.
While there, she got some IV fluids and was there a lot of the night. It was funny, she was the one getting poked by the needle and i was the one freaking out. There was nowhere for me to sleep, so I slept on benches, which was uncomfortable. At around 2 am, I made a huge mistake; I knew in the morning we had district meeting then we had to teach English class that night in Reisui (no close), so I asked the nurse how long it will be before she can go home. I thought my comp just had to finish the IV drip and we were good (I know nothing about hospitals). Because of some miscommunication, the nurse thought we were in a hurry to leave and checked us out of the hospital before my companion was ready to leave. We went home, but were locked out of our apartment since the elevator was turned off and the stairs to our apartment were also locked (it went through our landlord's home), and we forgot to tell him we were leaving. We couldn't get hold of him, so at 3 am we went to the Singletary's (they were still awake doing work). We called President at 3 am and asked if we could sleep overnight, sleep at a hotel or at the hospital. He didn't sound too happy when we called, and said just to find a hotel or go back to the hospital. We only needed four more hours til the Landlord was awake and the hotel was expensive, so we went back to the ER and Sister Singletary asked the nurse there helping us earlier if we could sleep. The nurse then took us to a back room where the doctors sleep and told us to try to hide from the ER doctor. So my comp and slept on hospital stretchers for the rest of the night.
Tuesday we had district meeting downstairs in our chapel. The zone leaders and the Americans Navi and Travis Ely came. The Ely's were nice and went to Reisui for us to teach English class, since my comp was in a lot of pain. So we stayed in that night and let her rest.
The next day, we stayed inside and rested. Sister Vatcher, our mission nurse, and President Jergensen called. In the mission, if you are inside for more than three days, church headquarters starts thinking about sending you home. So President set up a teleconference with my comp, her parents, and her stake pres. to decide if she should stay or not. The result is that we will try a few more things and if all else fails, she will go home.
Thursday, we took the three-hour train ride to Taipei. My poor comp was in so much pain. We went to the mission office, then we went with Sister Vatcher the mission nurse to a hospital called the Taiwan National Veteran's Hospital. Apparently it is so good, that even the President of Taiwan goes there. Because it is a free healthcare system in Taiwan, the hospitals run very differently. A lot of doctors work for a set salary (unlike in America, it's you get what you pay for, which increases competition, which leads to better health care), so the doctors don't have the same incentives to work fast or care too much. In Taipei, however, the doctors take more pride in their work, so they are better.
The hospital was huge! Taiwanese hospitals run like DMVs - you sign in for your appointment, take a ticket, sit down in a waiting area outside the office door, and wait for a nurse to come out and call your name. If the person isn't there, they skip to the next person, and if you miss it, they will let you in later. Very efficient and quick. So the nurse who spoke good English is a family doctor and gave my comp some medication and told her to go see a doctor about her bowels.
My comp had a cold, her chest was hurting because of inflammed muscles, her stomach wasn't working and she may have tapeworms (we still don't know), and she was really suffering all day, so we stayed the night at the temple tour sister's apartment by the mission office then went home the next day. we then pretty much stayed in all week, except to go downstairs and teach Ding jm's lesson, go to church and mm meeting. During that time , I would just read church material, since I can' t make calls and wake her up (we live in a one room apartment).
We are so excited, Ding Jm, our investigator, is getting baptized in two weeks! She is a Christmas miracle; she has blessed our lives so much more than she has blessed ours! She is about 50 years old, divorced with two kids, and is returning to Christianity, this time to Christ's church for good. She knows it's true and she has incredible faith despite her large number of trials. The members have been incredible to her, and they teach her stuff way ahead of time so the lessons are a breeze cause she already knows and is already on her way to keeping the commandments. We are almost done with the lessons. 12 days till baptism! We are so excited, there hasn't been a baptism here since July.
I've been reading the Book of Mormon in 2 Nephi where Lehi talks about Joseph of Egypt. I'm like, "that's cool, I should reread that story again in the bible." So I did, and let me tell you, it's amazing! I love how Joseph has faith despite trials, trusted in God and gave Him credit for everything, forgave his brothers and pointed out that his trial was a good thing that God wanted him to go through, and whatever position he was in, he did it well (even in jail when he was in charge of the prisoners). Man, he's soo cool.
I've also was reading in the conference talks from last conf (page 20 is Jay Jay, who was in my first ward in Ba De. I've met her a few times, she has totally changed for the better). I like the one about the missionary who asked his mission president why he came to Japan despite his health problems, and his mission president said one reason was so that he can learn from him. I feel the same way about my companion.
I also like the talks about finding hope through trials and having that eternal perspective will give us happiness.
Love you all! Have an awesome week!
-Sister Brinkerhoff
