Hey Family!
Oh my goodness, do I have stories for you this week. Also just to confirm - I will be Skyping home on my Christmas Eve which will be your Christmas day. I will call you this week to confirm. It will be around my 3:00 p.m. It has been quite the week and I am glad you received my travel itinerary in the post. After emailing last week I called the Mission Office and Sister Olsen said she had already posted the itinerary. Yay!
Monday we did some shopping (I have banned myself from buying any more presents for the niece and nephews). I may have gone a little overboard! Anyway, after mum's suggestion to help someone in need to have a good Christmas before we could spend our Christmas money I was thinking, and thinking, and thinking, and I had so many names come to mind of less fortunate people that I could help, but I decided to make it a matter of prayer and let the Lord help me know who needed the most help this Christmas. Well, that night we went to contact a referral and we met this 9 year old boy named Bradley. We call him Brad. Think of Ricky at 9 years of age and thats what this kid reminds me of. So, of course it broke my heart seeing this boy wearing the oldest pair of shoes. Literally, they were probably being held together by a thread. Brad has such a sweet spirit and as we started teaching him, he just soaked up the lesson. Brad is who I am going to help this Christmas. I was talking to his mum and I know they have no money and they live in a trailer and I know if they had money they would be buying him lego or something so I'm going to buy him some new shoes! And because he reminds me of my brother, I'm pretty sure I already have a soft spot already for him. After our lesson we rushed up to Vale where we had a late dinner appointment and also stayed the night.
Tuesday we had District meeting - we found out Monday night that our meeting was moved to Tuesday - so we were off to Ontario to attend that. After the meeting we drove back to Parma and visited with a few people, then we met with the Mosuer family. This family had called us on Monday night to set up an appointment to meet with them. They are not LDS and recently lost a 4 year old boy. We met with them on Tuesday night and it was such a neat experience. We testified of God's love and how families can be together forever. They want to start taking the lessons and they were at church on Sunday so that was awesome! It was a really good end to the night. It's going to be so hard to leave here, especially when you are able to help people understand God's love. That's something I am going to miss the most.
Wednesday we went to the Family History Center because our Mission President said he was watching Elder Russell M Nelson's talk where Elder Nelson says, "If anyone wants help with Family History they should, "Ask the missionaries!"" So, he thought to himself, "My missionaries need to know about family history!" President has given us permission to research a family name and take it to the temple and do the work for them. We went to the family history center and I found 28 names that all need their ordinances done so I printed them off and the youth are going to the temple this week so they should be able to help with the names and then I can do the rest when I come home. It was a cool way to spend the morning. Then we went and met with a lady by the name of Vanessa who is less active but is trying to come back to church. She really sounded like she needed our help so it was another good visit and we were able to teach her about Christ once again. I think at this time of the year that is really the most important message that people need to hear - how much God loves them. That night we went and helped at one of our Ward's Christmas parties then we saw Patsy and helped her put up her Christmas decorations. The night ended well and I finally told Patsy that I would be leaving to go home soon and she wasnt happy :( but its okay.
Thursday we went to Vale and helped in the bakery which was awesome and everyone kept talking about how sad it will be when I go home. Anyway's, that night we were in Owyhee and we got to see my little friend Brad. We also taught a few less active members and then we saw Shelby and had our last lesson with her. She's doing great. It is awesome to see the progress she is making and I can't believe how quickly Thursday went by.
Friday is a different story. So I had been having shooting pains in my lower abdomen all week but I just thought it was cramps. Well, on Friday I literally could not move. I would lie down and it would hurt, I would get up and it would hurt and I was thinking, "This is ridiculous!" So, I just rested for a bit, then decided I needed a blessing. We called the Elders and they came and gave me a blessing. I wasn't feeling 100% but after the blessing we went and visited a few people and we were at this one ladies house and she said, "What's wrong with you?" I think she could see I was in pain, so I told her and she said that she would call the doctor and get me in, and me being the stubborn me was trying to AVOID going to the doctor's because I really thought it was just bad cramps. Well, I called the nurse who says she will call the doctor so we go down to the doctors, only to find out that I have a bladder infection. Great! So, he gives me 2 different pills - an antibiotic and then one for the pain. I take them, and then we go on with our night because we still had to help out at two more Ward Christmas parties. Oh, bytheway, the doctor is LDS and he is in one of the Ward's we attend. This is an important part of the story. So Friday ended okay with me feeling a little better and not in as much pain.
Saturday morning I wake up and I feel really good and then I look in the mirror and my face is swollen. Think the movie, "Hitch" where he's sucking back Benadryl because of his allergic reaction to fish - yes, very similar swelling. It was scary. My companion has her own health issues with bad eyes and she's still in bed so I go running out of the bathroom and into her room and I said to her, "Does my face look swollen?" She's like, "Oh my goodness, YES!". So, I knew if a blind person could see that my face was swollen then it definitely was swollen. So, I look through the Ward directory for the doctors number because being Saturday his office is closed. I call him and I think I probably woke him up and explained that my face is swollen, and he said it was an allergic reaction to the medication so to stop taking it and he would send in another prescription to a different pharmacy. The only pharmacy open on Saturday's was in Parma and it didn't open until 9:00 a.m. so we had to wait until then. So, here we are at home waiting and hoping my swelling goes down. Finally, it does go down enough to where it doesn't look scary any more and we go to the pharmacy and who would've thought, but the pharmacist and his assistant are LDS too. They fill the prescription and we tell them what happened because I guess to them my face looked normal enough and they said, "Sister's, are you going to be doing visits today?" We said we will be. They then gave us the name of their neighbor, Viola who they said we should go visit. So we take the name, take the medicine and head home. BTW I didn't have to pay for the doctors visit or the medicine everyone else paid for me - miracle! I take the medicine and by midday I am feeling a whole lot better and my face has mostly returned to normal except it is now this bright red color. I look like I've been sunburnt and the burning was heating from the inside out. I decided to put some make up on and then we went out. We tried visiting a few people and no one was home. We still had Viola's name and address so we visited with her and turns out she wants the lessons as well. So, out of a bad situation our silver lining was definitely Viola. She is confined to a wheelchair because she has bad arthritis, but she is doing okay nonetheless. We talked about Jesus Christ and the strength that he gives to us and she totally agreed with us. That night we went to Middleton to a baptism of someone that Sister Watson had started teaching back in Middleton. It was fun and then we had a Christmas party and then we came home because my face was still burning up. I took some Benadryl which is supposed to help with allergies then I went to bed.
Sunday morning I woke and my face had a bad rash developing on it. It wasnt swollen luckily but it had the beginning signs of a rash. Well, we were speaking in church that day so there was no way I could stay in bed so I did my hair, put some make up on to try and hide the rash and went to Church. Our talks were good and I really felt the spirit. Then we visited several people in Nyssa. We met some really nice less active people. It's so interesting how that happens but we had some really good visits. Then we came home and got organized for Monday. After I washed my make up off my face, I could see the rash a lot more and so where it was red and inflamed, I now have an awesome rash.
My skin was so dry this morning and it was really irritating me so I called the doctor but no answer. My companion gave me some lotion which helped calm my skin. So, today I am sporting an awesome rash on my face, but no big deal because I won't let that stop me from doing missionary work. SO, heads up family, I may come home a mess - bladder infection, rash, the flu, who knows what else - but at least you will know that I worked hard in the last few weeks of my mission. Anyway's, today is shopping day and we are off to Meridian where I'm going to do the last bits of shopping that I need/want before coming home then no more shopping for me (at least that's the goal) but I'm excited for shopping. Have a great week and I will talk to you all sometime this week and see you all this time next week on Skype. Merry Christmas. Love Sister Chadderton xoxo
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