The 12 Week Program

おはようございます,

Well I'm not going to lie, this week has been a really rough one. The
beginning went pretty well until about Wednesday. Tuesday while we
were in 金沢 (Kanazawa) I had a raging headache and kept working and on
Wednesday after waking up at 0400 driving for three and a half hours
to get to the 本部 (honbu) I was also having chills and muscle aches.
That night was several trips to the bathroom between miserable bouts
of sleeping (I wasn't throwing up so it was the other end). The next
morning I woke up to a temperature of 102 and was not feeling good. I
asked my companions Elders Nakamoto and Jones to give me a blessing of
healing in order to try and get over this quickly. Shortly afterwards
my situation got a little worse and I was told to go to the clinic.
That was not a great experience. The doctor got frustrated with me
when I didn't understand his diagnosis of 腸炎 in Japanese or when he
tried saying Acute Enteritis in English (because I'm apparently
supposed to know what that means). Anyways his solution was to stick
my with an IV (he stuck me twice! Who misses my big veins for crying
out loud) and put 1000ml of fluid into me for my water loss from the
night before. I was told the saddest news ever, which was I am supposed
to eat soup until the diarrhea stops. I was given antibiotics and a
drug I couldn't find when I tried to research it online and that was
my first experience with social medicine. I don't recommend it.

I spent most of that day, after the doctor, sleeping trying to break my
my fever. On Friday morning, to my surprise, my temperature was
already back to normal which was a huge blessing. I was still tired,
but I didn't have to make a lot of trips to the bathroom so I was
pretty happy. The hardest part of the day was a member of our mission
presidency really wanted to take us out to eat before Nakamoto leaves
and Friday was the last opportunity to do so, so he took us to a steak
house. I had to be the guy who watched everyone around me eat steak as
I drank soup. That's a pretty teasing experience for me. Right now I am
feeling better than yesterday, but I'm still drinking soup and jealous
of all solid food eating individuals. My hope and desire is to be back
to 100% next week. This is my first time being sick on my mission and
I hate it. I hate being a patient because I lack the patience of being
one. I just want to be back to normal and do normal things.

Alrighty well that's enough depressing health issues, let's talk about
some good things that happened this week. Let's reverse to the
good parts. We did go to 金沢 on Tuesday to go on an exchange there and
pick up Jones. I had the opportunity to work with Jones on his final
day in 金沢 and his final day a field missionary. Because Jones finishes
his mission in August, one transfer after me, he is guaranteed to finish
his mission here in the 本部. 金沢 is such a beautiful area and it was
good to get to work it with Jones. The highlight of the the day was a
little bit of Good Samaritan work when a bloke from Cambridge, England
walked up to us and asked us for directions. We were actually heading
in the same direction and we walked together for about a kilometer or
so. It was nice just being able to talk to someone who was nice enough
to talk to. He knew right away that we were Mormon and we had a
pleasant chat about England, thanks to my dad serving his mission
there. We helped him find where he was supposed to go and he thanked
us and he was off. It was really satisfying to help someone out,
especially knowing that if we wouldn't have been there he probably
would have kept walking in the wrong direction. At night we were able
to play basketball with some members and non-members and it was so
good to play ball again. I haven't played in about six months so I
wasn't doing so hot, but it was still way fun to play several games of
three-on-three. Those were definitely my week's highlights.

Today was transfer calls and with this new transfer I begin my final
12 weeks of my mission. I guess one of the most frustrating things for
me being sick right now is that every day I can't do, see, or can't
eat something I lose that chance. I can't really say, "I've got loads
of time, I'll just wait till next time" because next time may never
come. I am way excited to get to work with Jones this transfer and
these next two weeks are super busy and are going to sky rocket by.

Well that's a wrap for this week. I'm sorry there weren't very many
good experiences. I'm hoping next week will have a lot more better
updates.

I'm thankful for for all of your love support and prayers.

スピードと天使

堅城長老

写真

Pic 1-金沢 (Kanazawa)