Querida Familia y Amigos,
The week started out pretty
normal. We headed out very early
on Monday morning for the Zaragaza/Hospitalet Zone conference at which we were
planning to prepare lunch. After
finishing up a lunch of chicken pot-pie and homemade cookies, I began to feel pretty
ill, wishing I could just lay down on the church benches somewhere quiet.
 |
| Serving up Chicken Pot Pie |
 |
| Zaragoza/Hospitalet Zones |
By the time we drove home, I
was in a pretty bad way. All I
wanted to do was curl up and sleep, but the pain was unrelenting. In a sweet and sacred moment, Elder
Fowers gave me a priesthood blessing and within minutes the pain faded and I
drifted off to sleep. It was a
personal miracle for me.
I stayed in bed all the next
day with severe headache and flu-like symptoms sleeping away most of the
day. By the next morning my glands
were swollen and painful and the tick bite on the crown of my head was infected
and inflamed. Then we remembered
that little hitchhiker tick I had last week. Even though I had not gone to a
doctor in 14 months (in fact we didn’t even know where one was) we decided that
I needed to see doctor. Since they
have socialized medicine here, we ended up going to the hospital. After several hours of tests and
procedures and a lot of waiting, they called in a specialist. We had been trying to explain that we
were concerned about the garrapata (tick) bite and that I might have a
tick-borne illness. Sure enough, once the specialist examined me, he confirmed
that he thought that I had Mediterranean Spotted-Fever and prescribed an
appropriate antibiotic. The next
few days were a blur, and I slept most of the time. By Saturday, the antibiotics kicked in and I felt much
better. Looks like I’m going to
live. Having two tick-borne
illnesses in one lifetime is like being struck by lightning twice!
Sometimes the lost sheep
find us. During this past week, we
had a long lost member approach one of our active Andorran members on the
street. She introduced herself as
Carmen and wanted to know where the church met. Within minutes of the meeting we received a call and was
able to contact Carmen, who was baptized in 2002 and had been endowed in the
temple. She was so excited when we
visited her and she found out that the church had returned to Andorra. She has
had no contact from anyone in the church for more than 10 years when the church
left Andorra. It is hard to
describe our feelings as we sat in the living room of this lost sheep as she
expressed the joy of having found the church again~A missionary payday for
sure!
 |
| Meeting Carmen |
 |
| Maria Luisa welcoming Carmen home. |
Early Saturday morning I
left Sister Fowers in bed still recuperating and loaded six of our Andorra
Branch youth for a 2-hour drive to Barcelona to compete in the annual Youth
Olympics. Three stakes combine to produce about 150 youth ages 12 through 18
who compete in various track and field events. Everyone is divided into ages groups, boys and girls and one seniors class for all
over age 30. Our tiny Andorra
Branch traveled the furthest to attend and I must say some of our youth feel
isolated at times. However, today
they were overwhelmed to see so many “Mormon Youth” gathered. Lluís, our only Deacon, made friends
with other young men his age for the first time.
 |
| Multi-Stake Youth Olympics |
Our Dominican girls, Dariana
y Arianny were born to run and received several track metals as did Emily and
her friend Daniel who is investigating the church. The final race of the day
was the 1500 meters with all running together. At the starting line a looked around and saw no one who
looked over 40. All of the sudden
I felt ancient. It was a fast pace
as all took off but I held my own hanging in the back third. I had enough for a
kick at the end and passed 6 kids who had run out of gas. On our return trip home, happy chatter
filled the Van as all had a great time.
We brought home 10 metals,
but more importantly we grew closer together. Sometimes senior missionaries have to go the extra mile~literally.
I slept very well.
 |
| Emily on the medals stand in 2nd Place |
 |
| Daniel, our investigator, placed 1st in long jump. |
 |
| Elder Fowers chasing down the pack. |
Transfers were this week and
we were pretty confident that our Elders would be staying. With the help of Nikki we had just
gotten them International Driver’s Licenses and had them trained them to drive
in Andorra, which had greatly simplified our lives. But sadly, Elder Squires will be leaving us today for
Valencia. He has been a dedicated,
hard-working Elder and we are sad to see him leave! He went out with a bang. His last day in Andorra we took this sweet photo of Elder
Squires with Lluís a recent convert, Carmen, a returning member, and Ramon a
new investigator! The perfect day
for a missionary.
 |
| Elder Squires, Lluís, Carmen, Ramon and Elder Jones GOODBYE Elder Squires! |
Con Mucho Amor,
Los Fowers
 |
| Morning Sunbeams |
No comments:
Post a Comment