November 12, 2012

Hello Family! Here I have been in Puerto Rico...sitting on a couch the last few days in the home of Sister Visker (the mission nurse). I am going a little bit crazy...I am going to the orthopeudic doctor tomorrow to find out what's wrong with me. To let you know more specifically about how I am physically, I am feeling worse now than I did when I was working: right now my abdomen just aches really bad! I alternate my bag of ice hour-by-hour, and rest all day long, taking Ibuprofen ever 4 hours to reduce the inflammation I have (I've never felt so pregnant! haha). So overall, I'm just ready to not have this issue anymore. I'll tell you more about the circumstances in a minute, but just know that if Monte says it takes 6 weeks to heal, I am going to go insane! I really wonder if I'm going to be home soon: to rest and recover. We don't have the means here to help me recover the way I think I should: I can't just stay in this house for 6 weeks: every day I sit around from 9:00 A.M. until 9:00 P.M. The AP's pick me up and take me to different houses to sleep in for the night (I'm not allowed to sleep here because I'm not sick enough and I also don't have a male companion--and living in a house of females is WEIRD), then they bring me back in the morning. I've gone out and worked once--I'll tell you more about that--and I was in a lot of pain after that. So we went to the hospital, got my CT scan (the scan preparation drink they gave me was terrible!), and it just so happens to turn out that all my insides are fine---------but the funny thing was, we still had no idea what was wrong with my abdomen. We'd done tests on everything else--blood, intestines, liver, kidney, blah, blah, blah--but not the muscle that I had hurt. Wow. I was so incredibly frustrated. I haven't gotten angry, but I've been pretty down about this whole thing. There are some perks to living with the mission nurse though: last week she had to go to the south side of the island to a city named Guayamo. I had to go with her because she is my "companion", so I have been able to see more of the island. The south side is nowhere near as pretty as the north side--at least, as far as what I've seen. It's really flat and hot: there are a lot of cactus there. While we were in Guayamo I went on an exchange with a missionary--Sister Visker was meeting with his companion. We met with a member and his non-member wife and her cousin. It was actually a great lesson! We talked about The Book of Mormon and invited them to be baptized, to which they both accepted: it was a really powerful lesson! There aren't really a lot of words to describe it. I'm really grateful to have had that experience. I didn't know who those people were, I don't even remember their names: but I was able to share my testimony with them and bring them closer to Christ. Besides that, my life is really boring. There is nothing else to tell you about my week: so I'll give you more information about my injury. I injured my abdomen more than 3 weeks ago! I was using the ab wheel, and as I was in the downward motion--ab flexed, body straight, knees on the ground--I felt a sharp, hot pain run straight up my ab. I fell on my face and just started laughing because it hurt so bad: I'm sure you wouldn't think that would make it funny, but I couldn't stop laughing. It took me about 10 minutes to get up, and when I did get up I spent the next hour on the couch just gripping my ab because of the pain. As time went on I did my best to work: the pain moved into my back and even down above my groin. I began to feel like I had a needle in my side, and my stomach was swollen. I felt bloated! haha and I still do. The pain kept me up at nights, and the weakness in my core wore me out by mid-afternoon. Even after we got a car I had a difficult time turning the wheel after a couple hours of driving, and my back would start to hurt really bad because there wasn't much strength coming from my abdomen to support me. So that was my life for the last three weeks: work and rest, rest and work, go to the hospital to have my kidneys and other insides checked, go back to work...etc. So, now I'm here living with Sister Visker and I'm still not improving: three weeks after the injury, four days of rest: no improvement. I just sit around and talk to the sister missionaries all day: which is really weird. There are three that live here: Sister Visker, Sister Stoddard (who are both senior missionaries), and Sister Medina (she's from California, born in Mexico). The only really great thing about living here is getting to be with the AP's at night: there's one named Elder Medina (he's from Chile) and he's hilarious! He's learning English right now so he'll talk to me in English a lot. He was asking me about my injury, and as I finished telling him he said "Oh Elder, I'm sorry. You're in the uh...um...oven? Yeah! Oven of affliction!" HAHA oh man, it was so funny! He's really hilarious: in fact, all Latin American missionaries are pretty funny. The AP's have had me sleep with a lot of different people over the past few nights: I spent one night with some Elders from Panama, some Elders from the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Chile. I'm learning Spanish really well! HAHA. But, the bottom line is, nothing exciting is happening, and it doesn't look like anything exciting will be happening soon! Don't be surprised though if you get an email that says I'm coming home. That's the hard part: this injury has brought me to the depths of decision and desire. What do I want right now? That's the question I ask myself every day: What do I want? Haha I laugh at myself for praying for "Mountains to Climb", and I laugh because the prayers have clearly been answered: I've never been so conflicted in my life than now! Mountains to climb! I am really grateful to all of you that have been writing me! I wrote a lot of letters before I came to live with Sister Visker, but I didn't bring any of them with me because I didn't think I'd get the chance to go to the office to send them. So all those letters will have to wait (Olivia Buttars, Tanner Family, Bailey Love, Lund Family). I'm sorry! Maybe you'll get them hand delivered sometime next week ; I got your letters though. Thank you for sending me a pillow! haha there are really no pillows in this world we call the Puerto Rico San Juan mission. I have only had one pillow in the three different places I've slept in the past few days. Isn't that crazy? Well, I really have nothing else to say. I love you all! Don't worry about me: I know that's the same as asking you not to breathe, but I'm doing alright. Elder Cevering