Russell and Eileen's Church Missions: LANCE'S BAPTISM

While in the U.S. helping our daughter with her family and medical needs, I (Eileen) received a text from a missionary in our mission, describing an injury he sustained while playing basketball. When I returned to the Philippines, I was able to look at his foot. It did not look good. I subsequently sent him to two different doctors at two different hospitals. Neither doctor looked at his foot, but rather sent him to get an X-ray which showed no broken bones and he was told he was fine. Last weekend this elder contacted me asking if it might be possible to have an MRI of his foot. I was able to get the name of a reputable sports orthopedist and went with him on Monday to see her. Russell was very gracious about being my driver all day. As he mentioned last week in our blog, driving is pretty hazardous here and Taguig is our least favorite place to drive. Russell left early in the morning to pick up 2 elders and their companions, driving them to the ER in Taytay. One elder had suspected measles, and the other had a huge infected boil. I took a jeepney to the hospital and met the elders there. Later in the day Russell drove me and the elder with the hurt foot (Elder W) and his companion to Taguig to see the orthopedist there. While at the hospital in Taguig, I also met up with and accompanied another elder with kidney stones to the urologist. Elder W. was examined thoroughly by the sports specialist. She noted a great deal of instability and requested an MRI. Tuesday, Russell and I drove back down to Taguig to transport the elder to get his MRI. Wednesday, we returned again to see the doctor and get the results. It was determined that Elder W. had significant injury to his foot, which if not treated appropriately could cause long-term damage. The walking he had been doing for the last 7 weeks had most likely compounded his problems. I felt rather sick about the situation. Elder W. was wonderful about not wanting to be a whiner, but he trusted in the system. Since I was part of that system, I felt like I let him down. Elder W. will be returning home sometime this week. My hope is that sometime in the future he can return to the Antipolo mission.

One of our assistants (APs) to the President is quite a jokester. Friday, he drew up a petition requesting that Elder W. stay on his mission. He made some suggestions such as: 1) have Elder W. sit in a red wagon which his companion could pull around each day; 2) the AP would carry him around piggyback to all of his appointments; or 3) one of our sister missionaries who is hoping to be a physical therapist someday could practice doing some PT on Elder W. The AP had the senior missionaries sign the petition. When Sister Alder expressed hesitation, he signed her name for her. It was all in fun and lightened the mood. Elder W. is taking the petition home with him to put in his journal. It was really wonderful to see the love and concern the elders have for Elder W. Many hugged him tightly as he left Tuesday for his MRI, probably aware that this test could signal the end of his mission in the Philippines.

We have really enjoyed the use of a driver for a couple of previous apartment inspections down in Metro Manila. It has been helpful to not have to worry about the navigation, the parking and traffic. We had planned on using a driver on Wednesday for our apartment inspections, but late Tuesday night that fell through. I was really concerned about driving in Taguig with how tired we both were. Russell performed very admirably. Even when driving around the parking garage under the hospital for 45 minutes, he totally kept his cool. Unable to find a parking spot, a doctor recommended valet parking. It was well worth the $1 extra to utilize the valet.

We really get to know more about the missionaries as we inspect their apartments. Some apartments were pretty close to perfectly clean. At other apartments we can tell that it doesn’t even occur to the missionaries that someone will be looking at their living accommodations. This past week we went into a two-story apartment and found the main floor spotless. The elders then mentioned in a concerned tone that we might want to look upstairs. The other companionship was not there that day as they were at training. Etched into the wooden floor was a birthday wish from one companion to the other. I was not a happy senior missionary. We have wooden floors at home, and I would be livid if this happened in my home. It turned out that a new missionary used alcohol to write the message on the wooden floor. When they became aware of the etching in the floor, they tried to get the message off by putting more alcohol on the floor and burning it off. Needless to say, the floor needs to be refinished. We are hoping it can be done before the landlord sees it.

Saturday Russell baptized Lance. We are so grateful to have been a part of their being taught the discussions and their baptisms. It was only at the baptism that we learned that Lance’s name was not Lance. When Russell asked Lance what his full name was, he learned it was Warren Feliciano Mercado Cendana. Another little girl was going to be baptized on Saturday. Russell was asked while at the baptism to baptize her also. She was terrified of the water and refused to go near the baptismal font. Russell kindly tried to talk with her, but her English skills were minimal. He politely advised the others there to wait until she was ready before attempting to baptize her. Grace was very gracious about inviting this girl’s family over to our apartment complex to go swimming so she could get used to being in the water.

Today Lance was confirmed and the whole family was at church. It was his two girls’ first time going to Young Womens and Primary and they seemed to really enjoy it. In Relief Society the lesson was on the conference talk “After the Trial of your Faith”. Grace offered several comments, some in English, some in Tagalog. I was so impressed with the depth of her faith and knowledge. She talked about how many trials they had the week of both her and Lance’s baptisms. She discussed the poem “Footsteps in the Sand”, about the man who thought God had deserted him in his darkest hour, only to learn that it was during those trials that the Lord had been carrying him. She also talked about the fact that Lance had only 30 minutes of sleep in the last 24 hours but came to church because they knew that is where they should be. We feel so blessed to be able to have met this wonderful couple and see their progression in the gospel.

This is a picture of the boil on the missionary's legs before it got bad.

Elder W's foot at the time of the injury

Elder W is not supposed to be walking so here another elder is helping him down the stairs - there are 4 flights of stairs at this apartment and they are very steep