WHEN TWO OUT OF THREE IS BAD

Shortly after we arrived in our Centerville home a week ago Thursday evening, Eileen got a call regarding a serious medical issue with one of the missionaries.  That call reminded me that we can run (over a thousand miles), but we cannot hide.  The call also was an early start to the most difficult week, from a medical perspective, we have had so far on our mission.

 

You can generally count on Monday, the young missionaries preparation day (day off), to start off being relatively quiet of both medical and vehicle issues.  No one is going to try and go to the doctor or get the oil changed in their car when they could be doing fun things with other missionaries.  But as the day goes on and the consequences of those “fun” activities transpire, Mondays turn out to be the day of the week when most accidents occur.  Eileen tells the missionaries that things are serious if one or more of the three “B’s” are present, those being: bleeding; broken bones; and not breathing.  We had two of the three on Monday.  Both bones of an elder’s left arm were the casualty of a flag football game.  Another elder’s surprise head butting of an automatically opening church building’s heavy metal door led to bleeding and a concussion.

 

Earlier this week we had another missionary who had to go home suddenly due to a medical issue.  It was heart breaking to watch, being helpless to relieve the missionary’s suffering.  There are times in life when things seem so unfair, so unjust.  After serving diligently, to the best of one’s ability, to need to be accompanied home at the end of your mission is hard for even the most faithful.  It was an honor to take this young sister to the airport, and then to watch her as she met her father who had flown in to take her home.  As her father came through the doors where we were waiting for him, he opened his arms and his daughter ran to him.  Eileen commented to me, perhaps that is what it will be like when we pass from this life and meet our Father in Heaven again.  

 

The missionaries' mental health issues in this mission have been hard on Eileen, and President and Sister Sommerfeldt.  We are blessed to have a medical doctor and a therapist, both members of the Church, close who can help with the missionaries.  Eileen is great with physical medical issues, but emotional issues are something we have dealt with a bit in our family but never in her professional nursing life.  For the last 9-10 days, we have had the blessing of assistance from a retired psychiatrist, Dr. Anderson.  Brother Anderson has been away from counseling missionaries for a while as he has had some serious heath issues himself.  Eileen was hesitant to burden him too much with our missionaries’ challenges, to which he said something to the effect of, “ I’ll let you know if it gets too heavy for me. I figure God doesn’t need a psychiatrist on the other side, so maybe He will let me stay here so I could help the missionaries.”  I know that he will be of great value to the young missionaries he works with in our mission, and I also know his assistance is a great relief to Eileen.  He is an answer to my prayers and those of many others,

The first frost of our mission on November 1st. It certainly gets cold here with the humidity.

We received this note from a lovely, kind, thoughtful missionary.  Definitely a keeper memory from our mission.

It was a beautiful reunion between this missionary and her father. I couldn't help but think that it was similar to what we might feel when we go  to the other side of the veil and our loving Heavenly Father or older brother Jesus greet us with a tender embrace.

Our missionaries from the Paola district, Russell & I, and Sister Hunsaker having lunch together. There were two other elders in the district but one had spent the night before throwing up.  Russell went to the store and bought him several bottles of Gatorade and Sprite.

Smothered homemade potato chips with BBQ pork, cheese, guacamole and pico, fried pickles and sweet potato tots accompanied our BBQ sandwiches. Definitely not for those on a diet.