Friday, January 15, 2016

Week 76: Samantha's Baptism!!!

Hello everyone!
Wow it's been a real crazy week! It all started when I woke up last Monday morning and my knee hurt real bad. I called the mission nurse that day and she asked me to send her some pictures and that she'd get back to me about it. Then we dropped our car off at a repair shop for the bumper to get fixed. After Pday we and the 2 sets of zone leaders in Vermont drove down Manchester to spend the night in the mission home for MLC (mission leadership conference) the next day. MLC was super good! I always love President Stoker's trainings! The only thing that was hard was my knee hurt super bad all day during the meeting! And I got to see 3 of my companions, Sis. Craig, Sis. Bee and Sis. McVey! It was so much fun to see them all! I love them! 

We drove back home after MLC and then around 9:30pm the mission nurse called and told me she was positive I had cellulitis in my knee. She said I needed to go to the ER before it got any worse. Only problem was our car was still in the shop! So we called the elders and they picked us up and we all went to the ER. Late night ER trip with the elders was quite the adventure haha! The mission nurse was right, I have cellulitis in my knee. Cellulitis develops when there's an opening in your skin and bacteria gets in and infects your tissue. My knee got really hot, red and swollen. The doctor asked me if I'd fallen or anything like to that to open the skin on my knee, but I hadn't. He said that the skin could've opening up even from kneeling, so I guess I got cellulitis from saying too many prayers haha! #missionaryprobs They gave me some antibiotics and we got back home around midnight. 

The next day, Wednesday, was rough. My knee hurt so bad and I forgot my ibuprofen! I could hardly bend my knee and I was limping around everywhere! The elders gave me a blessing which helped a lot! In the blessing it said that Heavenly Father has prepared a way for me to be healed, but that I would experience a lot of pain and it would be a slow process. But surprisingly my knee has gotten so much better since then! Normally when we experience things like this we always pray that the pain will go away and it will end quickly. When I got this blessing I realized that it wasn't the Lord's will to heal me right away, He needs me to learn to be patient and humble. So instead of praying that the pain will stop right away, Sis. Harward and I have been praying that my knee will heal properly and that I can continue to work diligently. And the Lord has blessed me so much! My knee gets better and better everyday and I'm still able to do normal missionary work! 

Saturday was Samantha's baptism! It was such a special day! She's been waiting for 5 years to get baptized! There were lots of people from the ward and stake, and even some of her nonmember friends, that came to support her. She bore her testimony at the end and it was so powerful! I'm so happy for Samantha! And she had an interview with the bishop yesterday after her confirmation and she got her temple recommend! She's going at the beginning of February to do baptisms!

Today we had our district Pday and we went to the Ben and Jerry's factory! We were going to do the tour but we didn't have enough time. We split this giant thing of ice cream called a Vermonster. It has 20 scoops of ice cream, cookies, brownies, 4 ladles of hot fudge and caramel, a bunch of topping, 4 bananas and a lot of whipped cream! We downed it pretty good between the 9 of us. It was so good!

Okay, so next week is even crazier than this week. Monday and Tuesday we have zone interviews and Wednesday we have a missionary broadcast. So we won't have Pday until Thursday the 21st. I can still read emails anytime throughout the week, I just won't respond until Thursday next week. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Look for the Lord's hand in your life everyday! Love you all!
Love, Sister Harper

All the sister training leaders at MLC. Back row l to r: Sis. Craig, Sis. Crook, Sis. Harward, me, Sis. Eddington, Sis. Duncan. Front row l to r: Sis. Evans, Sis. Pankratz, Sis. McVey, Sis. Bee
Inline image 1

Just chilling in the ER
Inline image 2

My knee! The circle is where the redness was on Monday night, the elephant looking thing is where it was Tuesday night, and the picture was taken Thursday morning, so the redness spread a lot!
Inline image 3

Samantha's baptism!
Inline image 4

The elder with the Vermonster. L to R: Elder Dortch, Elder McCain, Elder Benson, Elder Poe, Elder Rappleye, Elder Andrew
Inline image 5

Samantha, Sis. Harward and me with the Vermonster.
Inline image 6

No comments:

Post a Comment