Thursday, November 10, 2011

Day 3

So today is day 3 after my shot and I'm suppose to be feeling like a million bucks. As I went to bed last night with ALOT of pain in my back, not only in my lower back but now into my tailbone and up my back higher. I was for sure that this shot was going to be the ticket and the magic trick to get me back out there quickly and well... It's not. Out of the 8 days i've been home I've been at the doctors 6 of those days trying to get things better and figure out what can help me. Monday I went for the shot, Tuesday to some lady to get my engery flowing the right way or something like that. Then today I went in for acupuncture or however you spell it. They are all telling me I should be feeling these results and feeling a litle better and this and that.
I haven't given up faith and I'm sure not done fighting but it's getting a little frustrating that nothing is working. I am ok with it though, I know that I am here for something and that I'm suppose to be learning and maybe helping other people while I am here. Tomorrow I will be going in for physical therapy to get things working and stretching and strengthing my back.
I love the tender mercies that the Lord gives us. Yesterday as I was reading I was to tired to keep reading and so I stopped thinking that the next chapter was super long and that I wouldn't be able to stay awake to read it. Today after the doctors and after talking with my mom, and feeling a little not uneasy but my mom is worried that I won't be able to return back to Nicaragua and that I will have to serve somewhere else. I had been thinking about it and talking with a friend asking how I would ever be able to accept that and how can I accept the fact if I can't go back out to Nicaragua and also just the whole change. I was taught that it doesn't matter where I serve or what I do as long as I am doing the Lords work, as long and I am being a missionary and teaching and having and helping people change their lives. I walked in the house and started reading my scriptures for comfort and strength. I opened up to where I was and started to read and laughed out loud to my self. I opened to Alma 29 where Alma is saying " O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!" The whole chapter was for me and also what I had came to love and want to do while I was on my mission.
I know that I will be healed and that I will be helped through this hard time and this trial when the Lord wants me to be, that he will heal me the day He wants me to and I will be where He wants me to be. The Lord has a plan for each one of us and it's not what we want sometimes but it's things we learn to love and be grateful for.
I am very grateful for my family, also for the video game "Just Dance" I am thankful for whoever made it up because it has provided me with alot of laughter in my life. I am grateful for my neighbor/mom who has always been there for all my medical needs and questions always looking out for me. I am grateful for my fat dog who still loves me and was very happy to see me when I got home and won't leave my side whenever he does see me. I am thankful for JK who has made my stay here great and the things I've learned from him. I am very thankful for rice packs and blankets and thick socks they have kept feeling in my body how much I miss Nicaragua.
Life is great! and oh heavens... Here comes the snow.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Changes

I'm getting alittle more use to being home which is scary and I don't want to be but don't worry I will be going back out. We have made phone call after phone call to find out what hoops we need to jump through and what we need to do to get me out and running. I have felt like almost everyday i have had an appointment with the doctors and it's pretty much been that way but whatever if thats what I need to do to get me back out there I'll go see them all the time. I am very thankful for them and for their understanding and their love and concern. We have been so blessed to get into returned missionary doctors or they have been able to work us in quickly so that my recovery time and my time home is the fastest it can be.
What we have found out so far is that I need to start a little bit of physical therapy so that we can show them look I am going to be fine out there i know these exercises to do and I will do them to help strengthen my back so that i won't have a problem with it while I am down there. Also we have had to call a few people to just give them heads up's whats going on and how they can help in this. I'm frustrated because it's not the timing that i want. I told my mission president when I first left that I would be back this week. I would have been back to working by now, but like I've said before my timing is not the Lord's timing and well I guess my mind just doesn't capture everything thats going on and understand that it take a little time to get things fixed. We're not just putting a piece of tape over a ripped piece of paper. So far we are hoping for the week of Thanksgiving, keep praying and having faith that this will be the time.
I'm very grateful for the memories I am able to make here while i am here before my brother leaves for his missoin and for the insight that I am able to teach him. Believe me I am no professional and I don't know everything but i am able to read with Map and stephen in the mornings and teach them a little bit and help them understand a little bit more. I'm grateful for my zone back in Leon Nicaragua who gave me a surprise phone call yesterday and made my day a little better and reminded me that i am loved and missed.
I'm grateful for warm blankets because I am freezing here and socks and sweats. It's a little bit of a different temp here then in Nicaragua I don't think I have been able to feel my feet since I have gotten here.
I'm grateful for goot parents who are going to work their very hardest to get me better and get me back out there, who will call the people for me and get everything worked out because I sure don't want to do that.
I'm grateful for the scriptures and for the comfort that they bring and the teachers we can recieve from them. In many cases bad things happen to good people. In the scriptures we read abou people wo are going to respect their convents they have made wih the Lord and not go to battle with others, or who are trying to be faithful and bad things happen to them. Many people while reading these stories would go, why is the lord doing this? Hello these people are trying to be good, they are doing what is right and they die? Everyhing is in the Lord's hands and happens for a reason. When we feel as though we are trying our best to be good, that we are doing everything we can we are still going to face hard times and have trials that we pass through. It is part of life and part of a learning experience in our lives. I am very grateful for the Lord and His love for me for giving me these are times and trials. I love the talk about the little current bush from last Aprils conference about the gardener loving the bush so much that he is will to cut him down so he can grown into what he wants him to be. If we can remember this while we are going through hard times that we really are loved and that when we finish this refining we are going to be better, but also it is our job to make ourselves better. To understand that He loves us so much to do this. That he hears our prayers and is going to answer not in our time but in his time. We need to keep being faithful and keep pushing forward there is a light at the end of the tunnel just keep going, one foot infront of the other and we will get there.
I'm so very blessed and thankful for this gospel in my life so that I can grow and that I can know these teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His father our Heavenly Father. I am grateful for the Atoneing sacrifice for me so that the mistakes that I have made and that I will make I can become clean, I can be forgien and I can be reminded that someone else has felt the way I have felt before. That I am not alone and that I can be freeed from this feeling if I but turn to the Lord and simple ask for help.We need to ask and to communicate with the Lord, He can read our minds but he has given us our agency and our free will .He is not going to step in and take over with out us asking for it. Just like in a car you can not be on cruise control if you do not put in on. Pray to him and ask him for whatever you need the blessings and comfort we will recieve is unbelievable. This I testify of in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

As for the back, here is day 2 after the shot and I feel a little better but I still have pain. I don't know if it's because the shot or just different things working I'm hoping it will continue to get better and to go away. Will see how it feels later on and tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

update

So yesterday I went in for my shot and things went well. They were able to find the right spot and get the steriods in there. I felt fine, I walked out of the office good to go. The nurse told me that I wasn't to do ANYTHING. Not to move, walk, bend, lift just do nothing for the day. I asked her if I could play just dance, the game my family has just interduced me to. She laughed and didn't know how to take me, if she should take me serious and also what and how to answer that. She laughed nervously and said no but you can be the judge and hold up the score.
my mom was so excited for me to be home and that we can go to Savers 99 cents Mondays and I told her no mom, I can't do anything. we went home and a few hours later my mom got a great idea. She told me Sabrina, there is a wheel chair up at the city we take that and go! We loaded it up and went shopping for the Hermanas that are in Nicaragua who wanted me to bring back a few things. I just laughed because of how serious she was about this plan so that I can go to Savers. I don't know if just the shot or sitting in a wheel chair for hours is what did it but I was in alot of pain. I do have to say i would never want it but I would make a good person in a wheel chair.
Today I am feeling a little bit better I still have some pain and maybe it's still because of the shot but I think it's helping. I should start feeling and knowing if the shot works more by tomorrow or by Thursday. I was very excited and hopefull because I had my shot in and had an appointment for the next Monday for my follow up and then I would be gone the 15 or 16th I was happy and thinking YES everything is working out how it's suppose to be.
My mom called this doctor who in charge of me while I am home, as she was explaining and telling him whats going on and what has happened. She hung up the phone and told me that I won't be leaving next week and we have to work and pray really hard because the doctor told her that I might need to except the fact that I won't be going back to Nicaragua and that I might not be going back out on my mission. This news for the both of us was very frustrating and sad, but I am still hopeful and not to worried about it because I know I will be going back out on my mission, I have a good stake president who will go to bat for me.
This is very frustrating, and hard for me to except that all of this is going on. It's very hard for me to be here and not in my mission, i feel horrible and I just have alot of shame being here. But i am thankful for the testimony and the strength that i have gained from the few months I have been out so that I can help strengthen my family and also others around me.
I'm very thankful for the missionaries in my mission and for the strength and support they are giving me and for the encouragement that they also give. i am very blessed and very thankful. Also I am thankful for my family, for the work they are doing and for how they are here to take care of me and help me. I am very thankful for the game Just Dance so that I can laugh me head off while my mom stays up all night playing it. I am thankful for the fact i can talk with my sister in canada and see my new little nephew. thank you technology, and also thank you for all our personalities. I am also very thankful for good friends who are always there for me. No matter what they are listening and they are great teachers for me. I'm very grateful for my life and for the trials we go through.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

1 Year many more to go.

It has been a year from today that I went through the temple for the first time, as I said yesterday I was able to go to the temple with my mom and was able to sit and think about the convenants that I made and also the feelings and reminders how I want to live so that I can be with Heavenly Father again.
Today I was super nervous to get up and share my testimony with everyone because I just feel like I blab on and on and that my thoughts are always scattered brained, its so much easier for me to express myself in spanish and I am alot less nervous. After trying to talk myself out of it I got up and shared my testimony. I knew that many where thinking what? why is she here? has it really been a year and a half? I quickly but the thoughts and wondering down and told why I was there but also just started to bare my testimony. I prayed before hand to be a instrument in the hand of the Lord that I would be able to share my testimony and help someone here who is listening. I was trying my hardest not to cry or just lose it and I thought I was doing well till I brought up Nicaragua and I started to lose it but quickly regained everything. I started talking and testifying of the love the Lord has for us and that He is always there and knows each one of us and loves us. I saw a few wet eyes in the crowd and was trying my hardest not to look at them because I would lose it even more but I sat down and was juse like feeew I am done with that.
I was told by a few people that they really enjoyed my testimony and that they really needed to hear that. I felt good about that and thought well maybe thats why I was suppose to come home and to have them hear my testimony.
I was sitting in mission prep today which heavens I think i have everyone beat at mission prep I have taken it for years and years but as we were sitting in mission prep the teacher was explaining to us about how our parents feel because there were two missionaries leaving and me and then another return missionary sitting in the class. He was saying how happy it makes our parents and how we are keeping the commandment of God by honoring them. I thought about when my dad saw me coming down the stairs at the airport and smiled HUGE and ran over and gave me big hug he related that to our Heavenly Father how its going to be when we return back to him how He will be running to us to hug us and to thank us for our servious and for helping Him build his kingdom and helping His children come back to him. That hit really deep for me to just think of that and from having that experience with my dad at the airport to think thats how its going to be when I get to return to my father in Heaven its going to be amazing and I cant wait.
Tomorrow I go in for my shot and I'm praying everything goes well so I can be back in Nicaragua quickly. I'll keep you updated

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Understanding

I really dislike when we have time to just think and have our minds racing. I've had a few days to myself to just think and dream. In the mission we always joke about having a super Pday if we could just go to our houses for like 3 days or something see our families, eat the food we miss, and change our clothes out because we are sick of them. Here I am living the dream, and it sucks! I love being home with my family and seeing them but I would give anything to just be back in Nicaragua and back to working. At times I have thought and complained about being with a girl 24/7 because sometimes they just really get on my nerves but right now I would love to have my companion right next to my side.
I'm very lucky to have this time and this chance to really think about how my mission is going so far and what things I need to and want to change so that i can be a better person and a better missionary. For all those ex missionaries I know you would agree that having time to look and see things from a different perspective would help alot. Right now is just my half time and I am making my game plan to get back out there and playing my game and I'm going to win. I dont know why and I think alot of times why am I so blessed? why does Heavenly Father give me all these things I do not deserve them. I have my dream mission, great people I have met there, and now living the dream of some missionaries. Maybe I just have alot to learn.. I'll be the first one to say that I have alot alot to learn, I just hope and pray that one day I will able to learn it all.
Yesterday as I wrote in the mid of frustration and a breakdown I wasnt thinking clearing or understanding exactly what was going on with my back. To me having those fatty tumors is a serious thing, as my mom and others have explained to me that this right now is a big thing, this bulging disc right now we have catch it before it has gotten worse and before I had to get something fixed with surgery. With this shot they will be giving me on Monday will help strengthen and prolong and maybe help with this for now. As time goes on we can live on these shots or if things get worse I will be looking for surgery. I feel dumb because I am here in my house to get a shot in my back, but still after much praying trying to understand why I am here and praying to try and help me to understand why I am here why is this happening and if He could help me wrap my head around this. I have learned that I may not really understand why I am here at this time and may not get my answer until further down the road, now is just a time to push on and put my faith in the Lord and try to be the best I can and continue to serve and help others while I am here. Some of the reasons medically why I'm here is because of the pain, I am here because in Nicaragua they dont have the technology to be doing this, I will be getting a shot in the area they give you the shot when you are going to be having a baby. they will inject a dye and then the shot and we will know within a few days if it is working. I am postive it will and then I will be shortly back to the mission.
I'm very grateful for really good friends who have been there for me to help me through this and help me wrap my head a little around this and to calm me down.
One thing I havent done in a while is go to the temple I got to go to the Bountiful temple today with my mom, as we drove through the snow to the temple the peaceful and wonderful feeling the temple brings was something I had been missing for so many months. I love the temple, I love the tender mercies of the Lord and seeing His hand in my life. He hears you, continue to pray always.

Friday, November 4, 2011

My ways are not your ways.

I can not deny that the Lord loves me and hears prayers and answers them and that he prepares a way for men to accompish the things that he commands them to do. The last doctors appointment was today after getting right in to every doctor very quickly the first day I was home to the quick MRI to the specialist appointment today to read my MRI. I was for sure that it was the little lypoma tumors that were the things that were bugging me in my back and causing me to much pain. As the doctors were talking to us and doing the routine checks I was just thinking why am I even here I know whats wrong with me, I know how to fix it I need these lumps taken out and I am good to go. As the doctor continued to talk and explain that I have a bulging disk in my back and that is what is pushing on the nerves and that is what is hurting my back not the tumors. (so they say) I am having a very hard time excepting that answer and that with just a very little shot it will be fixed or wont hurt me anymore.
Heavenly Father has planned all this out for me we were able to get all the doctors quickly, we were able to get the quickest appointment for this shot even though the doctor was booked out for a few weeks. He made a change and he got me in early Monday morning. I cant say that Heavenly Father has left me alone but just right now I just feel so dumb, and so frustrated with all the is going on because I am home from my mission for a shot in my back. I feel dumb seeing people like others are judging me but also I am wasting the Lords time being here at my house. Its very hard for me to handle this and understand why this had to happen to me right now and I know I should never ask that but it just doesnt make sense to me.
There are good things about being in my house all the missionaries always are saying they wish they could be home for a few days and just see their families and get a fresh new look on the mission and things I need to change and to fix. Right now its just a test of faith I guess. Just like the scritpure that says my ways are not your ways neither are my thoughts your thoughts. Maybe I will be able to understand this down the road or maybe this is part of my mission to be serving here in my house to help my brothers and my family out I dont know. I guess I will just have to see how things go from here.
Heavenly Father is very very kind as I am here writting broken hearted, frustrated and discouraged my sister Mindy had sent me something in the mail and I was able to get it today, it is a new Hilary Weeks cd called every step and it talks about and songs that really are hitting home. A beautiful Heartbreak and others have been some that I have been able to relate to. A blessing that has come from all of this is that I will be able to see Matthew before he leaves on his mission, and also we will be able to go to the temple as a family to for to take our his indownments which he had never spoke of until now.
I cant wait till I will be able to be back in Nicaragua and this will hopefully be the week of the 16th. I know we go through troubles and hard times to learn and to show our faith and this is a time that I cant not choose when and where I will be serving but I know if I have faith I will be able to make it through this hard time.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Always bumps in the road...

When things are going good, and when we feel like we have things under control is usually when we have times of humbling and when we hit the road bumps in For almost 2 months now I have been having pains in my back from tumors, which I had before the mission. I guess thats my punishment for starting to exercise in the mission, no but these pains just happened to not leave no matter what I would do, no matter what I would take I would always be in pain. My wonderful old companion Hna. Galdamez is a nurse and is always there taking care of me she told me that we needed to go to the doctors and get things figured out and maybe get these things taken out. I was done for having surgery in Nicaragua its a great story to tell right? We went to the doctors and they said yes this is your problem duh I knew that, but they sent me for blood work to get me ready for surgery. The blood work was fine and just like usual in the states but then they pricked my ear I still have no idea why they just made me ear bleed for no reason.
we have been waiting for the results and to know what my mission president will say about the surgery and also my parents. I was very smart and didnt say anything to them about my pain because I knew they would start to worry so I just let my mission president handle that for me. After a long while of waiting they put me on bed rest because I started to loose feeling in my back, I start to have tingling in my back, butt, and legs which they think is because of the tumors pressing on my nerves. They told me I couldnt go out to work that I just needed to rest and wait things out, I was DYING... I would read, then cook, then watch a movie, then write letters and just do alot of things and then I would look at the clock and its only 4 oclock. I was like a little dog or a kid waiting for my companion and the other Hermanas that I live with to come home. After about 4 days of that I was DONE I didnt want any more after the first day but President Arredondo called me and told me that on Monday I needed to be in his office with all my things. He told me what the doctors have said when he had talked to them and said that I cant have my surgery done in Nicaragua. I really was done to have it but they thought maybe they just dont know quiet enough to make things safe and make sure I live. Anyways I was at the office on Monday with all my bags and talked with my family, next thing I knew I had a plane ticket to Utah and was leaving the next day.
I just have to say I love my mission presidnet with all my heart he is such a great man, but he got things taken care of and after spending the night in a really fancy hotel so that i can be well rested I was on the plane for utah.
The plane ride from Managua to Atlanta was LONG and COLD I was freezing and bored there was no one on the flight and well nothing much to see out the window. After waiting hours in the airport in atlanta just sitting and waiting and sitting and waiting trying to deal with pain and with having no heat in my body, I finally bored the plane at 8 oclock. I started my journey at 1 in the after noon, I was on the plane at 8 and again frozen and waiting and bored out of my mind. Finally after a super long, painful, and boring plane ride I landed in Utah at 1230 with my parents and brother waiting for me.
It was really great to see them and to be with them, this is just a huge dream for me, I dont believe that I am in my house for this little bit of time, here with my family and just its a dream. I cant wait till I can get back out in the mission field I am hoping not to long. We went to the doctors today and have a MRI tomorrow morning then we go from there when the surgery is going to be. That really changes things and what I was planning and thinking and I never would of dreamed in a million years that this would happen to me but there is a purpose in everything and Gods will will be done. We all need to pass through tests and trials in our lives to help ourselves and others grow and I am so happy that we get this and that the Lord loves us enough to strengthen us and to purn us. This gives me time to reflect on my mission, to learn and to change things I wasnt doing quiet right or see how I need to change so I can be a better instrument in his hands how lucky I am to have this.
I love this church and being a missionary!