First Week Back

Oh my heavens it feels so good to be back in the mission! Everything feels like it´s been this huge dream. I´ll first start with the wonderful redeye. I was so thankful that they got me back to the mission so quickly and how everything worked out so great, but I just have to tell you waiting in the airport and sitting on the plane and flying all night long was super rough. The planes were backed the first flight to Atlanta and then to Nicaragua was ok but I couldn´t sleep the first flight I tried sleeping a little in the airport in Atlanta but didnt´get much done and then on the way to Nicaragua kinda spred out on the seats again and slept a little bit but the attendent kept coming by and waking me up asking me things I didn´t care about so I didnt sleep much there. I got off in Nicaragua and just felt happier then ever, I was waiting for my bags and saw president waiting outside because you cant come inside you just wait for people behind the glass so I saw him and couldn´t take the smile off my face. I was like coming home to dad. We talked and everyone was super excited and president just said it was good to have me back and that everything is great. I don´t remember exactly what he said but the office took me to subway and told me there I was going back to my same area and going to be companions with Hna. Galdamez! I was comps with her before and I love her to pieces so I was stoked! So I´m here in Nagarote and loving it. we live with 4 other hnas.
Things well the first day was rough because I was super super tired and just didn´t believe it, I seriously feel like I was gone just a few days and now I´m back it´s amazing. I have a new part of the area that I don´t know so thats good. I am so happy to be back in the sun, I just sit in it every min I can and they all think I´m crazy but knew before home much I love the sun so it´s not that crazy to them. I couldn´t wait to give the Hermanas their clothes so I told them it´s christmas early and they loved their clothes! They were so happy and were like oh thank you so much, I am saving the soaps and candy for Christmas tho. It´s crazy living with 5 other girls the shower situation they do not know how to take brazilian showers here I am the fastest one and we just wait and wait all morning so we can shower but it´s all good.
Things that I have learned from being home and just being able to be back in the mission. I have no doubt in my mind that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers and he is aware of us at every min of every hour. I think to myself sometimes that why does he answer so many of my prayers? Why am I so blessed? I am no perfect and I make mistakes all the time why is this and this happens to me? I know no one is perfect and that we all make mistakes, I know that the Atonement is real and that because of it we can be forgiven. I know we all pass through trials and tests for one reason or another and I am very grateful for them. The things we learn through them and the stonger we become. I have no idea why I got to come home and why I got to come back to my same mission and to my same area when people usually don´t go back to that but I know the Lord has his hand in it. I know that I am going to work my hardest so that I can know why I am recieving so much.
We taught a lesson the first night to a guy named Byron, he just blew me away, he was agreeing with us on everything and was telling us that he blieves the same thing, he was a golden investigator. We gave him the book of mormon and he said he was going to study and read it so he can learn more. He understood everything and why we do things, he was so interested and starved for the truth that we just taught him everything, the book of mormon, tithing, prophets, just whatever he brought up. It truely was a guided lesson but not because of us. Then we went and taught Martha her husband wasn´t home so we just kinda visited with her for a min then she asked about temples and we got to teach her about temples and how families can be together forever. Those 2 lessons that first night I just wanted to cry because I had been missing this for so long, I missed going and speaking with people, being in Nicaragua, having the spirit testifying. It was amazing!
I´ve been studying and trying to firuger out some goals and things to do and that I want to accomplish while I am here and it´s amazing how the Lord speaks to you and gives you answers while you ask and how you can recieve them in such a different way. My focus is different and I am ready to go and to work. We got to go to Leon and watch the devotional last night which was amazing! I was sad because I was going to be missing it but they told us Friday we were going, I watched it in English because I don´t like seeing the Prophet or Uchtdorf my favorite speaking in spanish it just throws me off, so I watched it in English and how cool is that new video and the talks. I have to say it doesn´t feel like christmas to me maybe because it´s 80 or more degrees I don´t know maybe when it´s closer I guess. The Holidays for me just don´t really exsist here in the MIssion sometimes.
For pday we went to Leon and we got to play ontop of the cathloic church it´s a national monument or something like that, it was pretty cool. We also played games as a zone and just hung out. It´s kinda like I am a movie star tho with my return everyone is super shocked and happy and so am I. I haven´t had much personal study time because planning and then sunday and everything but I have been studying about christlike attributes and why it´s so hard for me to get them, oh but no so while I was studying I had the thought, Satan is always trying to get it everyday all day long and I thought about it for a min and was like it´s so true, From the minute the alarm goes off in the morning we get to exercise our agency weither we want to obey or not or get up or not. Then he tries to get us while were getting ready you look so ugly, why do it like that no one will like that, you are do dumb why did you forget your make up.. Then when we are studying or at school or work, you are so dumb you don´t know anything, they all hate you why bother, why do it that way when so and so does it the other way. He is always trying to attack us and make us feel bad and think bad about ourselves, but when studying and praying and working and doing what we know is right and what we need to do we have happiness, we win the battle with satan and we are happy and free from his traps. I love knowing that and knowing this battle or game stan is trying to play with me I´m going to win and totally kick his trash. I want that all of you can try to beat satan this week to try to think how he is going to try to get you and have a plan on how you are going to beat him. It truely works this I promise. thank you all for your love and your support and for everything if it wasn´t for you guys things would be alot harder for me.

Love Hna. evans

She's Baaaaaaaacccckk!!!!!

That's right, Hermana Evans is back in the Managua Nicaragua mission.

The day before Thanksgiving, she was able to get clearance from all of her doctors/ physical therapist. It was only a matter of a couple of days before she heard from church headquarters. Monday she received a call asking when she could go back out on her mission. She replied "tomorrow, today?" The church doesn't mess around. At 6:30pm she was set apart as a missionary again, and at 12:55am she boarded her flight on her way back.

It is truly a blessing that she was able to go back to Nicaragua. Often when missionaries are sent home with circumstances like Sabrina's, they will be sent state side to finish their mission. She loves the people of Nicaragua, her mission president, and everything that was going on down there. Thank you for all of your prayers offered in her behalf.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.