Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Have Faith in Dark Times

Hi Family and Friends!

Let me just say this … take a minute to appreciate me in your lives because I almost died this week, seriously. I got really close to the veil this weekend. Friday night, we got back to the apartment after doing an activity at the church and my legs were just killing me, and I was confused because we hadn’t walked more than usual. I took some Aleve and went to bed. At 2:00am, I woke up and felt like a got ran over by a car. Every bone in my body was in sharp pain, and lying in bed even hurt. I was dripping in sweat, but felt totally cold. I have never, ever felt more sick and in more pain in my life. There was pain from my head to the bones in my toes. I stood up, felt dizzy, and ran to the bathroom and started throwing up. I woke my companion and it was so funny because I was dying throwing up, but when I looked up at her right after throwing up, we made eye contact and I just smiled and start laughing. She said that I looked like a psychopath/joker. I don’t know why God gave me this weird sense of humor to laugh when bad things are happening, but it comes in handy sometimes. We took my temperature and I had a 101° fever. You can’t mess with fevers down here, they are really dangerous, so we called Sister Melo and woke her up in the middle of the night. She told me to take a certain medicine and to go to the hospital when it opened at 7:00am. I didn’t sleep, I just sat in bed wanting to die, waiting until 7:00am. Long story short, in the hospital they stabbed me with the needle about a million times because they never get it right, and it was the nurse’s first day on the job (poor thing), haha, and Sister Vance was all alone in the hospital room crying like a baby. They didn’t let my companion in, and I just felt all alone and I felt so sick. I didn’t know how I could feel better, but I just said a prayer asking for the comfort of the Spirit. After five minutes, I was able to miraculously fall asleep. It was cute, because I felt that was a way Heavenly Father helped me be comforted just by blocking everything out. I know Heavenly Father hears our prayers and doesn’t leave us alone.

I will spare you a lot of the details, but long story short, after a blood test and other tests, I have an infection in my intestines from the water here. I still have a fever but now I am taking antibiotics and am feeling better. Just pray for me, that I will feel better so that I will be able to work hard this week. I have been in our apartment for two days now and will go crazy if I don’t get out soon.

This week I am so excited because Wednesday we will have our first wedding! Marcio and Elizabeth will be getting married and baptized on the same day! At the start of this past week, he really had a desire to be baptized. My companion and I decided to visit them every day and read the Book of Mormon with them. After lessons where the Spirit was so strong and applying the Book of Mormon to their lives, Elizabeth decided to be baptized! Keep them in your prayers!

It was cute this week, as we were able to participate in a family home evening of a couple who have been trying to have a child for five years. The wife had received her results that she was pregnant and we played a part in surprising the husband. We had a family home evening with a lesson on families and how they can be together forever, and after she gave him the results he just started bawling. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen. They are preparing to go to the temple in February to be sealed!

Saturday morning I was in the hospital, and after that I needed to stay in my apartment. But we had one appointment that we made that was just nagging at me, and we decided that we just needed to go. I was dying and felt horrible but I couldn’t not go. We visited a couple that has been less active, but came to church last week. We taught them and their nephew, and invited him to be baptized. His name is Addriano, is 12 years old and will be baptized Saturday! It was a miracle and so worth it. We are working with the family to get them back into full activity.

Saturday is usually the day when we visit all of our investigators to help them remember to be in church on Sunday. With my problems, we couldn’t visit any of them, and nothing is worse than sitting in church with no investigators. We went to church preparing for the worst, only to see that we had so many, and I mean SO MANY, of our investigators in church … full families. I wanted to cry. I felt so blessed and loved by our Heavenly Father. I know that when we do our best, and I mean our absolute best, that He will make up the rest. It was such a tender mercy. I love my Heavenly Father; I know He is there. I know that He gives me strength to do His work and be who He wants me to be. Every difficulty or trial He throws at me, I just like to look up, maybe throw in that psycho smile of mine, and say "Heavenly Father, I understand … I know what this is, you’re trying to test me, you’re trying to make me better, and you’re trying to help me reach my potential. Thank you for trusting enough to know that I can get through this, but only with Your Help.

I love this quote: “to trust God in the light is nothing, but to trust God in the darkness - that’s faith."

Trust that Heavenly Father knows what’s best for you, find out and figure out what He wants you to do, and just do it. I promise from experience that life is easier when we do it God’s way.

Love you all,

Sister Vance

No comments:

Post a Comment