Hello my dear family,
Thank you all for your emails. Things are going good but I'm going through a trial. My big toe on my left foot has been hurting for a while but I didn't really think too much about it until last Tuesday. I decided to show my toe to Elder Reid in our district who took Sports medicine in school. He informed me that I did have a pretty bad ingrown toenail and that it was starting to be infected. We cleaned it but couldn't do much there in the house. Gratefully I had the first aid kit I brought with gauze and tape to cover my toe. Elder Reid told us it would be a good idea to stop by Sister Gomez's house that night because she is a nurse. We worked like normal and after dinner talked to Sister Gomez. She told us that she was heading to the hospital and could take us and help me at the hospital. We decided it would be the best thing to do. Her son drove us to the hospital. There we made some phone calls letting everyone know and getting permision from the mission nurse. She took us into the emergency room. It was quite the experience waiting there in the E.R. seeing all that we did. After waiting for a while we finally were let in to see the doctor. The doctor told me that I needed to take antibiotics, rest my foot, and come back Thursday. I thought they were going to operate on it that night. Sister Gomez drove us back home. Wednesday was transfers and Elder Flores and I didn't change. Elder Lopez and Elder Oviatt were transferred so we received 2 new Elders into our district. Elder Wilson who was in my zone in Colon, Sonaguera and came here at the same time as me and Elder Perez. That night was quite the adventure. The new elders were out and about and the 4 of us other Elders never saw them come back to the house. It started to get quite late and we were getting worried. We called the zone leaders and Elder Reid(our new district leader, from P.G) and his companion left the house to go look for them. Our zone leaders were keeping in touch with us and he had us start calling all the members we could that are in the area of the other Elders. To make sure they weren't in their house I banged on their front door really hard but they didn't answer. Elder Reid and Elder Durhan came back with no success. My companion remembered that their door was open and now is closed so he climbed around the barrier behind our houses and yelled through their bedroom window and they were sleeping safe and sound in their room!!!!! haha I dont know how they didn't hear us knocking! Things were getting quite serious! The Assistants to the President were on their way here to search with the zone leaders! Even though they had us all quite scared the first night of their stay here I'm glad they were not really lost.
Back to my toenail, Thursday morning we went back to the hospital. I again waited and then saw a different doctor. He looked at it and cleaned it. He told me the best thing I can do is keep taking the antibiotics and rest my toe for 7 days, and hopefully it will heal on its own without an operation. 7 days! My companion is a champ and has been working hard with members and I have had to stay with other members or at our house with an adult male member. It has been challenging and I really wish I didn't have this ingrown toenail, but like any trial I am learning and growing. One good thing is I finished reading Our Search For Happiness and am about 1/4th of the way done with Jesus The Christ. I am really trying hard to strengthen my testimony and my mind during this time that I can´t work my body. As you all know I thrive on activity so it's been a challenge. I am also sad to say that the reason I have this ingrown toenail is because of one small, very unintelligent decision a while ago to pick my toe nail. I have been thinking of Dad and his advice to me to not pick my toe nails. He even told me that if I did I could get an ingrown toe nail!! I'm now having to learn the hard way. Follow Dad's, and Mom's counsel guys. :) I'm hoping that I will be back to work earlier than Thursday but we´ll see. I'm really grateful to have Elder Flores as a companion who is working hard with all of our investigators still.
We were going to have baptisms this coming Saturday but they are being postponed for the following Saturday because we have Stake Conference this weekend.
I love you all so much. Keep counting and giving thanks to Heavenly Father and Mom and Dad for all the blessings we have. I was never a great example of this and all my life I took things for granted but here in Honduras life is different and I am learning a lot. A few examples: Hot water here doesn't exist unless you heat the water. Must buy purified water not just drink water from the sink or from the fridge. Very few have washing machines and I know none with a drying machine. Around 5 people in the Ward have cars and very rarely do they have more than one that functions let alone 3 super great cars. These are just a few of the many things I took for granted before my mission and wish I would have been more grateful for. This list doesn't even mention the families who are starving as their parents work for 5 dollars a week. There are countless other blessings I could name. I sincerelly ask each one of you to show your love and gratitude to Mom and Dad more often. I wish so badly I would have done better at this and set a better example. Pray always giving thanks to our Heavenly Father for all that we are blessed with everyday.
I was showing a man named Luis Flores who stayed with me one day at the house the pictures you guys sent me. He has had a very rough life and is going through incredible challenges right now one being that he doesn't have work. He is active in the Church and has a wife and two kids. They are working on making it to the temple to be sealed as a family for all eternity. He told me after looking through the pictures together that our family looked so unified. I happily and gratefully told him that the reason we are unified is because my Grandparents taught the Gospel to my parents and them to us and that we make it to Church every Sunday no matter what and that we have family home evening every week. He told me that this is how he wants his family to be one day. More than all the temporal things in the World I will be forever grateful for our heritage, for learning the gospel from my Mom and Dad who learned the gospel from their parents. I love you Mom and Dad and I love you for getting married in the temple and raising me righteously. Like Nephi of old I can truly say I Eric having been born of goodly parents... It all begins with the parents and how lucky I am and each one of you my siblings to be born into the family we are in. Love and serve more. Lift each other's burdens. Pray for charity and most of all help each other make it back Home to our Father in Heaven. I know that Jesus lives and very slowly I am trying to be more like Him each day. Have a great week family! I love you all more than words can describe!
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