Hospital Experience
So, I am here again, another week has come and gone. This last one has been rather quite interesting. The missionary work is going alright, haven’t got mugged yet. But, there is one experience that is one crazy thing, I don’t think I’ll have an experience quite like it ever again…in fact, it was one of those experiences where you start breaking mission rules because there is no other choice, you are just put in the situation…let me explain.
Ok, on Thursday morning, we recieve a call from one of our investigators, Mayra, who asks us if we could help her out with translating and that we needed to leave right away and meet her and our other investigator, Rocio (who lives with them), at the emergency room at the hospital. So, we agreed and took off without knowing the reason behind it. We meet them and I had to ask her what was wrong and Rocio told me she was about 3 months pregant and she had having extreme pains and bleeding for the last 3 days. So, we get her checked in and waiting. It came down to it that the hospital would only accept one of us to do translating and E. Christensen wanted me to do it. They finally called us about 20 minutes later and we just registered her (it was the easy part). We finished with that and waited forever…probably about an hour before the called us. Also, during the waiting time, we heard some of the news about the terroists acts that had been going on in Europe. So, I got seperated from my companion and they put us in an OBG room. I kind of knew I had gotten myself into a way akward sitiuation. The nurse came in and I had to translate some akward instructions and had to ask her a few questions. Later on, the Doctor came in and it even got worse (those of you with pregnant experiences..you can only imagine). So, the doctor checked her out, and along with the symptoms she had been having, it didn’t appear that everything was fine and dandy. He then sent us to do an ultrasound, which was also a very interesting experience. And also let me remind you that I don’t have the best spanish medical vocabulary, so it was a little difficult. After doing the ultrasound, they sent us back to the OBG room and we waited for a little bit longer. During the time, I spent some time getting to know Rocio and I testified to her a little about Christ and the Atonement…it was neat. But, around 1:45, the Doctor came back to give us the results. And just as I and her had feared…she had lost her baby. The Doctor told me and I had to tell her….then she started crying…it was a very sad moment. I never thought I would have to tell an investigator that her baby died. It was very hard. What had happened was a few days later in the week, she had stumbled out of the bathroom and fell down into a little table. After that, she started experiencing the pain and the blood. Well, already using up half the day, they also asked me to go help her translate at a women treatment center to give to her the options. Now, this was also a very akward time, probably even more akward, because the questions were a little bit more indepth. But, basically the Doctor gave her two options 1)that maybe the Ultrasound hadn’t detected the heart beat and just to return to the hospital the next week to see maybe that the baby would be okay but since it was a 90% chance that that wasn’t the case that 2)just do the surgery the same day to remove the baby. Rocio eventually chose to do the 2nd option…so, we went back to the hospital around 4 o’clock, and we just asked the hospital to provide a translater (which would have been a good idea from the beginning). So, we finally got to leave. We were hoping it would build really good trust, and it did, but we recently found out that Rocio had gone back to another city, back to her husband, who drinks and abuses her (probably cause she couldn’t pay the bills). So, she is now gone…hopefully i planted a good seed for her to listen to the missionaries somewhere else. It was a crazy experience…..
Anyways, back to the rest of the week. No investigators really showed up at church yesterday, but a daughter and a sister of a member came to church, who aren’t members. There names are Guadalupe and Michelle, just recently arrived from Mexico. The sweet thing is that this family (all are members) are the backbone of the branch. I can definately see those two getting baptized pretty fast, especially the 15 year old daughter. It’s going to be sweet. We don’t have much more going on.
Elder Christensen will probably be transfered soon, so I’ll get a new companion. We went on AP exchanges this last week, and they told me a few interesting things 1)there are 0 new spanish missionaries coming in and 2)that President Wallis is going to keep missionaries in areas longer, at LEAST 4 1/2 to 6 months and possibly longer. So, I think I’ll be in Wilson for a good amount of time…my birthday too (which is Sept. 6th, for those who don’t know!). Also, there are a few rule changes lately, that we don’t have to have parts in our hair (as long as it’s nice and proper) and also we can wear brighter ties (pink, purple). So, that’s kind of different. Anyways, I better get going…hope everyone enjoyed this email!
Elder Hardy