Salem Hote- I mean Hospital

Dearest Mommy,

Okay, just so you don't freak about the title of this email, I AM NOT THE ONE IN THE HOSPITAL. I AM FINE. This is the excitement that we had this week though: Elder Rivera has been WAY sick all week. I feel like I kinda already ruined my story because I already mentioned the word Hospital twice, now three times in my email, but I'll explain from the start of the week what went down.

So Monday night we went to dinner with some members from Silverton (the Ellingsons) who are way awesome. Elder Page got super spoiled on his first day because they took us out to Olive Garden. The whole day, elder Rivera had been complaining of being cold even though it was in the 60's and 70's. That was the first sign of trouble. After that, we took our P-day on Tuesday, taught a lesson like I explained in my last letter, and then did E-mails. By this point, elder Rivera had not been feeling good, slept in, was experiencing flu-like symptoms, etc.. That night, actually, he ended up staying with the people we had dinner with and sleeping on their couch while we (elder Page and myself) went to do divisions. We then returned back to the apartment with Rivera afterwards, where he proceeded to crash and not wake up until about 11 the following day. Now, one key thing that he was not saying anything about is that he was experiencing... well... never mind. Suffice it to say, we were advised to go buy him some Immodium. Ooh this reminds me of a really funny story related to that. So after a doctor visit we had on friday with Rivera, he advised us to go pick up some Immodium, and so we took a trip to Wally-World to buy some. While we were there waiting in the checkout line with the afore-mentioned product, I saw some incense in the compulsory buys section right next to the register and had one of those stupid urges to grab it, which I did. We usually use incense to kind of make the apartment smell a little bit more... how would I say... homey? Anyways, there we are in the checkout line buying Immodium and then I place the two on the counter. As soon as I did this, I realized I had just made a big mistake... Incense and Immodium... strange looks from the clerk... yeah went bright red in the face trying to explain myself by saying "have you ever been in one of those situations where your friend needs you to..." Yeah she was just shaking her head and chuckling mercilessly when this all happened. At least it makes for a good story...right?

Anyways, that was the funny part of the week. Aside from that, we've been super busy trying to keep lessons balanced with a sickie in the trio. Passing him off to members some days or asking one of the english elders to "jump the grenade" sometimes so that we could go out and get some work done. I was really frustrated because we have a lot of people to teach right now and need to be on top of things, and this has been a major load that got dumped on us this week. The one perk is that I've been able to focus attention on elder Page to help him progress as a missionary with the time we have together.

Sunday was pretty sweet because we had Luis & Liset, Adan & Rahab (I finally found out her name is spelled like this and not just "Rab"... dang silent H's!), and Laura showed up to church! Not only that, but Juan was able to baptize his daughter, whic was a really spiritual and awesome experience... I do feel kind of bad though... I had to leave elder Page in the apartment for like six hours because I had to do visits and the baptism, but couldn't put Rivera with a member because they were all at the baptism! Anyways, we had a second doctor's appointment set for Rivera at 8:00 Monday morning, so we went. The results of the test were that he was severely dehydrated and had no idea what was wrong with him, so we jogged on over to the hospital and got him all filled up with fluids. After that, they still had no idea what he had, so they kept him overnight instead of just in the emergency room. We talked to Pres. Dyches and everything, and we got permission to stay the night with him up in his room. When we got up to his floor and looked in his room, I almost though it was a hotel! a flatscreen TV, nice recliner, nice couch, sweet matching interior touches, and even "hardwood" floors... take out the hospital bed, and you've got yourself a nice little place! I came to realize " wait a second... Dad does business with this hospital, and this is a relatively new wing... he probably negotiated all of this!" So if not, then oh well, but if you did help, thanks dad for a comfortable stay at the Salem Hote-, I mean Hospital.

Other than that, we found out this morning when we woke up in the hospital that one of his blood cultures came back positive for some type of bacteria, so that means he has sepsis...what the crap? I don't understand how he got it, but it's a dang good thing we found it when we did or he might have been toast. Luckily he's doing better now that he's pumped full of fluids and anti-biotics, and should be out of the hospital in the next couple of days.

That's about the excitement for the week (haha), but I hope everything is going awesome over there. It's looking like we'll have a baptism in the next couple of weeks of Ivelisse Cruz if all goes according to plan. If you can, please keep our investigators in your prayers, as well as elder Rivera. I'm doing okay, but these guys are the ones that deserve the blessings more right now. I'll talk to you guys next week.

All my lovin',

-Elder Kurt Mooney