Monday, June 15, 2015
1 and 2. The district meeting in Foxcroft (from left to right): Sister Curtis, Sister Sumbot, Elder Spiker, Elder Steed,
Elder Smith, Elder Senatore, Elder Parkinson, Elder Nez, Elder Rumsey, and
Elder Peery
Hi!
So this
week has been kind of interesting on a number of reasons -- namely the fact
that I had surgery on my feet. More of that to come.
Here's
the week.
On Monday we went bowling since we had a
coupon that let us get one free game in. Elder Steed beat me by one the first
game but then crushed me the second one. The guy at the bowling alley had some questions
so we got to talk to him a little bit which was cool. It's funny how much nicer
people are to you sometimes when you aren't wearing white shirts and
ties..
Tuesday we went to go help out the Baptists
again and this time it was only a crew of 4 including us. We worked mainly on
the far back wall of the barn. It was hard work, but we are making a lot of progress.
Unfortunately
we will have to stop for a few weeks due to my feet, which we will get to
later. We also had a really delicious dinner at a recent convert's home in
Eldorado. They made us some excellent meatloaf and some great mac n cheese
which I have discovered is one of my favorite foods on my mission.
Wednesday we had our last district meeting in
Foxcroft which was kind of sad based on the upcoming transfer calls. After
transfer meeting we decided to go have lunch at the local Wendy's in Marion.
Elder Steed and I wanted to go to the Steak N Shake instead since we had just received
gift cards from home but we went along anyways. Right about as we were
finishing, a mom who is a member of the Church from Missouri comes over to our
table and basically says "Hi, this might sound crazy, but my son is currently
going through a rough time and we were on our way back from camp to get him
some help. We were going to find one of our members back home to give him a
blessing, but I felt that we needed to get that done sooner. And I do not find
it a coincidence that we ran into four missionaries in the middle of Southern
Illinois. Will you help us?"
We were more
than happy to. Elder Parkinson started the blessing and I finished it. It was a
rather unusual sight for the Wendy's drive thru to witness four guys in white
shirts blessing some random kid. But it
was still a very spiritual event. The mom thanked us and resumed their trip to
Missouri. It was a pleasure to be a part of a sweet miracle.
Thursday was the day of my foot doctor
appointment. I was really nervous about it, but the people at the Harrisburg
hospital were wonderful despite the rumors. The nurse who escorted me had
cousins that were
Mormon, and she even used to work as a flight attendant for American Airlines--based
in Chicago O'Hare International Airport just like my mom was for many
years. It’s a small world. She was very
nice and supportive and gave me and my companion some water bottles.
Dr. Cook
was my doctor and he gave me a few choices on what had to happen to my toes. He
illustrated that they would have to totally remove the index toenail on my left
foot to prevent infection and partially remove another toenail. It was a tough
decision but I decided to go through with it for the next day after some more
thought and prayer.
Friday morning I went back and had the
same nurse thankfully. Dr. Cook had a good sense of humor about it which made
the whole ordeal much more relaxing. Unfortunately when he did the procedure he
did not have anything to block my view of what was going on. I spent most of my
time looking up at the ceiling for good reasons. After it was over I thanked
him for what he did and jokingly asked if I could keep the nail. Surprisingly
he said yes and so now I have a neat souvenir from Southern Illinois hospitals.
It's not as
gross as you may think. I spent the remainder of the day with my feet propped
up.
An hour post surgery.
This was my setup for the day.
Saturday was a lot of the same. Except the
branch president asked if we could go be a priesthood presence at the Relief
Society social. It was a good thing we went cause one of the sisters had been accidentally
locked out. We stayed out there at the
church for a bit with my feet propped up, and the sisters
were very kind and fed us some of their stuff.
Then we
went over to see the investigator with the baby's house and had an interesting
lesson with her
again. Since she doesn't read the Book of Mormon on her own, we read it with
her when we go over there
now. It's hard getting her to trust us but we are working hard. We ended the
night after having dinner with the branch president.
In the
evening on Saturday we finally received transfer calls. Though the entire zone
got shaken up, Elder Steed and I are remaining with each other in Eldorado, which
means I will have served here for a grand total of 6 months at the end of this
next transfer--slightly longer than my time in Hendersonville. It was very
surprising, but at the same time I kind of expected it. I love the members here.
I just need to keep trying to love everyone else. It's hard when there's a lot
of people ridiculing you and not wanting to listen. I am looking forward to
another six weeks. The longest I've heard any missionary staying here was like 9
and a half months or something like that. Who knows what will happen.
Sunday we had branch council, to which we
were late due to my feet. It hurts a lot to walk right now. I taught gospel
principles on the second coming of Jesus Christ. It's a difficult concept since
no man can pin point exactly when it will happen, so I just focused on being
prepared for when it does happen. It was a
tough lesson but I think it worked out okay. We had potluck afterwards which
was fun.
It's kind
of been a slow week otherwise. We are working more on finding new people but we
are also trying to get those we have to progress. It's really hard but worth it
in the end. Hopefully my feet won't be too big of a hindrance this week.
Thanks
so much for all the support. I hope you all are doing well.
Elder Peery
You can write me here:
Elder Andrew
Peery
Tennessee Nashville Mission
105 Westpark Drive, Suite 190
Brentwood, TN 37027
You
can send email to me here: Andrew.peery@myldsmail.net
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