This Place is Something Special

Sooooo, Tuesday night i noticed I had troubling swallowing my food. That night I was colder than usual and had all my blankets on me. I woke up around 3 am literally shivering cold. The next morning I woke up feeling awful (headache, sore throat, body aches and exhaustion). I did not want to keep my companion from anything so I went to the weight room with him. I went straight to where the mats were, grabbed one, went into my corner and laid down the whole hour of gym occasionally lifting up my legs to let ppl know I wasn't dead. haha. The health clinic wasn't open till 8 and we had service at the cafeteria at 7:45 Wednesday.  Still not wanting to keep my companion from anything I went.

 IT WAS ROUGH.

 I almost threw up twice. The first time when I saw and smelled fish and the second when I went into one of the huge fridges and smelled all the peppers and condiments. Once i went to the health clinic they sent me to urgent care because they were full at the clinic. Feeling awful, I wanted to go there. Luckily there was a shuttle that could take us to the BYU Student Health Clinic and they were able to see me somewhat right away.  At the health clinic  I had a temperature clocked in at 101.+ F meaning my fever when i woke up in the middle of the night must have been pretty high. I was one of two people left in my district who hadn't gotten sick yet. Sister Cameron is still the last one. I got tested for strep and the flu and it came back negative so the doctor (who played basketball for Coach Wagner's first year as coach at BYU-Hawaii and was the University doctor for 13 years there) prescribed me 800mg ibuprofen and sudafed for my nasal stuff.  Sadly, I missed two classes yesterday and pretty much slept the whole day.  My roommates took turns staying with me so that Elder Huckvale wouldn't have to miss out on a whole day of classes as well.

I'm feeling functional today so it was just a bad 24 hour cold bug or something?

In other news. for lunch today we got the mtc hookups and had In and Out burger brought to us. It was amazing!!!!

The MTC experience has been the most difficult thing I have done in my life thus far. The expectations and personal goals I want to accomplish have challenged and pushed me to my limits and I LOVE it! Jesus Christ lives and I hope my future investigators will see that when I invite them to come unto Christ. I am extremely grateful for this experience. 

While here I have realized everyone learns at there own pace but that does not mean you have an excuse to not try your hardest. For myself, I feel like I have fallen behind in my language learning so I asked for help with sentence structure to my fellow Elders. As they willingly helped me, I have felt their love and concern for my progression and further realized this is a race against time for all of us to make it across the finish line. 

Last Wednesday marked the period of time where I have been at the MTC for four weeks. This fact provoked many thoughts of how far I have come since the beginning. Sometimes I feel that I have stopped progressing due to various factors but now I know that as long as I am doing what I am supposed to by being strictly obedient and fulfilling my purpose, I will never stop progressing. The opportunity I have in front of me is not given to many, the race I am in is a sprint and will never be considered a marathon. I continually see the Lord's hand in everything that I do. 

This place is something special. 

I love you all!!! Thank you all so much for your support!! Keep the dear elder Letters coming.

Elder Ridges Birthday, he was very happy!

Eating sack breakfast in the laundry room doing our laundry on Pday