Date
February 9, 2015
Area
Lenoir
Companion
Elder Thomas
Elder Hops-A-Lot is back to work
I saw the orthopedic doctor on Wednesday. He kinda just wrote me off. He said it doesn't look like a high ankle sprain. He told me use the crutches until I can walk on it, then walk with the boot until I can walk mostly normal. If it's a high ankle sprain, he said it will probably need surgery. The thing is, my ankle/leg has gotten really sore the last couple of days, higher up where he was checking for a high ankle sprain. So if it's still like that after a while, I'm going to call the doctor and maybe have him check it again. He didn't give me any exercises yet. I'm just trying really hard to move it as far as I can and not let it get stiff. I don't really need you to send me anything else. I'm going to buy a compression sleeve to keep it from swelling and give it a little support. I can't play any volleyball or basketball for a while. And yeah, only upper body. Johnny won't let me do anything really hard.
We can barely keep in contact with all the people we've found. Not because there are too many, but because they don't try to keep in contact with us. Setting appointments with people is like pulling teeth. I don't know if I've told you about the W family. They're just a super awesome family in the branch. But Sister W got released as RS President because they're moving out to Washington. M is doing good, but he can only come to church twice a month, if that. I'm definitely not fluent, but I can hold my own. I went on an exchange on Friday with Elder Willis. He's an English missionary, but they had found a Spanish potential who they really wanted me to teach. So I taught him the Restoration while Elder Willis sat there silently, trying to follow along. His name is G, and he's from Honduras. He was slightly drunk, and he had gotten beat up by the cops the other day. The combination of those things made it really hard to understand him. But after the lesson he gave both of us a hug and asked when we were going to come back. It was pretty cool! Kingdom Hall is where Jehovah's Witnesses go to church.
It's warm in Utah too? Holy crap! It's been about 60 yesterday and today. It's starting to get humid again. I can't believe Nathan is turning 14. Has he grown at all since I left? Nathan would get along really well with one of our investigators. His name is Eric, and I thought he was maybe 9, but we recently found out he's 12. He's tiny. But he's always out playing basketball, so we go shoot hoops with him sometimes. He reminds me of Nathan.
Don't worry, my ankle is doing fine. I'm going to be biking this week, so no more sitting around or driving everywhere. Sorry, I forgot my camera, but I'll send some more pictures later in the week.
So besides screwing up my ankle and going to the doctor, I got to go to MLC (I think this stands for Mission Leader Conference or something) this week! Elder Thomas got invited, and I was going to hang out at the mission home with Sister Griffin, I guess. I think President felt bad, so he called and told me I could go. We had Brother Donaldson and Brother Glazner from the missionary department give us some training. I learned a ton. MLC is awesome. They taught us how to teach the Restoration using only the pictures from the pamphlet in 8 minutes. I've used it multiple times since, and it's really effective! They taught us how to do Weekly Planning right, how to help investigators come to church, and lots of stuff. President also got rid of nightly phone calls for good. And finding time is no longer a key indicator. Since we've done nightly phone calls for so long, now we do nightly joke calls with Elder Chavira and Elder Patterson to keep ourselves entertained. On Friday I exchanged to Rockwood with Elder Willis. Rockwood is backwoods Tennessee. There's a place called Ten Mile, because there's ten miles in between each house. It's a really pretty, but also really dry, area. It was really fun though. Elder Willis is awesome. They live in a little shack that's often referred to as the crackhouse, and it's behind a burger joint called Bob's Burgers. I heard that drug deals happen there late at night. It was an interesting experience.
This week we taught D again. She's still not ready for a baptismal date, but she's getting there. We taught P too. He's a really cool kid, and he understands what we teach him pretty well. Yesterday we did a power-up, then Brother G ate lunch with us at our apartment. He's just like another missionary. He's super fun to hang out with, and it's great Spanish practice. We volunteered at the Good Samaritan for 6 hours on Tuesday! Since I had just sprained my ankle and couldn't do anything else, I sat in an office chair and rolled around sorting cans and food. I had a super exciting week. Not.
Well I don't have much more to tell you. Love you!
-Ryan