Week 18: Hospitals are hard

Hello family and friends!

Again, thank you so much for the prayers and thoughts on my behalf this week. I had a hard weekend, being a missionary and being in the hospital is not the best. It was really hard for me. reaaaaallly hard. the best thing was that I got to talk to my parents on the phone and that I have the best mission president and he acted like my dad throughout the weekend. I was so grateful, it was hard being in the hospital without family. honestly, I have tears as I am typing this letter. the mission is so hard. It is sooo hard being sick on the mission. It is sooo hard not feeling 100% all the time. It is hard to have faith about me getting better because us and every doctor has tried something different and nothing has worked. what I am doing is pretty much the last try. please keep the prayers coming!

Decided I still represent the Lord in the hospital.

This was the view out my window from my room. So pretty and such a nice hospital!

Before I went to the hospital, I had a pretty good week! I am teaching English like never before. I am teaching 5 different people. Not a class, but a recent convert from the other hermanas in our apartment sets up appointments with us so we can have conversations in English about the gospel. It is really great! I think we have an appointment with him this week, so hopefully that will encourage me and lift my spirit! I am also teaching a daughter of menos active (a less active member). She knows absolutely no English so it is fun to teach her and see her progess. I am teaching Xochitl (the lady in the picture) and two teenagers (granddaughters of Hermana Buitrron). They are fun to be with and teach! Teaching English is a looooot harder than I thought. We have so many dumb rules that I cant explain! Hahaha just be grateful that we all know a very hard language that everyone here wants to learn!

This is the lady that I have had the cool English experiences with...Xochitl. she is so great...we love teaching her English!

A cool experience happened to us right before I went to the hospital. The day before. So we just finished contacting a street and we were on our way to an appointment. We walked by a house and Hermana Tirado felt like she should knock on the door. Hermana Tirado told me that she has knocked on this door before but a cranky old lady answered twice but she still felt like we should knock on it. So we did! A lady about 30 years old answered, we presented ourselves and told her we wanted to share a message with her. She told us to come back in an hour! So we contacted a little bit more and came back! We told her that we want to share a message about Jesus Christ with her and asked if we could teach her and her family. She told us that her parents are eating inside and asked if we could teach her from her door! So we did! The hard part about this was, as I am finishing my training, I am supposed to be starting the lessons. And I had never practiced the Restoration lesson with the opposite parts. But Hermana Tirado pushed me to start. So I did. We went through the lesson and we got to the first vision. I recited it word for word and almost started crying. The Spirit was so strong. Sooo strong. After the lesson, we asked her what she thought. She started to cry. Cry and cry. She then told us that we are the answers to her prayers. She has been praying so much about joining a church and she basically said she already knows this is true. I invited her to be baptized and she accepted with an affirmative "YES". I have never met someone sooo prepared before. They know that this is right and I cant wait to teach them! Such a cool experience!

I looooved conference (the church meeting that is held in Salt Lake and broadcast around the world). I got to watch it in English and I learned sooo much from every single talk. it was soo amazing and so many things that I needed to hear! we are so blessed that we have the opportunity to hear from our prophet and apostles!

Thank you again for all of the prayers. This week will be the week where we see if my final medicine works. I have faith that it will but I am having a hard time still. Love you all and have such a great week!

Hermana Garner

The best first companion ever! She has been so patient with me throughout this whole thing!