Monday, July 8, 2019

The Infamous Mission Finger RETURNS

Funny 
My family went backpacking this week. It was so. Much. FUN! (I hesitate to say these words, knowing that admitting that it was fun will probably consign our family to everlasting backpacking trips for vacations).
The funny part, though was watching my little sister deal with the great outdoors. She was grossed out by the idea of bugs, dirt, and eating weird things. As a returned missionary, I've had my fair share of dirt, mosquitos, and weird foods (and I refer to things I attempted to cook for myself, the local food was delicious!) so I had no qualms about the trip.
Emma, though, worried asked about everything. Her major question was, is there a bathroom? The boys proceeded to explain the joys and rules of relieving themselves in the woods, including the caution against peeing on a tree, since animals like the salt and will eat the wet part of the tree and destroy the wood.
I have never seen Emma so mortified. And confused. How was she even supposed to pee on a tree???
But don't worry, she survived.

Cultural 
I know my mission will stay with me forever. Just hopefully... not all parts of it!
My ever famous finger infection returned last week with vengeance, this time in my eye. I woke up Friday morning looking like I'd literally been slogged in the face. My brother told me that I looked like I was constantly giving him the evil eye since I couldn't keep my eyelid more than halfway open. And my youngest brother just kept walking around saying to every family member individually, oh my gosh, have you seen kaila's eye?!?!
Yes Ben, they have, and I'm pretty sure they wished they hadn't.
We ended up at urgent care. The nurse lady who first saw us took my temp and stats then asked me the infamous question, what seems to be the problem?
I just kind of paused and gave her a look like, ummmmm, look at my face. I was sorely tempted to just be like, well, you know, with my symptoms, I think it's my kidneys.
When she finally looked up from her board, she caught sight of my eye.
Oh. Right. That giant thing. 
She sent me off to the doctor, who knew immediately what antibiotic to give me and seemed to know what he was talking about. I showed him my medical records from my other treatments, leaving out the part that I had loving scrapbooked my antibiotic boxes in my journals, so I wouldn't be able to show those to him. He assured me that I now had the correct medicine and would be fine in a couple days. 

Spiritual 
This week, I decided to brave a new obstacle and take on- dun dun duuuuuun- the single's ward. Why I decided to go the week it looked like I had extravagantly painted my eye in '80s purple eyeshadow, I don't know. Great first impression.
Even though my first impression must've been a little strange, I loved my impression of the single's ward. (For those of you who don't know, a singles' ward is a special church service for young adults). There's just something unique about having so much youthfulness in one place. I got the sense that basically none of us know exactly what we're doing with our lives; we're making it up as we go along. Most of us make our college student budgets stretch to include Ramen noodles and free Costco pizza at church actives. And all of us have problems, doubts, and fears that taint what would otherwise be our dreams for the future. Yet, in meeting together, we find strength. Hope. Love. Joy. And most importantly, faith in Jesus Christ, which serves as an infallible rock on which our dreams take flight.
Ramen noodles and all.

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