The Toe Incident

Well, let me start off by saying that this week has been one of MANY surprises. It seems like the Lord always wants to keep me on my toes. Well, I don’t know where to start first, but I guess I’ll start with the toe incident.The other week I noticed that my toenail was looking a little bad. It came to my attention, and to the attention of my companion that it was a slight ingrown toe nail. I called the Hermana Da Silva, she told me to call the mission doctor. He told me not to worry, but to go and see the doctor as soon as possible. He was busy, so we had to set up an appointment another day. We came back. He looked at it, and told me that it looked pretty bad and that if it didn’t improve soon, they were going to cut off half my toenail for good and that if this were so, I would have to stay off work for three months. But he wasn’t sure, so he referred me to a foot doctor. Needless to say, I was pretty frustrated and freaking out a little. However, we talked with the Hermana and she was surprised to hear what the doctor had told us. She said her son had the same problem and it was taken care of without much trouble. I tried the remedy the doctor gave me, and the next day, Hermana Da Silva called us and told us that a missionary the other day who had the same problem just went to a local hospital and had a slight operation in which they cut the nail slightly so it could heal. Sorry for all the details... I went ANOTHER day to a hospital, they looked at it, said not to worry, sent me to a surgeon, in another hospital. I was in the emergency room, with an ingrown toenail. It was kind of awkward. As I laid there on the table, I could hear all the other people who had more serious problems. And there I was, with just a little toe nail problem! Oh well, anyways... the doctor came back, LOADED my toe with anesthetic, cut the nail just a tiny bit (he said it was practically nothing) and sewed up the other muck... well... yeah, I guess I’ll just have to tell you the details another time, but DON¨T WORRY. It was nothing, kind of humorous, and now it’s healing just fine. You almost can’t tell now. So that’s the incident of my finding myself in the ER over an ingrown toenail. Other than that, this week went on as usual, minus the time we lost at the doctors. Oh well, health is important right? But we continue to move on anyway.

We had changes of course today. And this next part is as much of a surprise to you as it is to me. I’m now training in my area, as well as Elder Gonzales in another area. I have a companion fresh from the MTC in Argentina, from California, Elder Delbar. He’s studied Spanish for the majority of his life so he probably already speaks better than me. I’m not going to lie, I’m kind of scared and unsure of what’s going to happen, but I kind of knew that something new was coming. Never a dull moment in the mission.... I look forward to learning a lot this change, but more than that, helping my new companion start to find "That Something". I REALLY need to read that story again.