Week 62 Letter

I didn't get a letter from Tony on Monday and I was wondering why.  This is what I got on Thursday.

Thursday, Aug 7, 2014

Hi Sister Lee, sweet mother of many,
I wanted to let you know that our wonderful Elder Lee injured his foot playing soccer.  I believe he has a partially torn ligament by his ankle.  He can probably explain it better to you when he writes.  The doctor up in Bragança put a brace/cast on it.  We have brought him in to Lisbon where he will work in the office and stay off his feet more.  He is on crutches. We are sending his x-rays to our advising Dr. in Germany today to get his opinion.  We will get him another apt with a Dr. here in Lisbon.  We surely love your sweet, optimistic, loving son!
Thank you for raising such a fine son!

With great love,
Sister Dorothy Fluckiger
Portugal

The sign says "There is not a weak body when the heart is strong".  (I love my Tony)

Then I got this on Friday...

Friday, Aug 8, 2014

Hey mom, I don't think you'll get this for a few days, but I'm not sure. Sister Fluckiger said she already informed you, but yeah, my ankle is messed up. I am in the office of the mission, because I can't really do much. I wanted to work, but president wouldn't let me. I am in a cast. It has already been a week and a half. I couldn’t tell you on Monday because I was on a bus to from up north to down south here in Lisbon. I didn't have a chance to use a computer. Now, here in the office, we do Pday on Friday, so don't bother waiting for me on Monday, I won't be there. 

The doc said that ligaments are torn. One is especially bad, but luckily nothing is completely torn or I would be having surgery I think. The doctor said at least 4 weeks in a cast. I don't know what is going to happen when I take off the cast, if I’ll be able to walk, or what. It hurts right now, but I think it is healing. 

I'm good though. I wasn't happy about coming to the office, but I have been a big help here so the elders here so are thankful. Luckily president only puts good elders in the office, so I am here with friends. Elder Collier who was in the MTC is in here as executive secretary, and the son of a family I know really well is here too. We've become really good friends really fast. I don't know if you remember that high priest who would come to both Regua and Bragança every month, Rui Braga. Yeah, it's his son who is here with me. 

So I am sad to not be doing missionary work on the street (we teach maybe a lesson a day as office elders, it is CRAZY busy in here) and I am going a little crazy, but I am okay and happy at the same time. Don't worry. 

Love you,

Tony

Mom, I don’t know how long I will be here. The transfer ends soon and it would be nice to leave at transfers. I am fine. I never had x-rays with a Germany doctor but we will send them to him for his opinion today. No doc apt until next week, the 14th. I do a lot in the office, I can't really explain all of it. Right now I am working on translating a 13 page document for president. A couple days ago we had to make plans, find hotel rooms, and feed 57 missionaries that were evacuated from Sierra Leone, an African mission because of a breakout of a killer disease. We give a lot of rides. I schedule flights.  It is a lot.

And the I got this at like 1:00 am Tony's time???????

Friday night, Aug 8, 2014

Famlee!

Well, this has been an interesting week and few days...  Not really ideal. 

Let me explain.

Last week one night we were teaching Romeu and Ana a lesson on the street, because we didn't really have another good place to teach them. The lesson went well. At the end of the lesson some other youth showed up, a couple of them being investigators. They had a soccer ball with them, and wanted us to play. We said no, but Elder Tavares started showing them some tricks with the ball, just juggling. So we started lust juggling the ball around with them. Well, someone kicked the ball out of the circle, so I ran to go get it. It was getting late and it was dark out, and I don't really know what happened. I don't know if my foot landed on the ball or in a ditch or what, but I fell over my ankle. I knew right away I had twisted it nicely, but it didn't feel like anything special. It hurt, and it got hot, but not anything different than the other several times I have twisted my ankle. 

We walked home, me limping, but managing. When we got home I called the Elders in my district like normal and reported to the Zone leaders. We set the alarm on our phone for 4:45 am because the next day we needed to travel to Porto for a zone meeting. I put some ice on the ankle just to be safe, it was getting a little bit swollen, and then went to bed. 

The next morning I woke up to the alarm. However, I quickly realized that we would not be travelling to Porto that morning. My ankle was on fire, I don't even know how I was sleeping. I called for Elder Tavares to turn on the light, and when he did I saw that my ankle was huge. It hurt pretty darn badly. I tried, but could put 0 weight on it, or a screaming pain would shoot up my leg. 

Great. Just great.

I called up our zone leaders, and told them I wasn't going to be able to travel. Then I got the ice again and slapped it on. From 5 o clock on I didn't sleep. I couldn't. It was really bad. When 8 o'clock came around I called Sister Fluckiger (Wife of the mission president) who is in charge of the health of all of the missionaries. I have gotten to know her really well, and she is amazing. Well, I told what happened, and she told me to wait a day, and if things continued like this that I would go in to the hospital. Well, I spent the day in the house. I hated it. To that point I hadn't had a single day on the mission that I didn't suit up and go work. So, I had Elder Tavares carry me down the stairs and we taught a lesson to Romeu and Ana sitting on the street in front of our house and after that we contacted the few people who passed. At around 7 o clock, things were really bad. The ankle was killing me. It was also even more swollen, it looked like a balloon. It was also crooked, which had me pretty worried. I called Sister Fluckiger and told her this, and she told me to go in that night. 

We hitched a ride with a member to the hospital to take advantage of a really well set up health care program- cough cough... (You get what you pay for)- and to see what was going on with my ankle. We did x-rays and after waiting the doctor told me I had a very serious sprain, that I had nearly tore all the way through one ligament and that 2 others were severely injured as well (don't worry mom, ligaments aren't important... remember that one in my wrist that might still be torn to this day?). He put me in a cast then and there. I don’t know if that was the best decision seeing as the ankle was still super swollen, but hey, I guess he's the one who knows, right? As he was putting on the cast he felt the need to force my ankle to move here and there, and that just about made me kick him in the teeth with my good foot. Almost. I asked him how long I would be in the cast, and he said four weeks- at least. 

Luckily the member who drove me to the hospital had a friend with crutches he wasn't using that I could use. Unluckily they were the world’s worst crutches... They were the kind that has a ring for you to feed your arm though and a handle for you to grab with your hands. They don't rest under the armpit, but instead all of the weight rests on the hands and wrists (not easy on the left wrist which still gives grief with things like this). Well, after another long night, I called President to ask him if I could try to work just a little with the crutches. He said no. That meant I would have the first day of my mission that I wouldn't work. Well, we stayed in the house and I tore into the area book, as well as 'Jesus the Christ', trying not to think about all of the opportunities we were missing not being on the street. I was not feeling good about the fact that I had messed up my own ankle. 

Well, time passed. I asked President a couple of times what he would do with me, but he still hadn't decided. He told me he would need to study and pray more. Half a week or so later, the next Sunday, President and Sister Fluckiger were in the north (in fact they were in my old area in Régua). They had planned to pass by our area while they were up north to do a district Pday with us and the Elders in Mirandela. We planned a fun little day. We went to the castle here in Bragança, and it was a super fun day. I had to do a lot of stair climbing on my crutches, which was scary and sister Fluckiger sure didn't like it, but I managed =) However the crutches were killing my hands. 

There was a plaque I found at the castle that said, 'Não ha corpo fraco onde o coração é forte,' and showed Sister Fluckiger telling her it applied to me. She loved it, and we laughed pretty good about it. It means, 'There is no weak body where the heart is strong.' She took a picture of me in front of it, and then sent it to me. I will attach the photo for you.

In the end, I had to pack my bags. After our district P-day with president and sister Fluckiger I had to catch a bus for a long ride down to Lisbon. I would be the newest office Elder. Fortunately office Elders have a really good reputation in our mission, because some of the best missionaries get called to the office here. Even though I had to cheat to get into that group, I am now in it ;) To be honest, I really don't want to be here. But, God knows what is going on. It is just really hard to keep from going a little crazy when my entire desire is to go do work on the streets with the people, but can't. However, like mom stated really truly, it is the Lord's work all the same. I feel like the Lord blesses us a lot here, because basically everything we do is a service to the missionaries either personally or impersonally of the mission, and in the case of this crazy week other missions as well. I guess that is the best part of the office. We get to be servants of a lot of missionaries. 

I don't know how you picture the mission office, but it definitely isn't a boring place. We are constantly busy, running around, picking up Elders and Sisters, getting them where they need to be, arranging flights, I've been translating a 13 page talk for President that he wants to start using as a focus for the mission... we are busy. Quick examples of some of the excitement we get- Tuesday we had to accommodate 57 missionaries evacuated from an African mission because of a deadly disease, Ebola I think. We had to figure out flights, rooming, how we would feed them, how we would transport them from the airport to the hotel and then from the hotel to the airport the next morning... everything. And we had 0 hours of notice. It was just like, ''Hey, we need your help. We are going to have 57 missionaries coming tonight. Can you figure this out?'' Luckily everything worked out well. Elder Collier and Totland however didn't sleep all night, they were giving rides, figuring out problems with flights, everything. They literally did not sleep. Elder Braga and I were luckier, we got 4 hours of sleep. 

The very next night we lost a Sister. She was a part of a group coming in to renew her residency, but she had to fly in from the Azores. She was supposed to fly with her companion, but for some reason that didn't happen. Elder Braga and I were at the airport at 11 pm when she was supposed to arrive, but there was no sign of her. Her phone was not working, and we couldn't get a hold of her. We confirmed with the airport that the flight had landed, and confirmed with her companion on the island that she was on that flight. Well, we had no idea where she was. Luckily we found her an hour later, and everything worked out all right.

As you can tell, things are pretty high paced here. You at least don't have to worry about me being bored to death in the office. I just hope I am ready to get out and back into the field by the end of the transfer at the end of next week. We'll see. 

Well, right now it is 12:50 at night. We are waiting for 2 sisters to get in on a flight from Madeira. The flight was supposed to get in an hour ago, but it was of course delayed. So now we are waiting. I need sleep, but I can sleep when I'm dead, right?

I love you all. Pray that I can get back to work on the streets. Don't worry about me. I am fine. I am thankful for all the office elders in the whole world. Pray for them too if you think about it. 

With lots of love,

Elder Lee

Hey Mom, 

It is 1 30 in the morning here. Blaah, office life. The only reason I can kind of talk to you is because I didn’t have an email time today. We are waiting for sisters to come in from Madeira to give them a ride from the airport. I am tired, but okay =)  the document is English to Portuguese. It is a really good talk, but full of quotes from early prophets and apostles speaking really complicated old English, and it is not the easiest to translate. I could easily do a half decent job, but it needs to be really good, so it takes time. Which I haven’t had lately. I need to get it done by the end of the week, which leaves... 2 days.  I will get up at 7. No problem. We just are hoping this flight gets here soon. I think it will land around 2.  The flight just landed, I gotta go. I won’t be on until next Friday I think. I sure love you. Send my love to the fam. Don’t worry about me I will be okay.

LOVE, Elder Lee