Dusting Yourself Off

playing games at fhe!!!!! if you lose you get a mark.....

he he guess who lost YOURS TRULY! 

Whow. I've survived this crazy emotional week!  Here I will tell you all about it, but its a slow typing day cause I sliced my finger on the mop and so my typing is all awkward. Poor little finger is having a hard day.

Ok. So if you recall with me, my last email sounded pretty sad, pretty down in the dumps, huh? Well ya, I pretty much fell in those dumps this week, but I've climbed out! Victory!

Alright it goes like this. Tuesday morning Sis M. was sick, so I let her sleep in the morning. In my personal study I was all alone, and opened my scriptures and just let the tears flow. Mama and Papa I read your kind inspirational words and just let the tears come out. In the middle of my pity party the AP's call and say I need to come over and go on splits with 2 sisters for the morning while their companions were at mlc...blah! I wipe up the tears and its go time. We study and split with those two sisters, we have no food so I think up something to go get and cook and then clean up after all of us and after more study were about to go out. I'm brushing my teeth and a random number calls our phone. I answer it only to be greeted by a frantic sounding lady telling us that she is calling from Washington state and her brother just got hit in a motorcycle accident and was in ICU in Bicol medical hospital, in our area. The lady was a member but her brother was not, and she asked if we could send some elders and give him a blessing. She only knew the name of her brother and his wife, so I took it down, spit out my toothpaste, and told her we would do all that we could to help. I had no idea how she got our number, but she said she specifically wanted to talk to sisters. Well, she called the right ones. I took on this sister's request like it was my own brother!

planners. ang dami na.

We went to the mish home right after to deliver the sisters back to their companions, and I thought it would be perfect because all of our elder- leaders were there and surely someone could help. I explain the situation to some of them, but they point to the next companionship. I explain it again, they have somewhere to go. I explain it to another elder, he's got to go somewhere too. Slowly but surely, all of the elders filed out, full of excuses and pointing fingers to the person next to them. WHAT!? At this point I was getting desperate, I was pleading with anyone to come help. But, nope. They all were gone. I felt so helpless and defeated! Seriously!? I mean I know that they all had legit excuses, but come on. I bet every time in their lives they will be asked to use their priesthood there will be something else to do.

Finally our beloved district leader says he can be there in 30 mins. (He said he needed time to repent and to change his shirt..haha how awesome!) In the meantime I was talking to Sis Reeder because my throat was killing me and my tonsils felt all inflamed and ouch.  She gave me an antibiotic to go buy. Anyways, so we finally rounded up some elders. Next task. Find this guy in this huge hospital with only his name to go on. We walked everywhere, up and down, asking and trying to find him in that hot hot hospital. I saw sooo many people that were sad, crying, sick, people after people we just kept passing them trying to find this guy. Finally we did! It was a miracle. He was in this long room at the very end, he had internal bleeding in his brain from the crash. I wanted to cry when I saw him, he looked so bad :(

The people next to him were literally open and exposed getting operated on, I wanted to puke. This one guy was conscious, with his side sliced open, 3 people holding him down and someone holding a tube pumping air into a hole in his throat.  He was wriggling all around....AHH I hate hospitals!! People were in the hall with tears in their eyes and I just looked in to the room at the elders blessing the lady's brother even though I don't think he could hear a word. I just wanted to cry! So much pain! I really think I have that thing that the blonde lady has on Reba, where other people's pain and sick becomes her own haha.

this is us soaking from the rain- i wish i could describe that 

downpour to you in a way for you to understand. there aren't words. 

We left the hospital and went to the pharmacy to get my meds cause I felt so terrible. We were in the hospital for such a long time that we didn't get to work that much, so I just shove the medicine in my bag and we go straight to work. We're walking by a member's restaurant, and who do I see but the elders, just chillin, watching the news and eating. WHAT! hell-oooo?? there is work to DO people!! I was so disappointed- just barely finished stepping up to the plate and now they think they deserve a break. Of course I march in there, give them a good long look to make them guilty. Good I hope they DO feel guilty. whatever. We then went straight to teach our investigator and he's got some word of wisdom problems and so we're still trying to work it out and help him and teach and just do anything. During the lesson though my eyes were falling shut, I think I was just so exhausted from the past couple of weeks and my body was finally catching up and starting to feel it. My throat hurt so bad and I could hardly talk, and after work I just crashed. I didn't wake up till the next day, and I could hardly make any noise because of my stupid throat. I was on the antibitics but it takes some time to work. Sis Reeder told me I need to stay in, mother's orders. noooooO!!!! I don't want to stay in!! But I really felt so physically and emotionally exhausted.

I moved my bed mat into the spare room cause it's dark there, turned on the electric fan and off the light, and just laid there. I couldn't sleep cause there was so much stress and pain in my head, so stressed about the area, so sad for all those people in the hospital, so many FEELINGS and I couldn't turn it off.  So I didn't, I just laid there in my dark little pit and cried it out. It felt so...low.  Agh. worst day ever. At the end of it my eyes were red and I was tired of feeling in a funk. I had the elders come give me a blessing because I couldn't get up on my own, physically or emotionally.

After that I just needed to get out, so I crawled up to our roof top. I was so sick of being inside so it was nice to go up there, even though the tree next to me was filled with bats and there were

check out your inspiring words on my wall!

cockroaches crawling around. Whatever, at least there was fresh air!! I had your emails I printed out last week, and read them. I read all the comments saying how "strong" and "brave" I was, and I just laughed. HA! strong? brave? I've just been curled up in a ball all day in the dark crying cause I don't want to face reality. NOT feeling pretty strong or amazing at all.

I look up at the stars, they are so few and so faint because of the city lights. Awh, I feel for those little stars. I bet they are trying so hard to shoot out some ray of light though the thick darkness that threatens to swallow them. I bet they feel really far away from the next star and pretty lonely. I wonder if they worry that they are making any difference at all. They are so outnumbered, the black is undoubtedly more vast and spacious than their tiny pin-point specks of light. I wish I could just shout out to them and tell them that they are closer to the next star than they think, that I can see their glow! I wish they could sit in my place and look up instead of down and see what a beautiful sight they are. I wondered if they were trying to say the same thing to me, that I'm really not that far from home at all, that all my efforts to shine and bring light into the world ARE making a difference, even if its just a pin point. Ironically, I bet life being a star probably feels pretty dim. All they can do is look out and see darkness and have no idea of their own light. Me too, I may not feel strong, my eyes may be puffy and red, I may just be a tiny dim star in this vast world, trying my best to do my best. Whatever, stupid darkness, you're not beating me! You may have got me down for one day but I am dusting myself off, and gonna go shine some more!

The next day it felt so good to get out. Even though it was the same old area with the same problems and stress, hey at least I wasn't confined in a sick bed. We worked with some future elders in our ward, they are awesome! Our day went pretty lousy though as far as lessons. Oh missions are so crazy and some things are just so out of your control. People make me laugh.

supriiiiiiissssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

(see i totally look like im having the most fun in this picture haha)

The next day was sis s's bday, so I had this great idea to use the oven in the Hoopes' apartment and cook some brownies! Long story, but in the end we were heading home in a trycee, me on the outside motor, holding a glass pan of hot brownies with 2 hot pads. Needless to say, the stares I got were just great :) haha what a sight! We surprised her really good and I think I may have enjoyed her bday more than her. I just love bdays and party and surprises! Especially the surprises part!

The next day we had an adult session of stake conference, it was a video broadcast about the ward correlation meeting. I think the point of it was to watch and then point out our own mistakes and things that aren't right instead of them saying it straight to us. It was good, horribly cheesy acting, the ideal ward fully representing minorities of latino, asian, african american, and women. yay! Anyways after the video our stake had a discussion about it, come up to the mic and say what we can improve on thing. After tons of comments from bishops and other leaders, the stake president stood up, and called "Sister McGrath, could you come and share with us?" I was summoned to come up. WHAT!! awjeuirjsvjsutjiojvs! I had no idea President Gamil even knew my name let alone choose me from hundreds of people! I gulped and started to make my way all the way to the front...asking desperately to everyone I was passing what his question was. I really didn't hear it. Luckily he repeated it, and I whipped out some sort of comment and pulled the whole thing off alright I think.

Other stuff happened this week too but thats the jist of it, my falling in the pit story and crawling out of it again. Now my finger hurts so bad from typing all that, there's like steam coming out of it and he's crying. I have to let him rest. Ok, ok! thats all! Thank you for the prayers and care and love and wonderful things that you are! I love you!!

Love Sis McGrath