Sister Katie Heilner's Mission: Week 51: I hate Socialism

June 2, 2014

Geliefde Familie:

So I know a lot of missionaries that have had to spend days in the hospital, and I figured that at some point it would happen to me, but...no I didn't. I didn't think it would EVER happen to me. But, at about 10:45 pm yesterday, we were lying in bed (and Zr. A's stomach had already been hurting), and she was like, "what side is your appendix on?" and then it all began. A lot of miracles. The ZLs and the Senior Couple were still awake because of freak things, so they were able to come right over and give her a blessing and then the senior couple took us to the hospital where we did a lot of sitting and Zr A did a lot of squeezing my hand while they took her blood (she hates needles) and we answered a lot of questions. Poor woman. She's so strong. They ended up telling us that there wasn't any infection YET, but if she still wanted to die because of pain in the morning, to come back and they'd have the blood results back. So we woke up and it wasn't better. She had really only slept because of the pain killers they'd given her. We sat some more, took more blood, sat. UIT EINDELIJK, we found out that she just has a bowel infection and that it will go away eventually. She's tough.

We then got home and rested for a while and then went to a field hockey game with the rest of our district because someone in the ward got free tickets for us. Man, I wish I was athletic.

Mom, thanks so much for sending that part of the priesthood talk. I'm really looking forward to reading it. I talked to Zr Robinson about this a few times actually. I'm really thankful for the Priesthood, but that's a huge calling. I'm learning from Zr Robinson how to be a support to the Priesthood. The men in this Church need women who understand their calling and are willing to work with and help them. I was actually congratulated my last zone training by Sister Robinson for how well I worked with the Zone Leaders. Thanks for the help, pops. She asked me to share with the rest of the ZTLS what I do to make sure I'm in unity with them.

N held our hands this week. We're taking E on joint teach next time. She's not a member yet, but she knows this is true (she was an amazing joint teach last week. We brought her to an appointment with G since he hasn't been coming to church and she really helped him.) And she won't let anything weird happen. We were watching "Getuigers van Christus" (Witnesses of Christ) and everything was going really well. Then he told us to scoot apart and sat right between us and held our hands for like five seconds before we asked him what the heck he was doing. Then he was trying to talk about women being important to the church...our poor recent convert Es came with us. I bet she'll never come with us ever again. We were really grossed out and we're probably dropping him.

E is so cool. I love her. She's been investigating for a long, long time. She told Zr A that when we got here, she knew we'd be the missionaries that would see her into the waters of baptism. That was really cool to hear. She loves the missionaries and always has our backs.

There's a member here name Siegried van der Put. She is AWESOME. She's like 75 or 80 and she reminds me a lot of Oma. She went on a zillion missions and is STILL a missionary. She bore her testimony on Sunday. I hope that I can help others feel the Spirit the way she does. She's so humble and she knows what is most important. I'm grateful for her example here. Also, I know Oma was a flirt when she was younger (and sometimes even still) and Zr vd Put is kind of like that too. She's just fun. She gives us Dutch lessons too.

Last comment: you know you're not in America when you're planning a ward activity and people have problems with a donut-on-a-string activity. They couldn't figure out how the logistics would work or how it would be fun. The quote was, "but how high then must they hang?" lol.

IK HOU VAN JULLIE! en ik weet dat het Boek van Mormon waar is.

Veel liefs,
Zr Heilner