Familia!

This week has been crazy. I think I made it pretty clear last week had some rough moments haha, but this week I have felt very happy, peaceful, and excited about the work. So thank you for all the prayers and support, I really appreciate it. 

The other day we were teaching a lesson to a family who has all been recently baptized (except the parents who are waiting to be married), and I realized that the 9 year old daughter was writing my name in the margin of her Book of Mormon. My initial instinct was to tell her not to doodle in her scriptures, but then I thought of 1) all the dumb things I wrote/colored in my first set, and 2) that she would look back through her scriptures at some point and remember that I had been one of the missionaries who taught her. The thought of that made me feel so grateful to be a missionary. It´s crazy how much I already love all the people. And the kids are awesome. My second day here I bought a bag of suckers to hand out, and I gave out like 10 within 2 or 3 hours. I´m pretty sure my comp thought I was overdoing it, but it made me feel better haha. Even if the people don´t know me that well yet, at least the kids do.

My companion started having stomach pain earlier this week, and we figured she had eaten something bad. She threw up a few times during the next day and a half, but was pretty good the following day. However, on Thursday she got really sick again and was having stomach pain, so we stayed in for a few extra hours. The next day (she was feeling better) we talked to Hermana Hansen, and she recommended going to the clinic. So on Saturday morning we went to the hospital, thinking we´d only be there a few hours for a check up. 

They gave her an ultrasound and a CAT scan and turns out she has kidney stones because she hasn´t had enough water. They told us that they needed to run some more tests and that we needed to stay the night. We wanted to leave. However, it´s a good thing we didn´t because, upon further examination, one of the stones is massive, and can´t pass without being broken up. 

For a while we thought she was going to have to leave to have the surgery, but I called President Hansen and also talked to the doctor in the Lima CCM (who then called the Bolivian doctor), and apparently it´s safe enough to have here. So, the two of us have been in the same hospital room since Saturday morning (expept for right now since two other hermanas came so I could write you guys), with only the things that we had brought for tracting. No extra clothes, no tooth brushes, only our scriptures and pamphlets. Some really nice Elders have brought us food and finally a DVD player because we were dying of boredom, which means my poor companion has had a ton of time to stress about her operation. It´s not too complicated, and we should be able to leave tomorrow night or the following morning. But, if it doesn´t work, then she needs an actual surgery, and we´ll be in the hospital for seven more days. I feel so bad for her, but she´s handled it pretty well.

Anyway, I´m running out of time, but the baptism sounded awesome, and I wish I could´ve been there! I loved the pictures. Thank you again for all the support, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Rupp