A Wacked Out Week

A pizza for the goodbyes of Elder Santos Araujo 

and the other Sister who is leaving too (the one on the far left)

8/17/2015
This week was very wacked out with lots of odd and different stuff that happened. After an exchange that I had with Elder Belleville on Tuesday I woke up Wednesday in the early morning with stomach pains. Uh oh that's right, so I spent the entire morning with bad stomach virus stuff throwing up diarrhea etc. (And this had to happen the week after Dad asked me if I had been sick from the food and stuff yet and I said no haha thanks for jinxing it Dad) In the afternoon I decided to take some anti-diarrhea medicine that I've had with me since the beginning of the mission, which did what it said it would do but shortly after I was overcome with exhaustion and body pains etc. and I knocked out until around 8:30 when I finally woke back up I had a fever of 100.7 F and read on the side effects of the medicine "drowsiness, tiredness, dizziness" and to ask a doctor before use if I had fever. So I was like (excuse my french) "oh crap" (haha it's funny after) Elder Santos Araujo was a good sick helper he even make me chicken noodle soup when I woke up at night. So besides the fact that I think the second half of the day I was suffering more the effects of the dern medicine I just took some Advil to help the fever and in general, went to sleep and woke up much better the next day. On the bright side this was the first time in my entire mission that I've had to stay home because I was sick which is pretty lucky. And I hope that I will wait another year and a half or more to throw up again too. 

It was a good thing that I got better because I had to travel to Santa Rosa that night (Thursday) for a baptismal interview which went well. And when I got back from the interview around 10:00pm I came into our room and I saw the transfers sheet on the desk! (As zone leaders we are emailed a spreadsheet with all the missionaries and where they are and where they will be transferred to etc. so that we can call everyone to tell them where they were transferred to.) So I grabbed the transfer sheet and here's the news: I'm staying here in Santo Ângelo but I'm gonna have a new companion who is another old friend named Elder Navas. He was my zone leader back in Livramento while I was district leader so that's a bit funny that now we are working together. He is nicknamed the bishop of the mission because he is 26 years old haha but he's a great guy and I already know that we get along well. 

Anyway so the next day, Friday, Elder Santos Araujo had to travel early in the morning to São Luiz Gonzaga to do some baptismal interviews there. But we didn't have any time to plan our day or even mark with anyone to stay with me until Elder Santos Araujo would come back. So I scrambled calling some people and thankfully we have a guy who is preparing to leave for his mission in a bit and he's already left his work and everything so that he can go and so he was available all day to stay with me. And it was a good thing too because some wacky stuff happened with the timing of the interview in the other city with Elder Santos Araujo and he wasn't able to get back here in Santo Ângelo until 8:00pm. Also that was my first time "alone" in the area having to lead everything which is good practice seeing as I'll have to show the entire area to my new companion. But yea between being sick and traveling and baptismal interviews and all my week was kind of wacked up and I don't think this next week will be much calmer traveling to Santa Maria for the mission council tomorrow morning and having a new companion and all that great stuff that we do as missionaries :)

Anyway Love you all and have a great end of the summer!

Elder Pierce