The big update!

As Elder Hirschi's mom, I am soooo sorry I have neglected to update this blog in months!  He is doing well in the New York Rochester Mission, where he is still serving as he awaits his visa to Brazil.  Yes, it's been a loooong time.  That has been the nature of the beast with missionaries getting visas to Brazil.  The New York Rochester mission has been wonderful, and all us well!  I will post several letters to catch up, then will do better posting each week!

December 2, 2013

This week is probably the most eventful week of my mission so far. First of all, in our district we have:

Elder B, Elders V and M, and Sisters J and S, plus me. The names come in to play later:)

This week, on Thanksgiving, we started the day by cleaning the house of one of the coolest members in the world. They were out of town, and we love them so much we decided to clean their house. We began, and getting about 6 hours into it, the boys were lost, having no idea what to do next. Not because it was almost finished, but because it was so messy haha. The girls kept us in check, and after a few trips over a couple of days, we were able to finish cleaning. There's a picture attached that shows one section of our efforts.

I had surgery on Friday. It all went well! Elder B had to wait 6 hours at the hospital from start to finish, but for me it felt like less than an hour. I felt GREAT! When I was in the process of "coming to," I translated some Portuguese with Elder B, solved math problems that he quized me on, said hello to every doctor that passed by, and asked some really random q's about the Gobi desert to the nurse tending to me. I still can't figure out all the weird looks I was getting...so once again I am crutches-bound. But my district is my new family right now, and they for sure treat me like family. I am well looked after every day. We were worried Elder Bird would be bored on Friday after my surgery because I was couch-bound, so we had a BBQ with the district Friday night. We got a gift card for $35 from a member, and me and Elder Bird bought $35 worth of steak for the BBQ with everyone. It was fantastic, until it came back up in the bathroom haha. 

So on Sunday Sister J wasn't feeling well, so we went to the  sister's apartment to give her a blessing of comfort. We talked for a while and it was time to take my pain pills. Before I knew it, I was out for the count! In the meantime, Sister J was getting worse. She's gluten intolerant, and she thinks she ate some gluten over Thanksgiving. We were trying to get her to go to the hospital, and she wouldn't go. She's a total stud. But she should've gone anyway. Because this morning she had to be ambulanced over to the hospital! We went and visited her with the other elders to make sure she was ok. She's doing better and just got the go ahead to leave. 

The point of the story is that even though we're away from our families are far away, sometimes across seas, we still have families here with the people we form friendships with. On a mission, you can't just learn to like the people you're around. You have to learn to take care of them, mourn with them that mourn, walk with those who are discomforted, and be a family when they don't have one. I'm so grateful for the people I teach with and get to know here on a mission. Elder B leaves in 2 and a half weeks, so we're getting another elder named Elder H. He's going to Brazil also! It will be so hard to see Elder B go. He's like a big brother to me, and I'm glad I could meet him and see a great example of a big brother. Well, we have to go pick the Sisters up from the hospital, so I can't respond to any more emails, but love you all!

Love,

Elder Jake Hirschi