Monday, July 3, 2017

Temples, Trainings, Luaus, and Trips to the Emergency Room

This week must have been the top craziest week of my mission... (the exciting part starts on Friday)

Tuesday we had interviews with President Thomas. I just love talking to that man. I'm grateful to have him as my mission president. We also taught Mike Molina. He read Ether 12 like we asked him and had a great talk about it. He's been investigating for 7 years, so I thought it would be hard to tell him something he hasn't already heard. But we realized that we don't need to focus on what we want him to hear. But more, what he needs to feel. He felt the spirit very strong and I think we are making progress with him!

Wednesday we went to the temple! Wonderful experience. Brother and Sister Welch from Alta Murrieta took us down. It was what I needed.

Thursday I actually gave the training in district meeting. It was on using the Book of Mormon to answer questions and concerns. I took it a different way than normal. Rather than the typical investigator questions like "Why should I be baptized?" or "Why is the word of wisdom important?", I wanted to focus on the deep questions of the soul, like "How can I strengthen my relationship with my family?" and "How can I balance my family life and my career?". Those are a little harder to find scriptures for! At the beginning I had each of the missionaries write down questions they have or have had before on a sticky note. We talked about how we should use the Book of Mormon and apply it. Then I had them use their questions in the role plays and practices. It made it a little more real.
We also stopped by Sadie Taylor and Maria, an elderly member and her investigator friend. They were so much fun!


Friday was absolutely packed! We had MLC in Vista from 9:00AM-3:30PM. It was such a great meeting! Temecula and Murrieta are doing so well! We were able to brainstorm with Temecula ZL's and come up with some ideas to keep our zones pumped. We went straight from there to our YSA Luau. We have been planning it for weeks! It was a regional activity, so all of Riverside and San Diego county were invited. Our YSA bishop, Bishop Beck, is Polynesian and puts on luaus for his job. It was so cool! Elder Gull and Elder Eddins were able to come and help us with the ticket booth.

Late night at the ER:
I learned a lot from this experience... So Elder Gull's leg started swelling really bad and causing extremely bad pains on Wednesday after they played basketball. He doesn't remember any injury that would cause it to hurt, but he was hurting so bad he couldn't go do a temple session on Wednesday. Thursday it was still bothering him, but not too bad. Friday he was fine for MLC, but it started swelling super bad during the luau. By the end of the luau he was hurting really bad. We gave him a blessing and we then determined he needed medical attention. He was in a ton of pain. We followed them over to an urgent care. It was crazy how fast his condition escalated. When we left the church, he didn't want help walking. When he got out of the car at the urgent care we were dragging him on our shoulders. The urgent care said they couldn't do anything for him because of the amount of pain he was in and said we needed to go to the ER. We were just praying and praying as we followed them to the hospital in Temecula. We ended up spending the next 4 hours there. 
As we got there we carried him behind the front desk to this chair. I told the doctor over and over that he needed pain medicine NOW! Elder Gull is one tough kid, and he said he was a 9.5 out of 10. The nurse said, "No you don't need pain meds yet. You need to calm down. You need to slow down your breathing." I didn't like that... I was getting so frustrated. I about lost my mind when he handed me a breathing mask and told me to hold it on Gull's face. I thought, "Oh brilliant! A breathing mask! Yeah, Doc! That will make the swelling and pain in his leg go away..." I was very humbled when Elder Gull stopped hyperventilating, his pain declined. That taught me a lesson I will elaborate on in a minute. After we finished paperwork and waited for what felt like forever, he was taken back and they did some test. They couldn't find anything, so he was diagnosed with a severe muscle strain. They gave him pain killers (he wasn't responding to them. That's why we were there til 1:30.) and he walked himself out on crutches.

So here's what I learned... A lot of the time we think we know what we need. But more often than not, we don't. If I was in control I would have injected the most powerful pain killer in Gull's arm the minute we got there thinking that would solve the problem. But it wouldn't. The nurse knew that Elder Gull needed to settle down and do his part in order to solve the problem. I feel like we are the same way with Heavenly Father a lot of the time. We have a problem and we ask for them to go away. However, that's usually contrary to the will of Heavenly Father. He didn't give us trials and problems to simply take them away when we ask Him to. That would be absolutely counterproductive. However, that doesn't mean He is leaving us on our own to figure out and suffer with no help from Him. Just like the nurse, His full purpose is to help. The best thing we can do is 1) listen to what He wants to do, 2) be humble enough to accept that we don't know everything and He knows best, and 3) give our full hearts to doing God's will. Too often do people turn their backs on God because they don't like the answer they got. They felt abandoned and cheated. God doesn't abandon or cheat. It's not in his nature. He is unable to do that. We abandon God and cheat ourselves of opportunities to grow and develop. I know that Jesus Christ felt the pains and frustrations of our trials, so as we trust God and rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ we can accomplish all things! I love this gospel and am grateful for the chance I have to share it with others.

Elder Kapp



Temple Trip

Luau



We had to do our "tiki faces" in front of everyone there. 

Kevin Johnston (He's Dax's twin)

The big poly guy with is our bishop!

                                      ER with Elder Gull



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