THIS
WEEK WAS TOTALLY CRAZY!!!!!!!!
Okay, maybe not the
MOST crazy week of my whole mission (there have been some pretty crazy ones, so
maybe we´ll have to take a poll or something and see where this one ranks), but
nonetheless it has been pretty exciting. And I have to say I feel like I
have been officially inaugurated as a Chilean missionary! Wahoo!
This Wednesday and
Thursday was the Conference for New Missionaries, and Hermanas Morán and
Phelps, being new missionaries, got to go. They left early, early in the
morning on Wednesday for Conce and because some of the sisters who work in the
zones in Chillan live too far away to travel from their houses to Chillan in
time to catch their 7:00 AM bus, we had an Hermana Sleepover in our house
Tuesday night! Hooray! Hermana Tidwell, from Yungay, and Hermanas
Taylor and Chavez from Coihueco came and stayed with us. Of course it
wasn´t really a real sleepover because we just planned like normal and then
went to bed like normal, only there were just more Hermanas in the house and
three of them had to sleep on the floor. But it is always fun to get to
see other Hermanas, no matter the circumstances. After our companions
left in the morning and Hermana Chavez (who came on the plane with me and
Hermana Frandsen) had gone to meet her member-companion for the next two days,
Hermana Miskin and I were left together as companions for two days, except in
those hours when we were both able to find members to go out with us. I
liked working with Hermana Miskin a lot. She is a very hard worker and
loves being a missionary. She has had some back problems as a result of a
back surgery she got a year before her mission, and despite the fact that she
is in almost constant pain she works like crazy and is such a good example to
all the sisters in the mission. One thing I really loved about working
with her is her perspecitve. We taught one lesson to this sweet old lady
who listened to our message and everything but in the end would not accept the
invitation to be baptized, nor to pray to see if it is something she should do,
and so we left without having really accomplished anything. Other
missionaries might have been discouraged or felt like they had wasted time, but
Hermana Miskin said as we were leaving the lesson, "Sometimes we just have
to thank Heavenly Father for giving us opportunities to teach and to improve
our teaching." I really liked that. And on top of it all, even
if this sweet old lady was not ready to receive our message in this moment, we
did fulfill our purpose as missionaries, as we invited her to come closer to
Christ. What a blessing to have that opportunity!
We worked the whole
day Wednesday together, partly in our sector and partly in Hermana Miskin´s
sector, and then Thursday we had members as our companions for about half the
day and then our companions (finally) came home around 7 or 8 PM. I
missed Hermana Morán a lot while she was gone, but I remember how much I loved
the conference for new missionaries and how much I learned and I am so looking
forward to reviewing what she learned with her and trying to apply those
principles in order to improve individually and as a companionship and to learn
how to better bless the lives of the people who live in our sector.
The really craziest
thing that happened this week also happened when I was with Hermana Miskin.
After sending our companions off to the bus station, we had another hour
left before it was time to get up, so we went back to bed and then started our
day as normal. We went to the cancha for exercises, where I run and she
does this awesome super-fast powerwalk with weights on her wrists because her
back cannot support her running. Anyway, always when we are in the cancha
various people pass through on their way to work or other daily activities, one
man always joins us in his morning run, and usually we are greeted by a variety
of stray animals. I don´t think I have said much in my emails about dogs
here in Chile, but there are about a thousand of them on every street corner.
It appears that there are either no laws governing the pet population
here, or that they are not very strictly enforced or something, because stray
dogs are 1 peso per dozen. (Just for reference, 1,000 pesos = $2, so 1 peso per
dozen dogs is like, a lot of dogs!) Anyway, we are always being greeted by
stray dogs and so having them in the cancha while we are exercising is really
no big deal. Anyway, this particular morning as I was running my laps a
group of about five dogs came into the cancha, followed by the woman who
wanders around with them. I do not know her well, but she walks with a
large staff that has feathers or something tied around the top and I am not
sure whether or not she has a place to live because I have only ever seen her
in the cancha. As I ran past her and her dogs, she greeted me and I
greeted her and the dogs went merrily on their way across the cancha. As
I completed the lap and came around again, they were still working their way
towards the exit on the other side of the field. As I came toward them
one of the dogs suddenly tensed up, growled, and ran toward me and bit my upper
thigh. I shouted "Aaah!" and the woman yelled,
"¡Sale!" at the dog, which means, "Leave!" and he retreated
and they left the cancha. I was a little startled a having been bitten by
a dog, but I was pretty sure he hadn´t broken the skin, so I just kept on
running. I finished my laps and as we were walking back to the house I
told Hermana Miskin what had happened, and she said she saw something happen
and heard me yell but as I didn´t stop running she assumed everything was okay.
When we got back to
the house, I pulled up my garments and found that he had indeed broken the
skin, but just a tiny bit. There was a big oval bruise with three or four
small scratches in the skin and just a tiny bit of blood. Hermana Miskin
got out the mission instruction booklet to look for the instructions on dog
bites. It says that we are supposed to watch the dog for ten days and see
if it acts normal or if it gets sick and or dies. We are not sure how we
would bring that about, as it was dark and I was bitten by a random stray dog
that I am not sure I would be able to recognize even if I was able to find it
again. So we decided to go to the doctor´s office.
Nearby where we live
in Chillán there is a consultorio that everyone always talks about because it
is across the street from the Church, so we went there. Healthcare is
socialized here in Chile, so there is a lot of waiting in line in a clinic like
that. But luckily a woman from our ward works there and saw us in the
lobby and after finding out what happened, I think she was able to expedite the
process a bit for us. I got sent to see the medic, who gave me a
prescription for an antibiotic and I think some kind of pain medicine, and who
order the rabies and tetanus vaccination series. Wahoo! Next they
sent us to the pharmacy for my prescriptions, then to the vaccination lab, and
finally to "curación," where they cleaned and bandaged the bite.
(There is another part of this story that I do not have time for now, but
which I will add at a later date if you will all help me to remember our
adventure in the office of the podologa....)
I had to go back on
Friday for another curación and I´m going again today for another follow-up,
and then my rabies series continues every 6 days or so for five appointments.
Yipee.
But here is the best
part (besides the fact that I got bit by a dog, which is just hilarious to me)
- after we were all done at the clinic, we went to the front desk to ask them
where we needed to go to pay and they just looked at us like we were crazy.
ALL my medical care was TOTALLY FREE. How cool is that? I
don´t even pay taxes here and they still let me partake of government-funded
healthcare. Chile is so awesome.
And for anyone who was
wondering, getting bit by the dog is really what I consider to be my official
inauguartion as a Chilean missionary. I just think probably there are
very few missionaries who get out of here without some kind of a strange animal
encounter. I´m glad I´ve had mine. And don´t worry - this time we
took pictures!
In other news,
yesterday in Sunday School we talked about the Abrahamic Covenant, and all
those blessings which are promised to the House of Israel. I totally love
learning about this and talking about it, because I just feel Heavenly Father´s
love so much when I think about the promises He has made with His children, and
the fact that we can inherit ALL that He has. It made me remember more
the significance and the importance of my work as a missionary.
Which leads us to your
commitment for this week: Keep on reading that Book of Mormon!
EVERY DAY! And in your Book of Mormon study, I want you to watch
for those references to the House of Israel and the promised blessings for
those who are faithful to their covenant lineage. Lehi and his
descendents, being literal descendents of Joseph and covenant lineage through
their baptismal covenants, are included in this great promise and it is talked
about constantly in the Book of Mormon. Starting in 1 Nephi 2:20, it
says, "And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper,
and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared
for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands." And
this type of promise is repeated over and over. It´s a super fun activity
to look them all up!
Anyway, I love you all
and I am sorry that now it is time to go and I cannot share more of my crazy
and awesome and special experiences with you. But thank you as always for
your love and prayers and for your support.
I love you all so very
much. Know that I know that this gospel is true!
Lovelovelovelovelovelovelovelovelove,
Hermana
"Dog-Bite" Burgess
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