Week 19 - Health Adventures

written: 5/10/2021

Week 19

This was definitely one of the hardest weeks of my life. I am thankfully finally improving in regards to my health but I was out of commission for almost one whole week. It all started with stomach problems that weren't improving. Finally on Tuesday night, Elder Calderon and I had to make a trip to the hospital. We entered the hospital at around 830pm. They asked me a lot of questions that I barely understood and after some very interesting tests performed on me, they hooked me up to an IV without saying anything. They sat me down in a recliner and told me to wait 2 hours. By the time my IV was finished, it was about 11pm. They came to my recliner with a wheelchair and wheeled me to get a scan of my abdomen and after this, we had to wait 2 more hours. At this point, I fell asleep and woke up at 130am to the doctor talking to Elder Calderon and they had a diagnosis finally. An intestinal infection with gastroenteritis. Yikes. After we talked to the front desk and got everything situated, we had to scramble and call everyone to get a ride back to our house because I was still sick and we were not about to walk home at 2am. Thankfully we finally got ahold of the senior missionaries who were able to take us home. When we were finally going to bed it was a little before 3am. What a night, what an experience. For Wednesday and Thursday we were just in the house, I was sleeping almost all day, only eating some bread, soup, ginger ale, and Gatorade. Finally, my health was on the upswing starting on Friday and I am doing much better now. I am still on a diet, but I can slowly introduce foods back into my eating schedule to make sure my stomach doesn't explode again. 

Other than my crazy health this week, we did have something really awesome happen!! We have a BAPTISMAL DATE WOO! Our amigo Claudio accepted the invitation to be baptized and we have a date for June 4th. We are so excited for him and we have been teaching him for months now, and he really is an amazing person. 

Lastly, I received a new companion this week! My training is officially over and I am going to be companions with Elder Saavedra. He is from Chile and I will actually be his last companion, as he goes home in June! He is really funny, knows a lot of english, and will be a great help in all our english classes, especially with our english class for the mission starting this Tuesday. 

Although very hard, I still am thankful I am here in Chile and I know I can do hard things and that with Christ with me every step of the way, I can overcome my trials and hard times. Don't ever give up!

Love, Elder Collin Steele

pictures include:  IVs are never fun!; Exhausted!; and Me and Elder Saavedra