Our newest batch of missionaries consisted of only two elders and two Spanish sisters. The other sister arrived several hours later from the Mexico MTC. We sent a set of sister training leaders to the airport to pick her up.
We usually wait until two days later when we bring them back in for training to take their picture to send to their parents.
But this time all three of us had the polka dot theme going on with this particular sister, so we decided to take the picture that very day.
Here's our other new missionary (on the left) eating her lunch very late in the afternoon.
That evening we had our outgoing missionaries come to our home for dinner, testimony meeting and to spend the night. The assistants did their usual good deed of cleaning up the dishes and the kitchen after dinner so we could start right into the testimony meeting part of the evening.
Elder A. Allen, Elder Payne, Elder D. Allen, Elder Wight, Elder Nokes
Sister Benware, Sister Middleton, Hermana Briscoe and Sister Timmons
We got the missionaries deposited at the airport, ate our traditional In-N-Out lunch on our way back home and had just gotten settled at home when we got a phone call that a flight back east had been canceled which affected three of our missionaries. WHAT?!?!?!???
My first thought was their poor parents who had been anticipating this day for a very long time and now it was looking like they weren't going to be getting their missionaries home that day.
How could this be? It wasn't even winter, bad-weather-delay season. It was a mechanical problem. Sheesh!!
Glen got on the phone with the church's travel department and the missionaries trying to figure out what to do. The elders decided they were going to take red eye flights.
Sister Middleton had two layovers and Glen didn't want her dealing with that in the middle of the night, so she got booked on the morning 8:20 a.m. flight. We drove back to the airport to pick her up.
She is such a sweet person and was taking it all in stride. She joked with her companion about how she had told her that she was just going to show up on her doorstep one day back in the mission. Little did she know it would be that very evening.
After I fixed her some dinner, I took her over to the sister training leaders near us (one of them is new and is Sister Middleton's old companion). She was able to spend the night with them and they took her to the airport the next morning.
We were unable to keep her with us because we had an appointment at Urgent Care late that evening. I would have gone in the night before if we didn't have a house full of missionaries spending the night.
I coughed what felt like all night long. Glen was even awake much of the night due to my coughing.
He had some concerns about the fluid in my lungs and wondered if it was my heart not working properly. He wanted to rule out some other things as well, so he ordered a CT scan with contrast of my chest.
I was dreading it because I knew an I.V. was involved.
I'm not opposed to an I.V., in and of itself. It's the many attempts it takes to get an I.V. in a vein that I am vehemently opposed to!!!
One person tried once in my left arm and gave up. The next person tried my right arm and got it right in. HALLELUJAH!!!! I don't even wish for one stick anymore. I'm extremely happy with two!!
He was worried that he might have to tell me I had something horribly wrong with me. Instead, things look great and the scan ruled out all the horrible problems I could have had and he landed on reactive airway disease.
I have a lot of mucous in my lungs and so he added another medication to use in my nebulizer breathing machine and gave me a cough beadlet medication to see if that would help dry up my cough.
We arrived back home in the wee hours of the morning.
We also like the facility where he works and the access he has to the adjacent hospital to get tests done on the spot.
She had walked out of the airport the day before with a ticket after having been told her flight was at 8:20 a.m. That's the flight she was supposed to be on, but they had given her a ticket for a much earlier flight. NIGHTMARE!!
Glen immediately got on the phone once again with the church's travel department and was finally able to get the problem resolved. SIGH OF RELIEF!!!
It was a double sigh of relief when we got notification later in the day that she had indeed made her way across the country safely and into the arms of her family. WHEW!!! Crossing our fingers we never have this fiasco ever again with departing missionaries.
We put on our happy faces to hide our lack-of-sleep and went about our usual activities. This particular day we had a new missionary training meeting with our four newest missionaries and their trainers.
All of our senior couples (past and present) love our missionaries and always want the best for them.
1 comment:
I'm always impressed by the bravery of the sister missionaries willing to jump in skirts! This bunch has clearly perfected the art.
That poor sister missionary who had the double flight issue. I would have been in tears after the first cancellation, then a total wreck after missing the second flight. What a roller coaster of emotions she (and her family) must have been feeling!
And I find enjoyment out of the fact that you guys are getting less sleep than I am with a newborn. Exhausted parents unite!
So glad your lung issue is less severe than it threatened to be!
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