Week 57: We Are the Champions
Dear Loved Ones,
Man, it must suck to be a missionary in San Francisco right now. GO CHIEFS! I watched the first and most of the second quarter at my bishop's house before going home so my companion could pack (she finishes her mission on Thursday). I followed the rest of the game through Facebook and fireworks. We could hear the win long before anyone posted it or texted us about it. The four of us in our apartment ran around the building looking for the best balcony to watch fireworks while the people of Independence erupted into war whoops and gunshots. I've never cared much about football before, but I've never lived in an NFL city, let alone a Super Bowl city. So I got into it.
Now, car crash update.
Since June, when I first took a companion to the doctor, I have been planning a lengthy expose on mission health care mismanagement. But I am too exhausted to catalog exhausting things this week. Instead, I want to talk about backs and shoulders and Super Bowl.
We were leaving an appointment with a lady named Loretta when we got in the crash. Loretta was our most steady person. We could count on her to keep appointments, though she never read scriptures, came to church, or remembered much of what we taught her. We've seen her over four months and we were finally, finally on the brink of getting her to church. One week after the crash, I woke up to bad back pain and didn't leave bed for hours. And when I finally did, my phone buzzed. After months with her, after getting in a car crash for her, Loretta wrote us a very flowery break up text about how she loves us but, in excerpt, "I find I am Unable to Accept Your views on Certain Religious Beliefs, so I will not Be joining Your Church. You R Very Special to Me."
Can't be too special if she's dropping us.
Because luddite mission law bars me from my beloved Apple music subscription, all my music, all of it, comes from filesharing. A lot of recordings are filched from YouTube and we have to cope with whatever background noise makes it into the audio. For months I've been listening to the song Shoulders by For King And Country. I'm pretty sure the music video features a car crash because there's some screeching brakes and shattering glass between the first verse and chorus. And those are the sounds I heard during my car crash.
I kept reliving the sounds in the days following the crash, and because I've trained my brain on the song, the chorus lyrics autoplay in my mind after the destruction.
On Wednesday after going the chiropractor, I was sitting in the visitors' center with my eyes on the Christus and lyrics came into my mind.
"My help comes from you. My rock, you're pulling me through. You carry my weakness, my sickness, my brokenness all on your shoulders, your shoulders."
Jesus Christ carries my pain on his shoulders. That was one of my good insights in an otherwise rough week. I've cried several times, just because I'm not writing an expose this week doesn't mean I'm cheery.
Later in the week, I woke up with back pain
Another one came from a Facebook post I saw with picture of Thomas S. Monson that said, "The Lord will shape the back to bear the burdens placed upon it." And that helped.
That car crash wasn't the hardest thing I've gone through in my life. The day I was barred from serving a mission, the day I got my two-transfer call to, and a lot of dark nights in between were harder. But last Saturday is the closest I've even been to death. I know God is shaping my back to bear the physical burdens in the aftermath and all the emotional turmoim and fallout I've had from sundry stresses this week. And I had a Super Bowl win to cap it off!
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
Man, it must suck to be a missionary in San Francisco right now. GO CHIEFS! I watched the first and most of the second quarter at my bishop's house before going home so my companion could pack (she finishes her mission on Thursday). I followed the rest of the game through Facebook and fireworks. We could hear the win long before anyone posted it or texted us about it. The four of us in our apartment ran around the building looking for the best balcony to watch fireworks while the people of Independence erupted into war whoops and gunshots. I've never cared much about football before, but I've never lived in an NFL city, let alone a Super Bowl city. So I got into it.
Now, car crash update.
Since June, when I first took a companion to the doctor, I have been planning a lengthy expose on mission health care mismanagement. But I am too exhausted to catalog exhausting things this week. Instead, I want to talk about backs and shoulders and Super Bowl.
We were leaving an appointment with a lady named Loretta when we got in the crash. Loretta was our most steady person. We could count on her to keep appointments, though she never read scriptures, came to church, or remembered much of what we taught her. We've seen her over four months and we were finally, finally on the brink of getting her to church. One week after the crash, I woke up to bad back pain and didn't leave bed for hours. And when I finally did, my phone buzzed. After months with her, after getting in a car crash for her, Loretta wrote us a very flowery break up text about how she loves us but, in excerpt, "I find I am Unable to Accept Your views on Certain Religious Beliefs, so I will not Be joining Your Church. You R Very Special to Me."
Can't be too special if she's dropping us.
Because luddite mission law bars me from my beloved Apple music subscription, all my music, all of it, comes from filesharing. A lot of recordings are filched from YouTube and we have to cope with whatever background noise makes it into the audio. For months I've been listening to the song Shoulders by For King And Country. I'm pretty sure the music video features a car crash because there's some screeching brakes and shattering glass between the first verse and chorus. And those are the sounds I heard during my car crash.
I kept reliving the sounds in the days following the crash, and because I've trained my brain on the song, the chorus lyrics autoplay in my mind after the destruction.
On Wednesday after going the chiropractor, I was sitting in the visitors' center with my eyes on the Christus and lyrics came into my mind.
"My help comes from you. My rock, you're pulling me through. You carry my weakness, my sickness, my brokenness all on your shoulders, your shoulders."
Jesus Christ carries my pain on his shoulders. That was one of my good insights in an otherwise rough week. I've cried several times, just because I'm not writing an expose this week doesn't mean I'm cheery.
Later in the week, I woke up with back pain
Another one came from a Facebook post I saw with picture of Thomas S. Monson that said, "The Lord will shape the back to bear the burdens placed upon it." And that helped.
That car crash wasn't the hardest thing I've gone through in my life. The day I was barred from serving a mission, the day I got my two-transfer call to, and a lot of dark nights in between were harder. But last Saturday is the closest I've even been to death. I know God is shaping my back to bear the physical burdens in the aftermath and all the emotional turmoim and fallout I've had from sundry stresses this week. And I had a Super Bowl win to cap it off!
Sincerely,
Sister Smith
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