As many of you have heard, there were the bombings not far at all from the mission home, as a matter of fact we as missionaries often go there to grab a bite to eat. I know with a perfect knowledge that the Lord is watching over us as there is more to the story. Here it is. The night before, we had our nightly planning as we do everyday. We decided that we needed to go visit one of the less actives who right now has returned active and received the priesthood but the past two weeks has been slipping a little. You can probably guess where he lives, and you can probably guess what time we had planned to visit him? He lives right there just around the corner. That morning, he called us and told us that maybe that day wasn't the best day to visit him and moved the appointment. Just as typical missionaries we hung up the phone pretty upset. About 30 minutes later we walked upstairs and heard the news. We were not angry about the appointment being changed anymore. Jakarta was pretty crazy so all the missionaries had to stay in for the day and then the following day when we were allowed to leave, President Donald gave us our regulations of what we needed to do and we went about doing the Lord's work! I for sure feel blessed and protected without a single doubt of fear.
That was part 1 of the craziness. Part 2 was being diagnosed with dengue fever. Let me tell you, I have never been so weak in my life!!! Basically Dengue is transmitted through mosquitoes that bite during the daytime. After English class on Friday night, I started just to get the biggest headache. It got to the point that walking home was kind of difficult. I stopped by the store and bought a 2 liter bottle of Pocari Sweat (AKA angel tears, not really, but really) when we got home, I went straight to bed thinking that in the morning the headache would be gone and life would move on....that wasn't the case. When I woke up, I was in so much pain I just had the hardest time standing up, moving my arms, I felt my own face and could tell that I had a fever, and my eyes were just pure red. I waddled out of the room and fell and the couch and was just too weak to move. I told Sister Donald and President came down, took one look at me and said, "you have dengue, let's go to the doctor." I somehow found the strength to take a shower and get dressed. I had my blood tested and it came back positive for Dengue. Because this is a virus, there is no specific drug that can help and I can't take Ibuprofen because that thins the blood. I've had the worst headache for the past 3 days, It's been pretty hard to sleep, and I've just been resting trying to regain strength back. I do not want this again!!! The good news is, this morning I went back to the doctor, my fever has dropped from 101 to know 99 and my blood is still at a stable level. I also got my feet checked, I had 3 warts removed and now have athlete's foot. I'm honestly scared to find out if there is anything else wrong with me. I'm doing a lot better!
As for investigators and all that good stuff, we had some investigators make it to church even though we didn't make it. The members said it went really well and will be following up. We have a progressive investigator in Bali who we teach over skype. He has been to church for the past 3 weeks and is doing really well. He almost accepted a baptismal date this past week but didn't we are praying that he will be accepting one this upcoming week.
One thing that has really helped me as a missionary this past week has been this quote.
"Convert people to Jesus Christ, don't convert them to the church."
That is just a super powerful statement. Now that I have suffered to some limits this week I cannot even think of the pain and suffering that the Savior went through. He felt the pain of every person that has had dengue and I'm barely withstanding a mild case of it on my own. The church is true and as long as we are being obedient and here going about doing the Lord's work, we will be protected!
Elder Hayes
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