Besties with the Zone Leaders

Aloooooooha.

I haven’t said that in a long time. It felt good.

Oh familia, I just love you guys. Thank you all soooo much for the emails and pictures! I love them! I love you!

Here’s my new address, use this bad boy. Seriously. But only for letters.

Irma Erin Dean

Rua de Azenha Nº32 2ºDt
Mem Martins 2725-231
Portugal Entao.

This week was pretty much really uneventful as far as day-to-day. But, something pretty big and sad did happen. So I wrote last week or the week before about how I’m in a triple with my trainer and Irma Thomas. Well, Irma Thomas has been having really bad stomach issues since the MTC and it started getting worse and worse and so she had to go to the hospital a few times last transfer. The week before we got put together she had a colonoscopy and everything and they found out she has active ulcerative colitis. That’s not good. Basically, ulcers lining her intestines or something? And she was constantly in soooo much pain and wasn’t really being honest about how bad it had gotten.  But, one day it got drastically worse so we called the mission doctor and he said she needed to go to the hospital for her post-procedure consult to find out exactly what they wanted to do. When they said she would need more tests, the mission doctor called President Torgan and said his medical advice was that she return home to Canada to get good medical care and then return.

So President Torgan called Wednesday night to thank her for her service and told her she was leaving the next morning at 5:30am. It was crazy trying to get her all packed but she was s relieved so we are really glad for her to be able to get better.

So now it’s back to just Irma Quebbeman and me! For both areas! But, as far as the subject of this email... Ha ha so normally you have a lot of contact with your district leader and he has contact with the zone leaders. That’s definitely how it was last transfer. Last transfer we were terrified of the zone leaders. One is from Cabo Verde and his name is Elder Ca and he’s scary! He is so intense and would only call us to give us faca (basically chastise us) and tell us if we weren’t baptizing it meant we didn’t have faith in the Lord's ability to work miracles. So we literally screamed when the caller ID said "zone leaders". Then, somehow at the end of the transfer, he started being very obliging when we asked him to find out where everyone we knew was going for the new transfer. Next thing you know, we have a zone meeting and he talks about how he doesn’t want anyone to be afraid of him. And, because their area is about an hour closer than our district leaders, if we need blessings or a baptismal interview, they are usually the ones to come. Elder Ca now has a new companion, Elder Nielson who is VERY chill. Like seriously. So yeah, somehow or another, with us being Irma’s who have breakdowns and needing blessings, and Irma Thomas being really sick, and with all the stress of our baptism last week, we talked to them at least once a day and they have had to give us like pep talks and all kinds of stuff.  We’ve joked around with them a lot and now we are the best of friends.

Elder Ca will call and try to speak English with us and it is HILARIOUS and just a little precious.  He legitimately made me want to pee myself last transfer, that’s how scared of him I was. He’s really intense and very commanding. Yeah, now they go out of their way to make sure were ok.  They defend us to the assistants, and tell us stuff before they even tell our district leader--that poor kid. I guess we got suckered into making cookies for them for zone conference tomorrow? I’m not sure what happened. But I’m ok with it.  Basically, I’m having a good time finally.  Monica received the Holy Ghost! No one else is really progressing except a woman named Ju who is being baptized next weekend so pray for her! I’ll write about her next week!

I love you guys!!!