Learning in L'hôpital

So I'm no longer in Tacoma. I'm also no longer teaching. So I swapped out the verb and location present in the blog title to create a post title a little more applicable to my current situation. The word 'Learning' stemmed from the fact that I've been a student in a pretty intensive class entitled Trials And The Purpose of Your Life, the instructor for which is God (look ma, a metaphor!). I didn't get a syllabus at the beginning of the class, partly because I wasn't actually aware of my enrollment until recently. But now that I know that I'm in this class, I'm realizing how far behind I am on my notes and that I better start writing down everything I've learned before I forget it. So, although the original purpose of this blog was to share my experiences teaching the gospel, I feel like it's not too far off for me to switch gears over to share my experiences learning in the gospel. Oh, and L'hôpital is just the hospital in French. I literally typed "medical words that start with L" into google and took 5 minutes to scroll down the list of results before I decided to scrap that and just find a language that would better accommodate my need for alliteration. French, ladies and gentlemen. Where manicures are classy, kisses are wet, and they put party hats on their Os.
So while I'm not currently in a hospital (especially not a french one), I will be next week, and my whole last year of life has taken place in hospitals, and l'dôctors ôffices (fake french) as well as in my l'bed.

Back to the here-and-now, I've written up for your viewing pleasure a snapshot of what it's like to be me right now. And now, please enjoy: an average day in the life of McQuivs, illness-haver extraordinaire-
Sometime AM: awoken by abdominal pains. Rolls out of bed, maybe washes a dish or sends a text, eats something. Now returns to bed, overcome with pain and exhaustion. Sleeps for 2-4 hours.
Early PM: wakes up again. may get dressed and ready for day, depending on severity of symptoms. eats lunch. again retreats to bed and sleeps an additional 3-4 hours.
Evening: wakes up from 2nd nap. Greets roommate who is now coming home from work. tries to live vicariously through roommate's stories of the outside world. attempts to relieve frustration that the day is over and nothing is accomplished by cooking something. Eats a portion of what is cooked, which brings on more pain and fatigue. Returns to bed.

And then it all starts over again. I sleep 14-16 hours most days, and spend 20-22 hours in bed lying down. People ask me why I don't just not eat, and that does seem to be the best solution. Some days I'm stronger than others and I can go a while longer without food and then I don't have to sleep as much. Adderall, also, is a must if I have a commitment I can't cancel (like a doctor's appointment or church). I took a 2 credit class last term that was twice a week and had to take adderall and not eat strategically in order to attend class. But that meant each day following, I was essentially useless, and couldn't even get out of bed. It also burned me out pretty fast so I couldn't keep it up after the term ended. In summary, I'm basically the least fun person of all time. But as I'm learning in my Life Purpose class, that's okay. There are other things I'm supposed to be doing right now (learning patience is a big one), and I don't need to be at full physical capacity to accomplish those. That doesn't mean I don't want to be. Natural-man me (hereafter to be referred to as Natural-manQuivs) is eager to remind me that it's been 2 years and I'm only getting worse with no diagnosis or viable treatment options and what's the point of living if it's like this, yada yada. She's a complainer, I tell ya. But I'm armed with the knowledge that God knows me individually. That He has a specific plan and purpose for my life, and that in time, He will help me to understand how this illness fits in to all that. And that knowledge makes the toughest days a little easier to swallow.

If You Have A Queasy Stomach, Probably Don't Read This 5/27/2014

You've been warned. Now proceed:

 Our zone had a barbecue on Monday for our p-day activity. The theme was 'bring your own meat' (clearly an activity thought up by Elders). We had just recently inherited some squid as an answer to Noun's prayers (she had just said that week, dang I miss squid. Ask and ye shall receive, brothers and sisters.) so we decided to grill that next to everyone elses meats. There's 2 different kinds of pieces, the round ones which are squid body and taste like a lego tire, and the tentacles which are kind of like a chewy fish-flavored licorice with little suckers that pop off in your mouth. Needless to say I ate the most squid out of anyone present, including Noun who had prayed it there in the first place. I like to win.

Noun and Walker with the Cambodian favorite, Squid. Me with the American favorite, marshmallow.

After the barbecue, we had some leftover marshmallows and a rekindled love for s'mores, so that solved the what-do-we-eat dilemma for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next two days. Unfortunately our apartment has fire code law things so we're not allowed to have a campfire in our living room, even if it doesn't disturb the neighbors. So we're left to the stove top. We can't even use real sticks over a real fire. Clearly ​we're 

roughing it.

Not far in severity from the infamous Bird-Flu and Swine-Flu epidemics is Tacoma's own People-Flu disaster. All 4 of us in the Cambod house took turns having the flu over about a 3 week period until it mutated and went back around again. During this experience I learned that I have a non-functional gag reflex. We found that those of us who threw up were sick for less time than those who didn't, so one night of the flu when I was crazy nauseous, I decided to attempt to replicate what James Bond did in Casino Royale when he realizes he's been poisoned and drinks salt water to make himself throw up the poison. We put about a cup of salt in a full glass of lukewarm water. When we had done the same thing for one of the other Sisters, she barely took a sip and then immediately retched up everything in her stomach, so I was pretty confident this would fix the nausea. Yeah..I drank the whole glass. Nothing happened. My companion prepared me a second one, with double the salt just in case. I drank that one too and then just sat there calmly. After that it was just a game of what it would take to get the flu and the now gallon of salt out of my stomach. I pretty much boxed that little dangly thing in the bag of my throat as if it was a punching bag and I was this guy:

 

  Nothing. I tried being in a car driven by Noun which is almost guaranteed to make any normal person at least a little sick. Nope. I went to disney world and went on all the rides that hang you upside down and go fast. Actually I didn't do that but it probably wouldn't have made a difference. After an hour and a bajilion attempts at maneuvering a stick that could reach back to my tonsils, I finally coughed up like a supermodel's portion size of stomach contents. Not even a 1/10 of what I had in there. But at this point I was exhausted, and the Sisters were busy taking care of Noun (who had inadvertently thrown up just from hearing the sound of me trying to throw up. How is that fair). So I called it a night and accepted that I would just have a long, vomit-less bout of the flu. Evidently my stomach likes to win as much as I do.

Idea: when I get home I should apply for Fear Factor. People get out all the time for not being able to keep down the stuff they feed them. Evidently I was built for the eating challenges on that show.

I've been in the WA-TAC 52 weeks, which is a year, for a total of 62 weeks as a missionary, and I'm pleased to report that the church is true here too!

-Sister McQuivey, amateur boxer 

Something fun to do if you have 10 cents for the printer May 20th

Janessa's letter for this week (May 20th) was this Word document attached, and this brief message below:

Awkward that I just spent all my time on that worksheet. Hope it brings you a mild amount of joy.

HEY, ENGLISH SPEAKERS!

Trade in your boring name tag for a moment as you complete this fun, language worksheet.

Match the squiggles to the correct Asian language

안녕하세요 어떻게 지내                                   Vietnamese

ສະບາຍດີທ່ານວິທີການ                                     Thai

kumusta kamusta ka                                        Cambodian

สวัสดีเป็นอย่างไรบ้าง                                       Chinese

こんにちは、どのようにしている                           Lao

xin chào bạn thế nào                                        Japanese

你好你怎么样                                                Filipino

ជំរាបសួររបៀបអ្នក                                      Korean

Look at the faces and write in what language they likely speak

Language bank: Spanish, Russian, Cambodian, Chinese, Persian, Thai, Samoan, Southern, Japanese, German                                                                             

              

Which of these are tell-tale Asian house indicators?

ÿ        Fake plants, often planted in a garden, or on the porch, alongside real ones

ÿ        Bamboo in the front or side yards

ÿ        An absurd number of cars, parked all over the lawn and in front of the house

ÿ        A plastic ziplock bag with pennies in it, tacked to the top of the doorframe

ÿ        An unusual quantity of rugs or welcome mats, layered on each other

ÿ        An attempt at a full-size herb or vegetable garden, either in pots on the porch, or forced upon the front yard in an awkward make-shift garden

ÿ        The color red, especially accenting the house or the front door color

Have you heard..

About our cupcakes for Cambodians program?

Every referral you give either of us that we check and confirm it to be Cambodian, whether they’re interested or not, I’ll bake you a cupcake.  So.. if they close the door too fast and you’re not sure what kind of Asian they are, text us the address anyway! You might end up with a treat.

Have you ever wondered about the excruciating pain of getting a paper cut on your eyeball? 5/14/2014

5/14/2014

So here was Friday:

We went to our appointment with Brenda, she opened the door and let us in, we take off our shoes and sit down. Brenda has a bowl of fishsticks that she's eating for lunch maybe that's just her type of snack, who knows. We ask her how she's doing, you know, causal, pre-lesson, our-investigator-is-still-eating-fishsticks-so-we-don't-want-to-start-talking-about-Jesus-yet type chitchat. She says she's good, but she's sad because her brother is lost.

"Wait, he's lost?" 

"Yeah."

"Where is he?"

"We don't know"

"How long has he been missing?"

"5.5 hours"

"Oh my gosh! What are you going to do?"

"We already called the police. They'll be here any minute"

We're way confused and the mom comes in to try to explain to us in Cambodian what happened. Unfortunately we don't actually speak that language, especially when someone is hysterical over the loss of their child and so is talking super fast. We called the other sisters to come help us translate and as far as we were able to ascertain, Kosal (23 but mentally the age of a 7 year old) got on a bus for work that morning, and when he went to switch buses, he got on the wrong bus thinking it would be faster, and then no one knows what happened after that, except that his boss called at 10 to say he hadn't showed up at work. The other sisters left to the bus stop he theoretically should have gotten off on and looked for him along the route. After a while of trying to extract more information from Brenda's little understanding and her mom's little English, there's a knock at the door. 

Brenda throws open the door and yells, "WHO ARE YOU?"

"The Police"

"WHAT?!"

PAUSE- Remember how Brenda wanted Sister Walker to get the priesthood and baptize her because she thinks boys are gross? Yeah, as it turns out, her issue with boys is that she thinks they're way not-gross. Meaning, she is in love with all of them. Old, young, fat, bald, she has crushes on every boy and they all make her super nervous. We witnessed this firsthand as she periodically broke into giggling fits whenever the male police officer would ask her a question. 

So this is pretty much how the investigation went:

The cop would say something such as, "did you actually see him get on the bus? Or is it possible he walked somewhere else from the bus stop?"

Brenda would yell out, "WHAT?! Hehehehehehehehe" and then have to turn around because she'd be lost in a fit of nervous laughter.

Then we'd try to translate the question into Cambodian, which meant we actually just said basically the same English words but in a Cambodian accent. Brenda's mom would go off, talking super fast and waving her hands around for 2 full minutes, then leave the room. The cop would look to us to translate her response, and we'd say something like, "Um, something about a monkey on a fishing boat or maybe the number 7 or maybe she thinks Iron Man 3 was better than Iron Man 2. One of those". Then he'd look to the only remaining member of the family who was the grandma, who would just stand their by the pillar with her arms folded and nod occasionally. This went on for almost an hour. At one point, the grandpa came out of nowhere and pushed through everyone and was like, "Bye, I go to work now" and everyone completely calmly was like, "Okay, bye" but as soon as he shut the door behind him Brenda starts giggling and hiding her face from the cop and her mom is talking a million miles a minute in Cambodian and the grandma is still leaning by the pole. I start to wonder if grandma nodding is actually her trying not to fall asleep. The cop has pulled out notepads and is still asking questions that we can't answer and is wondering if this is perhaps some sort of prank. Brenda's mom goes and finds a phone that looks like it was purchased at the same time as the Flintstones computer, dials some number on it, and shoves it at the cop, who answers it, "Hello? Who is this? How are you related to, uh, these people?" On the other end of the phone was perhaps the only member of the family who speaks English, who from what Brenda's mom explained is somehow her husband, Brenda and Kosal's uncle, and her grandpa's cousin. 

The dad/husband/uncle/cousin then proceeds to move us back to square one by telling the cop no investigation is necessary, Kosal has no disability but just doesn't know English well, and that he would find him himself, thank you. After this phone call, the cop is ready to leave an abandon the case because a perfectly functioning 23 year old doesn't need the police out looking for him. We're begging him, "No no no don't leave yet hold on that guy didn't know what he was talking about" and then have to get out all these documents from doctors and counselors that say that Kosal is indeed disabled, and if he got lost he wouldn't be able to think through how to get himself home. 

The cop finally leaves, still way confused and grumbling something about how he was not adequately trained for this (I made that part up) and we're trying to talk to the family and calm them down (except the grandma who was the calmest and definitely asleep at this point). We sang a lot of primary songs and everyone present said prayers that Kosal would be okay. After another little while get a call from the dad/husband/uncle/cousin who says he found a Taco Time, to which Sister Dunster explains, "no, we don't need a Taco Time, we're looking for Kosal." Then Kosal's boss calls and says he just showed up at work, starving and exhausted. Evidently, after getting off the other bus and realizing he was all the way 2 towns over from where he was supposed to be, he just walked all the way to work, which took almost 7 hours. 

The family is relieved, we say a prayer of thanks with them, and then leave. 

The next day, we got a call from Brenda: "I want to say thank you for helping find my brother, and also, can I come to church on Sunday?"

So, out of all the madness, Brenda's faith grew and desire to follow God increased. Brenda's mom trusts us a lot now and her willingness to let us come over increased. Kosal's desire to take the right bus increased. The grandma's need of sleep decreased, because she napped peacefully during the investigation. And the dad/husband/uncle/cousin's desire to eat Tacos probably stayed about the same.

Also, the last visit we had with Brenda, her mom came in and said thank you to us for helping. Either that or she said that Iron Man 3 is better than Iron Man 2. We're not totally sure. 

I've been in the WA-TAC 50 weeks, and the church is true here too!

-JMcQuivs, regular civil servant

 Janessa and Sister Dunster on Transfer Day

Janessa photo bombs another companionship!

Mother's Day Skyping

Mother's Day Skyping

Sister McQuivey began her skype session with a stack of papers in front of her face. Each one had a sentence and sometimes a picture on them, taking us through 6 stages of "Janessa's life."  Which led to the final stage--stage 6.  Where the last paper announced..."Blondes have more fun."  We all kind of screamed a bit, and then the papers came down, and we saw this awesome looking Janessa.  Isn't she cute?  Look how long her hair is too!  She went blonde at 6:30 a.m., Sunday.

 Isn't it true that Cambodian writing looks like Ramen Noodles?

Miss this adorable girl! We had so much fun catching up with her.  Our hour was up too fast. She got one on one time with every member of the family, including Jansen who was skyping in (audio only) from Utah. Every member of the family loves her and had so much to talk about with her.  Janessa is just a bundle of fun, enthusiasm, creativity and sun!

Best Mother's Day Present!

Now this is the story, all about how, my life got flip turned up-side down

5/6/2014

Hi, this Quiv-zell. Is you okay? Is you? Cause I wanted to know.

 

It's Mother's Day week! Hal-leh-luh, everyone knows that for a missionary that is one of the biggest days of the year! Because this is the time that we can see.. so many lovely spring flowers and share poignant motherhood themed messages with our investigators. Oh and as a side note, this Sunday I'll be on skype at 3 or 4 Washington time, 6 or 7 Boston time. If you (meaning my family. The rest of you should probably spend time with your own moms) could also be on skype at that time, that would be convenient. 

Also, you might not recognize me..since Christmas I've gained 200 lbs, died my hair black, and wear heavy eye make-up and purple lipstick everyday. My companions think I'm goth, but really I'm just depressed about the state of the world and how much sadness there is so I like to try to express my emotion through my appearance. I'm also putting together an album of emo primary songs such as "Whenever I hear the song of a bat, or look at the dark, grey sky" and "Head, shoulders, knees, and tears". Other than that though, I'm basically the same!

This guy Ross came to church for the second time on Sunday. We're thinking we're probably going to have to turn him over to the other Cambodian sisters to teach, because he doesn't have any teeth and our mtc training did not teach us how to understand a toothless Cambodian. 

Brenda, our favoritest 21 year old with a 2100 year old computer, is now on date for baptism! She wants to plan on June 7th because that's when she graduates from her special education program and so it makes sense to her to wait until then. We tried to push the date closer, but she wants her grandpa to baptize her and he's been inactive for 10 years so he probably needs the month to get re-activated before then. It seems far away, but Brenda still wants to plan out every detail now. Thus far she's requested that we play board games and eat fried rice with little hot dogs and eggs cut-up in it. I'm not sure that's okay, but it's still more reasonable than her previous requests (which have involved having Sister Walker get the priesthood and baptize her, because she considers boys icky).

Something that happened a little while ago: we briefly changed religions.

How this occurred: We were out knocking on doors in January-ish, a little after 6. We knocked on a certain door behind which we could hear some woman watching tv. As she answered the door, this was the conversation that transpired-

WOMAN "Hi, can I help you with something?"

US "Well, we're the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We're out tonight looking for service opportunities and inviting people to hear a quick message about Jesus Christ and how His restored gospel can bless our families and bring them closer together."

WOMAN "Okay, that would be fine.

US "Do you already have a belief in Jesus Christ? What is your religious background?"

WOMAN "I'm Jehovah"

US "Oh, a Jehovah's Witness?"

WOMAN "No, a Jehovah's witness is someone who witnesses Jehovah. I am Jehovah"

US "So in that case, I guess we would be Jehovah's witnesses?"

WOMAN "Well right now, yes."

And that's the story of how we briefly became Jehovah's Winesses. We talked to Jehovah for a little bit longer, she was an older black woman who appeared to be schizophrenic. She ended up not being interested in our church, because she was so busy with watching over and taking care of all her children on the earth that she didn't have the time. Understandable. Sounds like a big job.

 Riding the Bus to the temple! We LOVE to see the temple.

God answers prayers. I've done a segment on this before, ie when I asked to be humbled, when I asked to learn patience, etc. This was a prayer of a different nature. I've been really missing music lately, not that EFY music and Mo-Tab isn't great, but there's only so many times you can listen to the same cd before you consider ignoring the warning on the q-tip box and stabbing out your eardrums so that you don't have to hear it any more. That is only a slight exaggeration. I told my Heavenly Father that I was having a hard time missing my music back home (The Hush Sound and Bon Iver, anyone?). Then on Monday, our preparation-day, we went to the mall. I was in a store looking at some tops while my companion was in the dressing room. I suddenly became aware of the music that was playing in the store, and started to listen more closely. These were the lyrics:

I just wanna make-out with anybody anywhere, yeah, I don't care.

I just wanna make-out with anybody anywhere, uh, I don't care.

This continued for a while, then there was the bridge:

Your hair is everywhere, it looks like broken promises and infidelity

Your hair is everywhere, but now you're with him and I don't care so I wanna make-out with someone, anyone, anywhere

The classiest song I've ever heard. Yeah it doesn't sound like I'm missing much. I promptly said a prayer of thanks for showing me that there's not a lot of music coming out worth listening to anyway. Also it made me realize that people really need the gospel in their lives so they'll have more purposeful lives with more legitimate feelings to write songs about. So I guess I'm okay with being a missionary for the next 5 months.

Thank you Tutu and Mom for the Easter Packages! And Tutu for the sock package! I polished off all the candy and put on every pair of socks at once. It was excellent.

Cambodia, the country that's only had branches and wards for as long as it's had members, just announced that they're forming 2 stakes on May 24th. That's a way big deal! Sister Noun is way excited, she's been out for a year and a half now and the church has grown so much in her absence. She'll go home to many more members and missionaries than were there when she left. And for all my many friends from the mtc who are serving in Cambodia, this is a big deal for them. Thailand's been open for missionaries since the 70s and only has 1 stake. Cambodian only opened for missionaries in the mid-90s and they're growing so fast! Maybe some of that excitement will trickle down over here we'll start a group soon. 

 

I've been in the WA-TAC 49 weeks, I lied when I said I'd write you a letter last week, and the church is true here too.

-Sister McQuivey, former JW.

Untitled 4/29/2014

Sorry about your eye, that sounds painful!

I have to go early to transfer meeting today because my companions in a musical number that needs to practice. That means I have to leave right now, pretty much. But I'll write something later this week