July 29, 2013
So you know how I told you that
Elder Naegle was going to be my new companion? Well, he is in Ireland right
now. The morning of transfers President Miles called me and told me that for
the time being Elder Naegle will not be my companion because as he went to
unregister from the city of Linz where he was formerly serving. The people at
the city hall told him that his visa papers did not get registered and that he
had passed the leeway time that he was allowed to stay in the country. More
than that it was a European Union law so he had to leave any European Union
country except Ireland which is the only EU country willing to work the
situation out with him. We will find out in a week or two as to whether he will
make it back. The situation though is that the city of Linz lost his visa
papers so that part is their fault, however, they gave specific instructions
that if he didn't get his visa in a certain amount of time that he was to
return a report that the visa didn't come and he didn't report until about a
month and a half later. It's about 50-50 as to whether he will be able to
return or not and we won't find out for a little while what the situation will
be.
As for what is happening to me, I am
currently working in a threesome with my roommates, the Wien 4 Elders, who are
Elder Martin and Elder Reading and we are covering both areas at the moment. We
are going to stay as a threesome for the next couple of weeks until Elder
Naegle gets back or we find out that he can't return and President Miles will
figure out a way to find me a new companion.
However, that's where the next step
of craziness comes in. Both areas are doing well with the work and keeping busy
so we had to figure out how to rearrange our appointments and activities or
figure out a way to get a number of splits so that we could do everything and
so we have been running around non stop from one thing to another and we had to
cancel a few things which I will explain later. Then there was also the
question of church and in Wien very few people have cars and our apartment is
far out away from the church. So since our churches were at the same time we
had to have the senior couple from Wien come and pick me up and take me to my
church while the other Elders went to theirs. Afterwards we were to meet back
up somewhere in between. However, that didn't quite work out as planned which
leads to the next bit of craziness.
On Saturday I developed a chest
infection and a sore throat . On Sunday it then got worse for the chest
infection as well as the sore throat. I
lost my voice to the point that I could only speak slightly through squeeks. I
went to church with the Strongs, the senior couple, but after 20 minutes the
second counselor in our ward, Brother Zickbauer, said although I was the only
missionary there his family was going to take me home because I looked and
sounded dead. He and the Bishop gave me a blessing before I left and said that
they would find people to make sure the investigators were more than taken care
of and then I left with the Zickbauers. They were already probably my favorite
if not one of my favorite families from the ward, but then they went the whole
ten yards and let me rest while they found any possible medication that could
help. Brother Zickbauer had been sick
earlier this week, so he was already stocked on all sorts of good stuff, as
well as keeping me there and making lunch and dinner for me while the other
Elders went about and did what they needed to with their ward. Brother
Zickbauer had also had pneumonia on his mission like I did back in February and
thinks that something happened that caused it to act up again.
Our guess as to what we thought may
have happened is the following: For both my ward and the Wien 4 Elders ward,
this week they were swarmed with service projects. When we had to take over
both areas that became too much, and we had to cancel some service because it
conflicted with appointments from the other wards side. However, the weird
thing is that when we went to go tell some of these people that we wouldn't be
able to make it to their service project because of conflicting appointments
and what not because of transfers, they told us straight up no that we couldn't;
and then they made us feel guilty and
said things wouldn't work out if we didn't come, (which is not a common
response at all from members ever). Anyways, we got wrapped into doing all the
projects and we had to cancel some of our appointments because of it. As to
where I got sick, this week was the hottest week in Wien in the last twenty years
and the service was essentially all heavy lifting (furniture, hay rolls, etc). Sometimes we were lifting furniture up 4
flights of stairs in apartment buildings. Because I was the biggest I usually
got involved with the heaviest matters. To give you an idea I lost 8 pounds
this week alone from work in the heat and we did over 21 hours of that this
week. With the heat and heavy lifting it probably broke down my body and
because of my former pneumonia and all the dust and what not from the furniture
and fields it probably shot my immune system.
Well mom, you asked me this week to
be completely honest about my health, so I hope I built it up enough. The truth
is though I was doing really well for the two weeks leading up to this week.
Because of the Zickbauers though I am doing a lot better. I still haven't got
my voice completely back, but I can at least hold out conversations and I am
able to move about. But don't worry mom, after emails we are heading straight
back to the apartment for some rest.
I was able to meet up with the
Stapletons a little bit though before I came here. They were going to the
Schönbrunn Palace which is right by our apartment and so I was able to pick up
what you sent with them and talk to them for a little bit.
I hope it didn't come off to
stressed in this email, but things here have been a little crazy as you might
imagine. I hope you are all doing well.
Amber if it does work out that I
could come to yours and Rolfs sealing I would absolutely love that. That would
be something very special since I wasn't able to make it to the wedding.
I hope you are all doing well. I
love you lots.
Elder Bodily
Gott sei mit euch bis aufs
Wiedersehen
*Added information entered by Elder
Bodily's mom. As you know, moms do worry and I have been worried since his
pneumonia feeling that he didn't get an
antibiotic or the right thing to help.
When Elder Bodily had his walking pneumonia our doctor here in Orem
wanted to send him an antibiotic and a refill, but the postal service couldn't
send it through the mail to Germany.
Shauna Stapleton contacted me last week and invited me to send something
to Houston with them. They left this
past Thursday morning to pick up their son from his mission in Germany. The
package that the Stapleton's delivered to my son this morning had the
antibiotic from his doctor!
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