Sister Lamb is Down with the Flu

Hello Family!
I love you so much!
I know that this email is going to be a little unexpected today, but it is just kind of the way that things turned out this week. I should have had p-day on Tuesday, but instead it is today. You will understand shortly.

This week has been an interesting week, as usual. On Tuesday, we were in the Trail Center in the morning. Only a couple tours came into the Trail Center, so I spent most of the day studying. A little while ago, President Kunz gave us all a challenge to memorize all of the lesson summaries in Preach My Gospel, which includes 3 lessons, each with roughly 6-8 main points, 4-6 sub points for each main point, then a scripture, inspired question, and example or personal experience for each of the main points. Like my typical self, I had procrastinated until the very end. I should have had to pass it all off last week in district meeting, but we ran out of time, so I very mercifully was given an extra week to memorize. Again, it seemed like I never could find time to do all of it and had to keep reviewing what I had already learned. I was so grateful to have Tuesday morning at the TC to be able to finish up my memorization. But, at the end of 6 hours, I still was not quite finished. Here is where the Lord's mercy stepped in once again. After dinner and comp study, it had started to snow and Sister Askren was starting to feel sick. We decided that it was best for us to stay at the Trail Center and for her to rest, especially because the cars being grounded seemed imminent. This gave me several more hours to be able to finish memorizing the lesson plans so that I was able to pass everything off on Wednesday morning with flying colors. I know that I have already learned this at least once before on my mission, but it reminded me once more of how merciful the Lord is. No matter how many times we fail, he will continue giving us more opportunities to try one more time.

In the Trail Center, we tend to have talk fads that come up every one to two weeks. One person will find or be given a really awesome talk which then slowly makes it way through all the sisters at the Trail Center until we all have read it. It gives us something to talk about during the slow hours at the Trail Center. The current talk in the spotlight is a talk given by Brad Wilcox at a BYU devotional and was printed in the Winter 2012 BYU magazine. It is called "His Grace is Sufficient". It is an excellent talk. I bet that you have the magazine sitting somewhere around the house, so if you have not read it yet, go read it! It is so insightful.

Now here comes the major factor in this past week. On Wednesday, after district meeting, I started feeling a little sick again. We prayed about what we should do and decided that we would go out for the afternoon and head back to the apartments after dinnertime. I was feeling OK, but as soon as we got in the car to leave the area at dinner time, I immediately started to get a headache. It was crazy how the Lord was holding it back until exactly when we were done doing what we needed to accomplish that afternoon. After that, we talked to Sister Kunz, who said that both Sister Graham and I have the flu. We have been quarantined in our apartment since Wednesday. Today, our companions let us go grocery shopping and to email right now, But other than that, we have just been studying, sleeping, and eating for the last few days. They told us that we would be better again on Thursday, so only a couple more days and we will be free! Both of us are feeling basically completely better at this point, but they want us to spend a couple more days indoors to make sure that we are completely better. So that is why I am emailing you today. It is Sister Graham's P-day, so therefore it is both of our P-days today. At the beginning, we watched all of the Church movies we could find at least twice, sometimes 3 times. But, we soon realized that we needed to figure out something else, so we made some goals. Here are a few of them:
1. Don't go insane
2. Sleep for at least 12 hours a day
3. Memorize all the scripture mastery lessons
4. Listen to the whole Dallyn Bayles CD every day
5. Make mission and monthly goals
6. Build a rocket and go to outer space
7. Find a million dollars and give to charity after tithing
8. Shower every day
9. Read 20 pages of the BOM every day
10. Read all of Jesus the Christ
etc.

We will see how many of them we get through. Time actually goes surprisingly fast on the mission, even when you are sick. But, what I think what I have learned from all of this is that I keep being reminded of the scripture "being willing to submit to ALL things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon you." For a while, I was pretty whiny about being stuck indoors all day, especially when I did not feel sick enough to not be doing the work. I was just really annoyed. But, every time we prayed about what we should do, I always came up with the answer that we needed to stay home. I finally realized that it doesn’t matter what I want. It matters what the Lord wants and if He needs me to stay in my apartment for half my mission and get healthy, then that is what I need to do. (I really hope that done not happen though.) Huh, that's funny. I think that I have learned that lesson before, just now in a slightly different way. Before, it was from the perspective of having to stay in with Sister Askren, now it is with the perspective of having to stay in with myself. Exactly the same situation, but for some reason it was a lot easier for me to stay inside and not be sick that it is to stay inside when I am sick.

Well, there it is. Not much has happened. Not much has changed. It snowed here again last night, but not too bad. We are still OK to drive.
Love you!
Sister Lamb