Wednesday September 10th 2008

Letter from Rachel to her Mother (family)

Dear Mum,
Well, 2 wednesdays ago, the 2nd councilor in our ward, Brother Collins and his wife took us on a church history tour. He used to do this for awhile and would take the church leaders all around England. Mainly, preston and downham. He has met many prophets and apostles and has many wonderful stories to tell. Well, I didn't get much of a tour because when we reached Downham my heart and lungs really started to hurt the closer we got to the church history. I tried to hide it because I didn't want anyone to know. But as we got out of the car and was walking by the river where Heber C. Kimball baptized many people and where the road where many of the original 12 apostles and early missionaries have walked it started getting really bad. In fact, just a side note, it is believed that Jesus Christ himself came to this town when he was a boy with Joseph of Aramathea. There is a song called Jerusalem about it. I started feeling like my chest was going to explode and i just turned chalk white. when we got up the hill we stopped at a cafe for dinner and me and sister coffin went out to the barn toilet in back. It was really bad i started blacking out and hypervenhilating and i couldn't breath. There was no blood in my face and I was in the most excruciating pain i have ever felt. but as we left the cafe it sort of left. i still had the pains though. But as we got to preston where the river ribble is it came back but worse. as we were walking to the site where the people were baptized i had to stop and brother collins gave me a blessing. but it didn't seem to help. when i got to the bridge it got even worse. i started dry heaving and blacking out. I don't think i was very conscience at this point. i couldn't even walk and the pain was unbearable. i don't even know how to describe it. i honestly thought right then that i was going to die. everyone else did too and they rushed me to the hospital. of course when i got there i was fine and the doctor said i was in perfect health. she kept saying i was pregnant even though none of my symptons matched. the doctors are terrible here. our mission doctor thinks i might have blood clots in my lungs and if that happens again i have to go to the theatre. surgery. but the health program here won't do anything about it unless i am about to die. so i am stuck. but really i am fine now. i had another blessing and it said i would be perfectly healthy. in fact the only time i was like that was when i got close to a church histroy site. me and sister coffin both just think it was satan. i have terrible luck with him. last thursday we came home and it had been pouring rain all day and it turned out that all of our stuff had molded over. we were shocked and so tired. all of my suitcases and walls and shoes and everything was covered in thick green mold. it was so disgusting. it must have happened in the last week. so sister coffin got out the bleach and jsut started spraying everything. my stuff was the worst. it tooks us hours to clean everything off, by the time we were done our house was rank with the smell of bleach. our eyes were burning and we couldn't even go into our room. we jsut fell asleep on our study tabel. we got like 4 hours of sleep because the next morning we had to wake up really early and go to interviews with president bullock. we were shattered. but i am happy the work is progressing and we are finding a lot of new people to teach. Satan will do anything to destroy us and he seems to be working particularly hard on me. but it doestn't matter. each night i just pour out my heart to my heavenly father and he takes care of everything. one thing that i have really come to value on my mission is the relationship i have built with my heavenly father. i find myself talking to him all day and night and i can fell him right beside. i am happy. something that i can't describe to anyone. i am exactly where i need to be and i am thankful for all of my trials because i am growing stronger every day. i love this gosple and i love the lord and my God. They are there watching out for me and they are here with me as I do there work. This is the most amazing experience in the entire world. I wouldn't change it for anything. this work is true!