All is well and busy in the U.S.

We have been so busy since coming back to the U.S., that we have neglected our blog.  We'll update it so you know that we are still on the missionary path, just in our unique way.

Time in the U.S. is always a whirlwind of activities.  The first week, we continued with several meetings with our Europe responsibilities.  That meant meeting with our managers on Monday at 2:30 am, with our missionary couples on Tuesday at 3:00 am and with our Area Self-Reliance Committee on Wednesday night at midnight.  We are able to have each of these meetings in our living room by video conference and it really works quite well.  The difficult part is our sleeping habits.  However, in our first week back our sleep habits were confused anyways.  During the day we spent a few days in the office at the Church Office building, updating and getting updated with key individuals there.  In between we have been able to work quite a bit from home.

During the week we were also able to make some visits to Gina and Addisyn in their new apartment in Orem and to visit Dan and Amy and their kids in West Point.

The week ended on a wonderful note as we were able to participate in the baptism of our granddaughter McKenzie, with many of our family members participating.  She is a wonderful girl who made a very thought out choice to be baptized and make covenants with her Heavenly Father.  We are so pleased to be her grandparents.  

Six of our most recent granddaughters who were all at the baptism for McKenzie

That same day we were able to go to the temple and have a family sealing session.  This included Danny & Gina, Jason & Beckie, Leo & Giovanna, Debbie & I and Kari.  Pollyanna provided baby sitting services.  Together we were able to complete 10 couple sealings and had 37 children sealed to their families.  Besides being a wonderful time with our family, it finished up significant temple work that had been completed over the past year or two in temples around the world by several members of our family.  What a joy this was, especially to me as I have worked with these names for a long time.

The photo shows just a few examples of this work.  The first is the sealing card for my 5th great grandparents on my mother's side.  These were the first direct ancestor names that I had ever found two years ago.  This happened in a miracle all of it's own.  I googled on the name of my 4th great grandfather, Isack Jausi and found a 15 year old email in French that had the names of Isack, his parents and his siblings along with marriage names and dates for each of them.  Working on that we were able to do the temple work for each of them and tie them into Isack's father, Jean Pierre Jaussi, who was already in Family Search.  However, his work had been reserved for some time without any progress.  Finally, I was able to send an email to the person that reserved the work and ask them to release is so that we could seal the family together, which they did in August.  We have since been able to finish his work, including doing his endowment work in the Madrid, Spain temple in September and seal the entire family together on this special day.  I was very emotional as I felt the strong presence of the spirit during these ordinances.  

The second card shows a little of the work of completing these names.  The baptism was performed by myself, with our son Ammon being proxy in June of this year in the Jordan River Temple.  I was able to be the proxy for the initiatory work in Frankfurt, Germany in July and able to be proxy for the endowment work in the London temple last month.  Finally he was sealed to his parents as part of this special session, our children being the proxy.  I have learned to absolutely love this wonderful work for our ancestors, both the gathering of the family history and genealogy and the very meaningful work of actually being proxy for these individuals in the holy temples around the world.

The next day, we were able to participate as our oldest grandson, Braden, was able to be ordained to the office of a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood.

This last week was a week of missionary training.  We spent Monday through Wednesday participating in the Self-Reliance training of senior missionary couples.  This training included couples going to Zambia, Ghana, Uruguay, India and Russia on Self-Reliance missions.  Once again we were blessed to not only feel the spirit of our responsibilities but to feel the spirit of these great missionary couples.  Debbie summarized it well at the end of the  training:  "We may have known much of the material that was shared, but our greatest strength came from the other missionaries, to see their sacrifice and examples."

On Thursday we began our immersion into the German Language at the MTC.  This is actually in a Church building in Provo, dedicated to the pre-mission language training of senior missionaries.  We had separate language tutors and study buddies for Debbie and myself.  Spending the bigger part of two days concentrating on the German language has helped us feel a little more comfortable with some of the aspects of the language.  This week we spend four more days, trying to get a few basic skills for us to build on during our mission.  This is a wonderful opportunity for us.   We ended our time in Provo on Friday by doing an endowment session at the Payson, Utah temple, our first time since it was dedicated in early June.

Finally, let me give a health update on Debbie.  This has been a chance to see many minor miracles.  The first was that we were able to get to a urologist within 36 hours of our return to the U.S.  We are grateful to our missionary medical advisor in Frankfurt for making that happen.  Then Dr. Middleton, the urologist, took the catheter our of Debbie and gave her some medication.  This has allowed her to self-catherize as we try to retrain her bladder to function.  Then on the next Monday, we were able to get into an extensive testing process that normally would take weeks to get scheduled.  After that testing and a week's experience with the medicine and self-catherization, we were able to meet again with Dr. Middleton.  Debbie has begun to urinate on her own, but not yet to the desired level.  He has arranged for us to have medication and catheters for our long term needs but is unable to identify the reason for her bladder dysfunction.  He suggested a visit to a neurologist.  This normally takes three to six months to get scheduled.  After talking to our primary care physician, we were able to get into a neurologist on Friday morning, another scheduling miracle, the third such miracle in the past three weeks.  The neurologist gave us some very positive feedback about Debbie's neurological condition, feeling that there are no signs of MS or Lou Gehrig's disease, two possibilities that could have caused the bladder malfunction.  To be sure we will have full MRIs taken this Tuesday and then a return visit with the neurologist on Thursday.  When we arrived home, we asked our son, Sam, to assist in giving Debbie a blessing.  In Sam's blessing, it was stated that Debbie would gain knowledge and understanding and would feel peace in whatever happens.  No promises of an immediate cure.  However, we have gained so much understanding and with that understanding we have received peace.  We don't have a miraculous healing, but we have found that if needed, we can deal with this situation on a long term basis, with minimal impact to our daily activities.  With the current treatment and results, Debbie is feeling healthier than she has for years.

Debbie's greatest fear has been that this condition would impact our ability to serve a mission.  With all that we have learned, that fear has been replaced with faith and peace.

Pleasure and Pain, Italy and return to the U.S.

Our last week in Europe started out quite normal.  We attended our family Halloween party by internet, before heading to the airport to leave for Italy. We arrived in Venice, Italy late Saturday night, October 24.  Lucky for us, daylight savings time was changing, so we got an extra hour to sleep.  We then went and participated in Church meetings in Italian.  Once again, they were without a piano player, so Debbie got one more chance to play the piano in sacrament meeting.  There were other tourists there at Church, so they did English translation of the Sacrament meeting, which was presented by Young Women leaders and their one Young Woman.

We then spent the next few hours visiting with our SRS manager in Italy and preparing for our participation in a bishop's training meeting later that afternoon.  Our manager is assisted by a local missionary couple, which happen to be his parents.  They don't speak much English, but they are a wonderful couple.  They prepared a nice meal for us to eat at the chapel, so that we could keep the Sabbath Day holy without going out to eat.

The training meeting went well.  A full hour and a half was dedicated to Self-Reliance.  The majority of the teaching was done by the Stake Specialist and the Agent bishop.  Perfect!  After that training we spent additional time with our manager and the missionaries, discussing several subjects that we would usually cover over a few days if we had the time.

We then went back to our hotel, with additional food for our dinner.  It was a short visit with our manager, but was worthwhile and finished our goal of spending time with each of our 11 managers during our pre-mission.

Due to higher plane fares on Monday, we elected to stay until Tuesday, when the plane fares were better.  That also gave Debbie and I an opportunity to have a P Day in Venice, which turned out absolutely wonderful.

We boarded a bus that left from near our hotel (which is on the mainland) to the 118 small islands that comprise Venice.  It was pretty easy, since we stayed on the bus until the end of the line.  At that point, no vehicles go any further in Venice, as all travel is by water, water taxis, water bus, water gondolas, etc.  We bought an all day transit pass for 20 Euros each and got on the first water bus going down through all of the Grand Canal.  Rather than being the last ones onto a crowded boat, we waited 10 minutes until the next boat and were in the first of the line, which allowed us to take some of the chairs at the front of the boat.  Perfect!  We were able to see everything and take pictures all of the way down the Grand Canal.  Couldn't get better.

The weather was beautiful, in the 60's and a clear, sunny day.  When we got to the end of the Canal we got onto the land and took some time to meditate in a beautiful little park.   Then we proceeded to the St. Mark's Basilica.  This is where they had buried the bones of St. Mark, the evangelical writer.  The Basilica had been first built in 832 AD, burned in a rebellion in 976 and rebuilt in 978.  Further constructions were added in future years, with the majority of the church being completed in 1093.

There is a large plaza around the Church and we spent several hours around there, including eating lunch with authentic Italian Lasagne and Gelato (ice cream).  We went through a tour of the Church and paid a few Euros to see the Pala D'Oro, a large altar piece with many inscriptions and pictures in gold and 1927 jewels throughout.  It was pretty impressive. This was added to the Basilica in 1343.

We also took an elevator up to the top of the San Marco Campanile, the bell tower next to the Basilica.  It was a chance to go to the highest point in the city and get a better view of all of the sites, especially of the 6 domes of the Basilica.

We returned by taking the water bus back up the Grand Canal.  Once again we were able to get seats in the front of the boat and enjoy the view as the sun was beginning to go down, creating magnificent views and photographs.  Finally we finished with some authentic Italian pizza for dinner.

We then returned to our hotel by the previously identified bus.  Only problem was that we didn't know which exit to get off of the bus.  I tried to talk to some individuals on the bus.  One lady, didn't speak English but talked to another who did, but who didn't know the bus stops.  She talked to a  third lady who told us to get off the bus stop after her.  By the time we left the bus, only one of the three ladies was still on the bus, but she helped us get off correctly.  By the time we got back to our hotel, we felt like we had just experienced a PERFECT day.

We went to bed that night, so content.  The next morning at 4 am, Debbie went to the bathroom and started to feel immense pain.  We prayed and I gave her a blessing to reduce the pain. The pain reduced, but she was still uncomfortable.  She went back to the bathroom and the catheter popped right out.  Pain was gone, but we now had a new problem.

I told Debbie, that we had no immediate danger, but that the long term danger was for her bladder to fill up and return to the pain that she had in England.  We weren't scheduled to fly out of Venice until 1:30 that afternoon.  We had two choices, either go to a medical facility in Venice and get them to put another catheter in or get to Germany more quickly and have the urologist in Germany put a new catheter in.  Unable to make contact with the Area Doctor in Frankfurt, we chose to go to the airport and try to arrange an earlier flight.  The flight was available, but the airline personnel were not helpful.  We had a non changeable flight and they were unwilling to make an exception, even though we had a medical emergency.  Our only option was to buy new tickets.  To make matters worse, they would not honor a reasonable internet price for the ticket and it was too late for the internet to accept our booking.  So we ended up paying an inflated price to get us back to Germany three hours earlier.

When we arrived in Germany shortly after noon, we had an email from the Area Doctor telling us that the urologist's office was closed from noon until 3 pm.  So we went to our apartment, got a letter from our Area Doctor in German to explain our situation and caught the train to arrive at the urologist a little before 3:00 pm.  Showing the letter and making a lot of hand signals with receptionists that do not understand English, we finally got into a doctor, not the original doctor that had treated Debbie, but another.  He spoke some English and we were finally able to get a new catheter put in.  Turns out that Debbie had not stored up as much urine in her bladder as we had expected, since she specifically had been fasting all day to minimize the volume in her bladder.  In the end all was well, and we are trying to get some recourse from the airline for their inflexibility in helping us out.

The next day we went back to the airport to fly to the U.S.  We received wheelchair assistance at each airport and were able to make it back on Wednesday night in SLC without further challenges.

On Thursday morning we got up early to be able to go and witness the marriage of our son, Moroni with his new bride, Leeneh at the County Courthouse.  It turned out to be a wonderful experience.  Moroni's daughter, Tiare, was able to be there also.  Moroni asked us what his siblings would think about his marriage.  We told him that their first comment would be, "Why didn't you invite us?".  In the end it was a simple marriage, but it got done.  We took the small bridal party to breakfast at Dee's family restaurant.  Another good positive.

We then went and visited our daughter Camila, who has been admitted to a nursing facility from the UNI, since the last time we were in town.   She seems to be very happy with her situation.  Her mental capacity is way diminished, but she seems happier than she has been for many years.  On Saturday, we went to the football games that her sons, Caide and Isake, played in. While there we spent time with her daughters, Kaisha and Cherish and their Aunt Caren who is dedicating herself to helping our grandchildren have the structure and love that they so desperately need.  This family has been through so much in their lives, including the loss of the father Eddie, in late June.  In spite of the challenges, they are making progress, thanks to the efforts of many, especially their Aunt Caren  and Camila's mother, Beth.  We are thankful to all who have stepped up in this time of crisis.  We are thankful for whatever part we can play in their lives, while we are away.

At 6:30 am, on Friday morning, we met with Dr. Middleton, a urologist who had agreed to see Debbie on short notice.  He promptly took out the catheter and put Debbie on self-catherization, to happen only three times a day. This is to help awaken her bladder and train it to function again.  So far we are seeing some progress.  We will have some additional tests done tomorrow morning and some continued visits with the urologists.  He is making things happen quickly so that we will be able to return to Germany right after Thanksgiving.

On Sunday we attended our home ward for the 7th time since we moved here at the end of May.  That is two more times than we have been at our ward in Germany.  We have spent 7 different Sundays in other countries, always attending our meetings there, except for the Sunday that we spent in the hospital in England.  I was asked to teach priesthood meeting, sharing my life biography and experiences.  We were also asked to speak at our ward on December 27 before officially entering the mission field.

It is now Sunday night.  In four short days since we returned, we have been with or made contact with almost all of our children in Utah.  We saw many on Halloween night, have contacted others by phone.  We will see several in activities in the next few weeks.  It is amazing how much time we can spend with needs that each of them have.  We have found that most are doing very well without their parents around.  In fact several have told us how they are growing more as they have to step up on their own.  We know that our Heavenly Father is their father and he loves them and that he will reach out and help and strengthen each and every one of them. We have been privileged to be their parents, but each of them need to develop a relationship with their Heavenly Father that will bring them long term success and happiness.   We love each and every one of them and pray that we can do whatever our Heavenly Father asks of us.

Ponderizing in Frankfurt in Autumn

We have been in Frankfurt all week, amazing!  It has been a wonderful chance to better organize and plan for the self-reliance work in Europe.  We have spent the entire week in the office and have had significant time with Thomas King our Area Self-Reliance Manager.  This has included planning for our manager seminar in December and the next Area Self-Reliance Committee next month.  We have also worked on many special projects relating to different challenges in our stewardship, all this while staying in Frankfurt.  The autumn colors are beautiful and the last few days have actually been mostly clear and beautiful.  The following photos are the view from the balcony of our apartment today:

This has allowed Debbie to get more accustomed to having her friend Bagley with her all the time. She has done amazingly well and has not missed a beat in her service.   We also have started to work harder on our German language.  We are learning a new phrase each day and sharing it with the receptionist at the Church Area Office.  We have also started back up with our language trainers at the MTC and are now committed to weekly goals.  As we study the language more, some of the words and phrases are becoming more familiar.  We have hope to make some progress!  In November, while we are back in the U.S., we will spend several days in the immersion program at the MTC, fully concentrating on German.

We also started this week with a weekly Ponderize scripture.  This includes a new form of studying all footnotes to the scripture and the footnotes to those scriptures and the footnotes to those scriptures.  This can go on forever, we stop when the scriptures start repeating themselves.  It is an amazing way to understand the message of the scripture in depth.

We chose to start this week with the power of doctrine to change behavior.  This has been a common theme that we have shared in several of our training sessions with priesthood leaders.  If we want them to be excited about the Self-Reliance initiative, they must understand the doctrine.  As we have been able to share the initiative from the scriptures, we have seen that many feel the spirit in the meetings and that changes their attitudes!

As we are studying this in more detail, it is powerful to see the power of the Word of God in our lives and in the lives of all who listen, not only to the words but to the promptings of the Holy Ghost.  I personally believe that this is the main reason that we should read scriptures, so that the Holy Ghost will speak to us and we will be listening when this occurs.

Today we are heading to Venice, Italy for a training session with Bishops in that stake.  This will be our first visit with our SRS manager in Italy.  This will complete our goal of spending some one on one time with each of our managers before we return to the U.S.  We will spend a P-day in Venice on Monday and then return home to Frankfurt on Tuesday of next week  On Wednesday, October 28, we return to Utah, having exhausted our quota of days in Europe for the next while.

We will be visiting a urologist on the Friday morning after we arrive to better understand the treatment that Debbie will need.  Hopefully, this can be taken care during this time so that we return to Europe soon after Thanksgiving.  We are excited to see family and friends again during the month of November!

Debbie's Health Part 2; Lessons learned in England

The following is an entry from Debbie's journal about her feelings, thoughts and spiritual growth while in the hospital in England::

"The first thing that I learned is that sometimes we ask for a blessing the Lord does not want to give us.  Tom and I both offered many prayers that my pain would go away.  The Lord knew that wasn't the blessing that I needed.  I can't even imagine what could have happened if my pain had gone away, I would probably have gone into kidney failure.  I needed the pain to force me to the hospital where I could get the blessing the Lord wanted to give me.

The phrase "Thy will be done"  has greater meaning for me know.  From now on I will always pray for the will of God to be done.

The timing of everything that happened was a miracle.  The first miracle is that we were in a country where we understood the language.  The second miracle is that we were staying with a missionary couple who were able to get us to the hospital and serve us in so many ways.  The third miracle, even though the National Health Care in England is questionable, they were willing to provide the services I needed without any red tape.  They were willing to work with us on the financial part.

Doctor Ryser, the Area doctor, was able to make an appointment for us to see an urologist on Tuesday afternoon, the day after returning from England, amazing!  Try doing that in the States.  It was a miracle that through this whole experience, I felt peace and a calm assurance that everything would be okay.  When Tom wasn't able to be with me, I was not alone.  I felt the loving arms of my Savior around me.  I don't know what the future holds for me and my health.  I know whatever it is, I will be able to get through it.  Evidently this bladder problem has been going on for a long, long time.  We don't know what damage there is to my kidneys.  Things may go back to "normal".  We don't know why my bladder doesn't empty the way it should.  Hopefully we can find some answers.  Although my future is uncertain, I know that my redeemer lives.  "He lives to comfort me when faint. He lives to hear my soul's complaint.  He lives to silence all my fears.  He lives to wipe away my tears.  He lives to calm my troubled heart. He lives all blessings to impart."

Once we got back to Frankfurt, we made arrangements to visit the urologist.  Dr. Reyser went with us to show us how to get there on a train.  It was really quite simple.  The urologist has his office right in the touristic downtown of Frankfurt.  The following photos show Debbie and Dr. Reyser on our first trip and Debbie riding the train.

In the first visit (on Tuesday), the urologist did a blood test and an ultrasound and scheduled for us to return on Thursday morning to remove the catheter and then return later that day for him to examine the bladder and urethra with urine in it.  This time we made the trip alone, just the three of us, Tom, Debbie and Bagley.

After removing the catheter, Debbie was unable to urinate for the next four hours.  When the doctor examined Debbie, he found no problems or obstructions in the urethra, but the bladder was still not emptying.  So Bagley was put back on and the three of us returned back by train.  Dr. Reyser set us an appointment with a trusted urologist in Utah for October 30, soon after we return next week.  So we will wait until then to find out how to solve the mystery of the dysfunctional bladder.

The good news is that we now know how to go downtown on the train where there are many beautiful and historic buildings.  At a future time, when the weather is better and we are in better physical condition, we will return and enjoy the sights.

We had previously planned on traveling to Finland on Thursday night and to Italy on Saturday.  I (Tom) made the short trip to Finland on Thursday night and Debbie stayed home.  I was able to visit the Helsinki, Finland temple on Friday morning and participate with our Self-Reliance manager in the training of members of two different stake committees on Friday afternoon and evening.  Although short, it was a very worthwhile trip.  Saturday morning early, I was able to return to Frankfurt and be with Debbie again.

We have delayed our trip to Italy for now, making sure we are getting adjusted to the new reality before we make any more trips.  This will give us more time to work with our new manager this week, as he is returning from training in SLC.

Self-Reliance in England

Let me take a step back and tell what we were doing in England before Debbie got sick.  It might be easiest to follow the numbers on the following map of England.

We flew into Manchester (1), England on Monday, October 5 and had a wonderful dinner with Elder and Sister Curtis, our SRS missionary couple there and spent the night in a local hotel.   The next day we went with our SRS Manager, Les, to Hull (2), England to visit a Healthy Living Self-Reliance Group.  It was our first experience to see senior citizens that don't have a temporal self-reliance need participating in a Self-Reliance group that is interesting to them, but still including the My Foundations course.

We also stopped by to get to know Les's wife and family on the way back to Birmingham (3), England at the end of the day.  We ended up spending about 10 hours in a car that day with Les, which gave us a wonderful time to talk about the Self-Reliance initiative in his region, which is United Kingdom, North.  The next day in Birmingham, we spent time visiting with another Self-Reliance missionary couple, Elder and Sister Michaelis and our SRS manager, Martin, who is responsible for the United Kingdom South.  We then spent the afternoon with meetings with the two managers and our Area Self-Reliance Manager, Thomas King, who joined us.  That evening we went to participate in a Stake self-reliance committee meeting and then continued on with a training of members of four stake self-reliance committees for another hour and a half.  I had the privilege to share insights of the Self-Reliance initiative worldwide, focusing on the doctrine and principles of Self-Reliance.  The entire session was interactive and we were able to answer questions from each of them.  The spirit was very strong in this meeting and we felt that all were spiritually fed and ready to take additional steps in their callings related to Self-Reliance.

The next morning we were picked up at our hotel by Martin, who took us to London (4), England , a drive of another 2 and a half hours.  There we spent the next two days in the historic  Hyde Park Chapel, participating with the two managers, their three Self-Reliance missionary couples, Thomas King, Debbie and I.  This included Elder and Sister Baxter who are serving as Self-Reliance missionaries in London.  The following photos are of the Hyde Park chapel and the Self-Reliance seminar:

At the end of the two day seminar, on Friday night, we were able to go as a group to the London, Temple to enjoy a temple session together.  What a wonderful way to finish this special time together.

After the temple session is when Debbie's pain became extra intense.  She was without pain during the entire temple session, which was a tender mercy from the Lord.  I have told that story in an earlier blog.  We did spend the remainder of our time in London with Elder and Sister Baxter, except for Debbie who was in the hospital.   However, why we were still trying to understand the issue, I was able to participate with a Starting and Growing My Business group in London on Saturday morning.  The girl on the right in the photo is a non member from China who is receiving lessons from the missionaries and is building relationships with members in the class.

Sunday night, while Debbie was in the hospital, I left for a few hours to participate in a training session for members of nine different stake self-reliance committees in the greater London area.  Our experience was similar to that in Birmingham, earlier in the week.  The spirit was strong, the leaders were dedicated and it was felt that this was a positive step forward for all involved.

Finally on Monday morning, we were able to get Debbie discharged from the hospital.   We went straight from the hospital to the airport in London. We missed our original flight, but were able to get booked on a later flight without the normal charges due to Debbie's medical situation.  Photos below show the front of the hospital where Debbie spent two nights.  The other is of Debbie in the airport in a wheelchair, which facilitated her experience in the airport and got us to the front of several lines.

Debbie hospitalized in London

Just a quick blog to update everyone about Debbie.   She is currently in a hospital bed in London, England, recovering from a "urinary retention" problem.  Current problems have been resolved and long term solutions are still pending a doctor visit in Germany.  Please see details below:

Debbie has been having quite a bit of pain lately, we thought it was related to constipation.  We arrived in England on Monday and have been in meetings, traveling, missionary couple training, etc. all week.  We will update more on that in our next blog.  However, during the week she has suffered from constipation, which we felt was causing the pains that she was experiencing.  On Friday night we went to the London temple and Debbie was able to be pain free, a true tender mercy from the Lord.  However, after the temple, the pain began to intensify.

We arrived home late that night, close to midnight.  Debbie had been constipated all week and we thought her pain was related to that.  As the night progressed, her pain increased and she was unable to sleep at all.  Finally at 3:30 a.m. I went walking in my pajamas in London to find an all night pharmacy and buy suppositories and laxatives.  As I arrived back at our very tiny hotel room, we hoped that we had found the solution to her problems.

However, although there was temporary relief, Debbie continued to have pain.   A priesthood blessing helped for awhile.  Throughout the day on Saturday, she slept at the home of the missionary couple that we were visiting.  She did have some moments of relief and we felt that she was simply recovering.  She did not have enough strength to visit a self-reliance group that morning and also was not able to go to the theater showing of the Phantom of the Opera in London with myself and the missionary couple.  In these cases she stayed in the apartment and slept, with ups and down of pain.

By Saturday evening, Debbie was feeling quite well and we had hopes that she was recovering.  However, as soon as she started eating a little dinner, all the pains came back again, stronger than ever.  Finally we decided that we needed to head to a local emergency room, an A & E (Accident and Emergency).  We got there around 9:00 pm and began waiting.  While waiting Debbie went to the bathroom to urinate.  Soon after, she was called into the assessment room and about a half hour later, she was seen by a doctor.  He immediately asked for a urine sample and a blood test.  She was unable to furnish a urine sample.  As they felt her stomach, they immediately detected a severely enlarged bladder that was full.  Over the next few hours they were trying to get an I.V. on her, which is nearly impossible with her thin veins.  Finally, after poking both arms and hands several times, they were able to get an I.V. set up through her foot.   They advised us that she would be in the hospital for at least 24 hours.  They then started to put in a catheter to drain her bladder.  I was excused from the room during this effort, so I went home with Elder Baxter and got some things so that I could stay the night with her, which I was told was possible.

I then had Elder Baxter just drop me off with the idea that I would call sometime the next day to see how long I would stay at the hospital.  When I got back to the hospital, they were still finishing up with the catheter and had removed almost 2 liters of urine.  You must consider that a bladder is supposed to only hold 16 to 24 ounces of urine and they removed over 60 ounces.  They said her bladder was enlarged almost 5 times and this was causing the severe pain.   The medical terminology of the problem is "urinary retention".   The good news is that there was no infection in the urine.

With the urine removed, she was relieved of the pain and started immediately to feel better.  However, they noted that her kidney was in bad shape, based on the stress that the enlarged bladder had caused.  During the ensuing day, they had hoped that the health of the kidney would return, which appears to be happening.  

Finally about 2:30 am, Debbie was moved into a hospital ward, with 5 other ladies.  Each could have privacy with a curtain around the bed.  There was one chair next to the bed, so I decided that I would sleep on the chair, not very comfortable, but workable.  About 3:00 am I was awakened by a nurse who stated that I could not stay in the ward, since there were other women there and I would have to stay in the waiting room downstairs. We were on the 4th floor of the hospital.  So I went downstairs and found a few metal chairs without arms together so that I could lay down.  After a little while a security guard came and told me that I couldn't stay there.  I told him what I had been told and that I had no way to get back to the missionary home, since they were now fast asleep.  He showed me into a different waiting room with a soft bench and that was in the dark.  Perfect for sleeping.  Once again, I laid down.  After starting to dose off, I was awakened by a different guard who said that I could not sleep there, but would have to sit in the chairs by the front desk.  These were very uncomfortable and almost impossible to sleep in, so I finally called Elder Baxter back, waking him up and had him pick me up again so that I could sleep in their extra bed.

I chose to sleep for almost 6 hours before returning to the hospital.  When I arrived, around 11:00 am (three hours before visiting hours), Debbie had already been visited by several doctors and nurses, including those who wanted to see how we were going to pay for the hospital visit.  By the time that I had arrived, they had all left, being a Sunday.  So we spend several hours together, talking and studying the Infinite Atonement together.  I worked on as much as I could with the hospital, knowing that most would have to be taken care of the next morning.  Finally, I left the hospital at 4:30 to go to a training meeting that we had with stake self-reliance committees from 9 different stakes.  by 9:30 pm Elder Baxter and I were back in the hospital visiting with Debbie and giving her a priesthood blessing.

Now I am back in the home of Elder and Sister Baxter, updating this blog.  In the morning I will go back to the hospital to see how soon we can get her discharged.  It depends on blood tests, the condition of her kidney and keeping the catheter in until we meet with a doctor in Germany.  The bottom line is that they have solved the short term problem, but do not want to remove the catheter until we can identify the source of the problem.  We will need to reschedule our flight back to Germany, since we do not know when she will be discharged.

Once again, we can see the hand of the Lord in all of this.  This problem occurred while we had access to a wonderful missionary couple and an extra bedroom in their apartment.  It happened in a location with good medical care and the English language.  Things could have been much worse.  We also have identified a problem that has probably existed for some time.  We are thankful for His blessings and help during this difficult time.

For now, all is well.  We will update this blog as things progress.  The people at the hospital have been very helpful and kind.  We will leave London with memories different than we were expecting.  

General Conference in Germany

First, let me describe the logistics of watching General Conference in Germany.  On Sunday, we went to Church in our English speaking ward.  It was announced that this week was General Conference, but there was no mention of times and locations where it could be viewed.  Since we are 8 hours ahead of Salt Lake, there was reasonable doubt if it would be shown and when, live or delayed.  We assumed that something would be available or we could watch by internet.

As the end of the week approached, missionary couples that we thought could give us some direction were out of the office, our boss was new to Frankfurt and did not know either.  So we thought we would wait and see.  Saturday was a holiday in Germany which made things more different still.

We had learned earlier in the week, while trying to watch Elder Scott's funeral live, that live event streaming was not allowed in Germany.  So on our Saturday afternoon, at 6:00 pm, we tried to watch conference on the internet, with the expected result, that live video streaming was not available.

However, we decided to try watching on ksl.com, which seemed to work, but with inconsistent results during Elder Uchtdorf's opening address.  I looked out the window and saw a few cars near the Church, so I left in my jeans to check the Church out.  When I got there, I could see that conference was showing in the chapel, so I ran home and Debbie and I got changed and headed to the Church.  As we walked to the Church, I finally remembered that we were in Germany and the conference that would be shown in the chapel would likely be in German.  However, we continued to the Church.  When we got there, we confirmed that the conference in the chapel was in German, but we did hear President Uchtdorf speaking in English in the Cultural hall.  So, we entered the cultural hall to see conference being projected onto the stage in English, but no one attending.  We got two chairs out and Debbie and I watched conference alone with a big screen presentation.

During the congregational sing in the middle of the session, I went to the hall and saw that there was another room full of young missionaries with some investigators watching also in English.  Well, we finished our private viewing in the Cultural hall until the end of the first session, which ended at 8:00 pm, our time.  Afterwards we found a member of the stake presidency who told us that there would not be a showing of the next session live, since it was so late, only on Sunday afternoon for those who were interested.

However, he did note that he was able to watch the conference on his lap top on the Mormon Channel, using a VPN connection.   That stands for Virtual Private Network and it is software that is available on my Church laptop and it links directly into the Church network.  With that new knowledge, we returned home and watched the Saturday afternoon session from our home at 10:00 pm until midnight.  As such, we were able to see live the calling of the three new apostles as well as enjoying all of the talks from our leaders.

We chose to go to bed before the Priesthood session which began at 2:00 am our time.  When we awoke, we watched the Priesthood session during our Sunday morning from lds.org, without it being live.  Using the same tools, we were able to watch the Sunday sessions at our 6:00 pm and 10:00 pm and participate live in the remainder of General Conference.

Thank goodness for technology, we were able to feel the same spirit of conference right from our apartment.  This was the first time that Debbie and I have ever watched General Conference without children or grandchildren with us.  It was quite enjoyable.

Different situation, same great spirit and revelation.  We are so thankful for General Conference, to hear the words from our living apostles and prophets, there is nothing that compares to this outpouring to he spirit.

Some of the themes that we felt strongly were as follows:

• The calling of the 3 new apostles, their wonderful testimonies on Sunday and the amazing tribute that was given to them and to the apostles that had passed on since last conference.
• Incredible tribute to the women of the world, certainly in their role as mothers (Elder Holland) and as wives (President Nelson)
• A strong theme to caution us against the tools of the devil, especially the worldly criticism of Joseph Smith and the history of the Church.  Nothing new in the world's criticism, but so much more available to confuse members due to the strong internet presence.  I loved the words of Elder Neil Anderson, "Faith not by chance, but by choice" and his request to"give Brother Joseph a break", especially after looking at the totality of his life and his work.
• Loved the talks by our dear Prophet.  In the Priesthood Session he clearly taught us the simple counsel to "Keep the Commandments".  On Sunday morning he taught us to be the light of the world.  He taught diligently, even though he was clearly struggling physically by the end of his talk.  We sure do love our prophet.
• Wonderful tributes and lessons of our Savior by President Eyring and Elder Costa and so many others.
• Strong messages about the deterioration of our times, including the enlarging of the great and spacious building.  Certainly we need to listen to our leaders, we are blessed to have living apostles and prophets to guide us.

With all of the wonderful counsel, perhaps one of the most meaningful to me was from Elder Larry Lawrence in the first session, where he counseled us pray to our Heavenly Father and ask "What is keeping me from progressing? or What lack I yet?"  He gave excellent examples of answers that we might receive.   Debbie and I have both applied this counsel and received some very specific counsel from our Heavenly Father, different for each of us, but very personal.  I recommend that we all do this and we will receive revelation that is especially for us!

As Debbie and I have shared our thoughts from these personal revelations, our love for each other is magnified.  What a joy it is to be married to a righteous spouse who loves the Lord and tries each day to be a better person.  She constantly helps me to want to be better and gives me encouragement as we go through life and certainly while we serve together as missionaries.