Week 13, Pueblo Nuevo Viñas - What Even

 Elder Walbom and his companion, Elder Ruales, had quite the ordeal this past week! Glad they are both okay now.

Elder Walbom’s weekly email…

  

So this week was an ordeal. Remember how I said that I got a fever last week and had horrible back pain and a urinary tract infection? Well it turns out that it was all connected. My incredible pain was due to a.... Kidney Stone! And defying all the odds, my companion also got a kidney stone at the same time! The night that mine finally passed was when his manifested itself.

He had to be taken to the hospital and that next day I had to get tests taken at a lab. Then I went to my companion in the hospital. I relieved the office elders of their care of my companion and began my 4-day stay in the hospital with my comp. (Also we absolutely ruined the office elders plans for the day on Friday because both of their companionships days were taken up with helping me and my comp get to where we needed to be).

The food there was pretty good and we got to watch general conference because our mission president's wife brought us a laptop. The best part was that we were able to browse churchofjesuschrist.org

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Find messages of Christ to uplift your soul and invite the Spirit. churchofjesuschrist.org

and keep ourselves occupied. I also started and finished Saints in the hospital. Also I got to watch part of the devotional at BYU with Pres. Nelson and I got to see my choir perform!! [The choir Elder Walbom was in last year at BYU.] Good job you guys!

Then we finally got out of the hospital but we couldn't go back to our area yet because I had to go to immigration services the next day and see a doctor to interpret the results of my tests. That went well and I learned that I do have a UTI and the bacteria causing it is E. Coli. So now I'm on antibiotics for 10 days.

We finally got to come back to Pueblo that night. We took buses that took forever to get to where they were going because the traffic in Guatemala City is actually the worst traffic I have every witnessed in my life.

So anyways, we were headed to Pueblo but our first stop was La Vega. This place is a place with several shops and outhouses and sitting areas and its fine during the day and buses are always stopping and picking people up and dropping others off, but at night its not very active. When we got there, there were no buses and it was very dark. We called the other missionaries in Pueblo but they didn't really think they could do much to help us because we were quite a ways away and it was late. So, feeling anxious to leave this unsettling area, I said a prayer with my companion to bless us with safe travels and a bus to take us home. Well we didn't know of any public buses that would be coming by the Vega this late but we held out hope. Not 5 seconds after that prayer finished, a bus rolls up on one of the roads that passes the Vega and we waved it down. It turned out to be a school bus! It was taking teenagers home to Pueblo from Barberena where they had gone to school that day. They let us on and took us home free of charge, for which we were very grateful. We later learned that La Vega is not somewhere you want to be at night and that people get killed there and hurt occasionally. So needless to say I am grateful that we had a speedy exit from that place. I know God's hand is in all of our lives and his tender mercies extend over everyone.

Anyways I and my comp are better now and we are looking forward to a better and healthier week.

Adios!

Elder Walbom excited to see his BYU choir perform at a devotional. He is pointing out good friends.

Elder Walbom had one final thing to ask of us: 

"One more thing- I would really appreciate everyone's prayers specifically in behalf of my choir and my ability to lead it."

You can email Elder Walbom directly at alex.walbom@missionary.org. He would love to hear from you!