The loss of my big toe nail... :) (Week 52)

Well family,

Each week we all seem to be amazed with what I write and I am too! Haha this week has been so different, but so magnificent. I pray that the words I am writing will touch you and help you in each of your struggles.

So the day before Leo and Moises baptism about a week and a half ago, I felt a SEARING pain in my toe. And I avoided it. BAD CHOICE. I waited till Monday and showed it to my pensionista and she did her own surgery which hurt but didnt solve the problem. So Wednesday I humbled myself and went to the doctor. For my close family and friends, you know how sacred my big toe is in my family. It is practically a member of the family it is so big. So when the doctor looked at it and said, we are taking the whole toe nail, a part of me died. And I am a big baby. I am not ashamed of being a mommys boy. So she started with one injection of anesthesia, but because my toe is SO BIG (thanks Aunt Janet for always making sure my big toe was full) it took FOUR injections to calm the pain for the sucker. And it still hurt. I still screamed and was not happy. And there was one super important part that happened:

So the pain was not going away and the doctor was working on my toe and stopped the surgery and said the following: 

Look, your toe is infected and there is puss. The anesthesia doesnt take care of the pain that comes from this so youll have to get through it without help.
Dang it. I looked around. Mom wasnt there. No gringos were there. I was surrounded by foreign people. And I asked my companion for a pillow to hold and I didnt even have that. So I just grabbed the side of the bed and the only thing that came to mind was to shout really loudly the texts to I am a child of God and Families can be together forever. And so inbetween yells of pain, I managed to squeeze out a reminder that I was a child of a Heavenly Father who loves me and also earthly parents who love me. I know it may not seem so brave to have done that, but to me it was. I could have cursed God in English or said WHY ME or something like that. But I chose to thank God for what He had given me. And when the pain became unbearable, I cried in a vocal prayer asking for God to send someone to help me with the pain, and I didnt feel anything. and it was then I realized that the Savior had been with me all along. That he had sent angels long before I had asked him too.

I have thought so much about that moment. Sometimes we get so focused on praying for God to help us get through a trial or for Him to give us the help we need, but do we ever think that maybe he has already ¨been there and done that¨? I know that each of you is suffering, but are you changing your vision to see Gods care for you? 

More holiness give me,

More strivings within,

More patience in suff'ring,

More sorrow for sin,

More faith in my Savior,

More sense of his care,

More joy in his service,

More purpose in prayer.

Thats a hymn that I have read and sung many times this week. I see this verse as a step by step process. We have desires to receive holiness, and that leads us to have greater desires, but greater trials as well. As we recognize our weaknesses and sins, it gives us more faith in the One who can take away these struggles, and that leads to our awareness of Him in our lives, a joy that comes as we serve Him, and better prayers that come from knowing Him.

The day after my surgery I went to get my toe cleaned, and while on the way in a taxi, I spoke to a young lady for a good minute or toe (two. haha punny). I took down her contact info and gave it to the sisters. Last night as I was asking the sisters for how many investigators had a baptismal date, they said that this young lady and her mother both have baptismal dates. Ana was looking for someone to help her grow closer to Christ and she found it as I chose to see my life with Christ by my side, not just with Christ when I need Him.

I am fine now. I am walking well and we are teaching. I love each of you and I love my trials. I love my earthly father who was ordained an Elder 30 years ago, tomorrow. I am sure he was unaware of the trials that he would endure at that tender age of 19, just as I am unaware of the same now. But in the past 30 years he has continued to go forth and has done the Lords work, regardless of his struggles. And I will do the same.

For a dollar!
Elder Risueño