Harry Potter CAN Save Souls. :)

Hey all!

Wow story time.
Ready?

SO. Last Sunday, April the 4th, Elder Richardson notices some minor leg pain and a little redness on his left upper thigh. Not thinking anything of it, he takes some ibuprofen and thinks it's nothing. Tuesday rolls around, and the pain has gotten exponentially worse, and the redness is spreading and getting darker. We decide to call the Mission Doctor, and he says to take 800mg of Ibuprofen and "walk it off." The next day, wednesday, Elder Richardson is in so much pain he can't walk- and the redness now takes up most of his thigh and it's visibly VERY swollen, with 2 large red bumps in the center of his leg, about the size of half dollars. We call Sister Smith, and she sets us up an appointment for the next day Thursday with a doctor pretty close to us in the Bronx at 11:45 AM. That night, Elder Richardson has a 102.7 fever, he's shaking, sweating, screaming, and the red bumps have turned dark purple. I called the Mission Doctor, and he told me to stay up with him and give him 800mg Ibuprofen every 3 hours, and 800mg acetominophen every OTHER 3 hours, and surround him in ice packs and if the fever got hotter, to put him in a cold bath. Luckily, with meds, ice packs and prayer, we broke the fever and were able to avoid the ER- for now. Our appointment draws nearer, and we take off to the doctor. We arrive and have to wait almost 2 hours to actually see the doctor. The doctor takes one look and says "you should have gone to the ER 3 days ago." Fail. After further investigation and some blood work, he THEN says "no, you should have gone to the ER 5 DAYS AGO." EPIC Fail. He was transferred (we walked... welcome to the Bronx) to the nearby hospital and they checked him in to the ER- where we waited for 4 hours to get an X-ray, ultrasound, and start flooding his bloodstream with antibiotics and percocet. The Diagnosis; Advanced-stage Cellulitis. Meanwhile, I called President Smith to inform him of the situation, and he and Sister Smith were down at the hospital in about an hour- where we ALL waited until about 9 PM last night to finally get him checked into a room in the hospital to stay for 48 more hours with intravenous antibiotics. It was all so draining and frustrating! Late last night, President Smith drove me home and now I'm temporary companions with Elders Fox and Bayard, my apartmentmates. Poor Elder Richardson! :( He was in so much pain! :( I felt so awful. But luckily, with treatment, time and (also prayer), he'll be back on his feet in a few days. HENCE the reason I'm e-mailing TODAY instead of yesterday!!

ANYWAY!
Our Zone Blitz was such an awesome experience!! We stood on the corner of Brook Avenue and half of us sang our hearts out and the other half contacted! It was so awesome- a little spiritually-charged corner of light in the middle of the Bronx. I loved it :)

I LOVED conference! It was so epic! As a Missionary, everything kinda hit me differently- I took 7 pages of notes! It was all great!

Missionary Moment-
The other day Elder Richardson and I were waiting at a bus stop when I noticed a woman- black, peircings, crazy hair- standing there with us, reading... HARRY POTTER 7. I saw the book... then looked at her. She looked at me, then both of us at her book- then back at each other. We both simultaneiously made this face like... I can't even describe it! Like..."Harry Potter addict? you too?" We both lit up and suddenly we were having this speedy fiery conversation about the 7th book and the 2 more movies to come out and Tonks and Lupin and poor Fred and Mrs Weasly's epic confrontation with Bellatrix LeStrange.... AW MAN!! This went on for about 10 minutes! Elder Richardson rolled his eyes at us- I should have PROBABLY directed the conversation towards more Gospel-related things... but it was HARRY!! Fail. The bus finally came and we got on, where I went to sit near the back with my companion, her near the front with all of her laundry. Suddenly it hit me- I always work in Spanish- all my pass-along cards, extra BOM's, pamphlets videos- everything I carry around with me is in Spanish, but this lady spoke English. It hit me that- that very morning, I had grabbed an English Book of Mormon which I planned on reading while Elder Richardson wrote his farewell paper to President Smith... and it was still in my backpack! I very VERY distinctly felt the prompting to give it to her. I grabbed a peice of paper and wrote on it "Go Harry Potter fans!!" Below that I told her to read and pray about this book and left the English Elder's number on the bottom. I ran to the front of the bus and Handed her the copy and said "Hey- You're a reader! Read this too! This one is even more epic- and I know that THIS one is TRUE." She looked up at me and said "I will!" We exchanged smiles and I went to the back of the bus to get off- I looked back up at her and she already had it open and was reading it!! I got off the bus and felt so awesome! :)

Hey all I gotta run- much to do! I promise more next week, I'm very limited on time this week!
Love you all!
B safe, B happy, B strong!!

Always and Always.
Elder Hellberg