Hernia Surgery

"Have I got a story and a half for you guys this week. Just another thing to prove that my mission is more like a war than 2 years of teaching the gospel. But like my buddy Paul the Apostle taught, "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." We learn that without a fight we won't gain the ultimate prize."

"So about 2 weeks ago Elder Dias and I were lifting roof tiles up onto a roof in Taubate, and they were quite heavy. Afterwards I was feeling more sore than usual, and the next few days I kept waking up with stomach pains that I talked about in my last emails. So I called President Urry and he told me, first it could be a stomach virus, and after I found out it wasn't, he told me to go to the hospital in Taubate to get checked out. I went over there and it turned out that I had a hernia. I guess a hernia is when you have a hole in your body and your guts and stuff inside of you are moving around in ways they aren't supposed to. So now what does Elder Tonks do? Hold on to your seats."

"I call President Urry and tell him the good news. He tells me I need to come to Sao Paulo that night and get checked out by "better doctors" since those in Taubate aren't really the best. When I got there and got checked out, the results were the same. So I went to Dr. Claudio R. Deutsh, former president of Albert Einstein Hospital, who said, "Well, Courthis (that's how he prounounced my name) we are gonna have to operate." They called President Urry and stuff and that night I called my dad and told him and we marked the operation for the next day, which was last Tuesday."

"On Monday night, Elder Branco and Elder Ribeiro, the referral and house secrataries, respectively, and I went over to Albert Einstien Hospital, the nicest hospital in Latin America, which pretty much means, the nicest hospital outside of the United States. It was huge and pretty inside with doctors and rich people and a grand piano in the lobby and statues and stuff, but I was nervous for the upcoming surgery early the next morning."

"We slept that night and the next morning they woke me up and they were like, "Take this shot, it will make you drowsy". So I did, and seriously, the next thing that I remember was waking up after the surgery in the hospital room. The surgery was over. They just made three little cuts, really little, right below my left hip and stitched me back up. And we stayed there for 3 more days, eating lots of soft food, looking outside of the window at a soccer stadium called Morumbi where U2 will rock to a sold out crowd on Sunday and Monday nights, and just trying to pass the boredom that comes with sitting in a hospital room. Well, afterwards, we left and came back to the Mission Office, in a taxi, which was quite cool."

"But don't worry everyone, I'm fine, it's just another stage of the "good fight" that I'm fighting down here. Yeah, it's painful, kind of hurts to walk and sit down and stand up but I'm fine. Just gotta take it slow and heal and all that good stuff, take my medicines. But here in 2 weeks I will leave and go back to Taubate and continue working and healing. I'm gonna stay down here in Sao Paulo for the next few days and work in the mission office, mostly sitting around and looking up addresses and sending referrals to the correct area."

"It was a wierd experience, not really too painful. I think it will be just another cool story. I was talking to Elder Stephens about how when we get home he will have all the miracle baptism stories and i will have all the war survival stories, which are miracles in themselves. We joke quite a bit."