God is in the Details

 Last week I could feel a chest cold coming on and, having seen several people struggle with something similar, knew that it would keep me indoors, hoarse, and persistently coughing. We had critical meetings that required our attention last week and I did not want to miss, postpone or send Olivia by herself to the extremes of Long Island. Therefore, I prayed over and over that I would be spared. I knew that it was coming as I pondered, so I just asked that it be postponed until we could get through Sunday, December 31st. As I drove home that Sunday, I could feel the illness taking over my body. By Monday, I was hoarse and coughing. It never got to a point that I felt the need to just stay in bed, but I couldn't go far because of the cough and cold.

On Wednesday morning I thought I was going to be well enough to go to the El Salvador Consulate for our English Connect class, so I prepared the lesson on PowerPoint, but by lunchtime it was pretty obvious that I would not be able to go. Olivia texted and called Julia to let her know. We got a couple of emails wishing me well, so that was nice.

By Friday, I felt I could make it. We went to the Consulate and only one student was available because the absentee voting had started and everyone else was busy. I started teaching the lesson, but only got into it a few minutes before I went into a coughing fit that everyone in the office could hear. One nice thing was that the student asked in English if I needed a bottle of water. I accepted, but Olivia had to finish the rest of the lesson by herself.

Saturday I just stayed indoors, not feeling at all better, but on Sunday I felt well enough to go to church. Everyone on the media seemed to be talking about a bad nor'easter that was going to dump a lot of snow. We got almost none and just a little rain, so that was a blessing.  We learned later that 5 or 6 wards north and east of us cancelled church because of the storm, so we were blessed.

We went to the Jamaica 1st Ward because we felt that there may be a member who could facilitate at least one class online for the Haitian-Creole members in that ward. We got a good recommendation from the bishop of a member who had just moved into the ward. He is from a country in western Africa that I did not recognize and served a mission in the D. R. Congo. He is French-speaking, but can communicate with most of the Haitian members, because they attended schools where all the classes were in French.

We had a nice dinner with Elder and Sister Barnes. Elder Barnes is fighting something similar, but both of us seemed better yesterday. Today, I am much improved and hope to be out of the woods very soon.

And that is it for the week. We didn't even take any pictures. Sorry about that. This week we will be mostly back to normal. I promise.