Subject: A hospital, a funeral, and some cookies

¡Hola mi familia y amigos!

      Well if you can't tell my the title of this email it was quite an interesting week! I'm gonna start by explaining the hospital part :) 

      So last pday like I mentioned we were kind of waiting to see what was happening to Sister Hall. That night we ended up dropping stuff of to her and Sister Alexander at the hospital in Bronx...since it was after the time of needing to be home we went with our zone leaders...we ended up having the wrong address, there were buckets of rain, and it was just a crazy night. Shortly after getting home we got woken up with the call that her appendix had indeed burst. Thursday I did a 12 hour shift of waiting with her in the ER to get a room on the surgery floor. Let me tell you New York ERs are crazy! It's like a game of Tetris with all the beds...it's so crowded!! And there are the most random people (see my people of New York section below for more detail) Sis baker stayed the 12 hour night shift right after me while and and Sis Alexander went home to sleep. Luckily Sis Hall finally got a real room thursday night so no more ER! It was definitely a few crazy days. I'm not a doctor but I'll kind of try to explain what happened. Her body walled the infection into an abscess and the appendix is now a stone? But by Friday night her infection levels were gone so she got to leave the hospital Saturday afternoon and headed up to Scarsdale until Sunday night to rest! She'll have to get surgery in like a month but for now she's back in our apartment and normal missionary life has resumed! 

       As for the funeral, one of our ward member's son passed away last week. I don't know if you remember me telling you about Miguel Reyes, but it was his son (who was only like a year older than I am.) So Friday night (after being in the hospital most of the day) we went for the last little bit of the funeral. It definitely was a hard experience to see their sadness, but also the culture of mourning was really amazing. The ward has been such an amazing support for them! 

      Stake conference was this weekend too! Saturday night we got to go downtown to the adult session with Sis Spencer, the new senior sister that moved into our apartment building. It was a really amazing session and so diverse! We had speakers that were new converts, spoke sign language, new to the area, lived here forever, so much diversity. The theme was aligning out will to god's will, and it was really incredible. Sunday during stake conference all the 80 or so missionaries that are serving in Manhattan we asked to come sing. So halfway through we all stood up (we were sitting in the back) and sang the first verse of Called to Serve as we walked to the front, then the congregation joined us in singing the second verse. There was such an amazing spirit, and a really cool experience! 

      So the cookie part of this email is kind of random haha, but yesterday we had interviews and Sis Morgan made cookies, then a member in our ward gave us cookies yesterday too, and then for zone activity we made sugar cookies (while we watched ephraim's rescue)! If any of y'all know me...I do love cookies. Haha 

      This week I've just come to the realization that I just really love the people of New York!! Seriously I don't know if you can really go anywhere in the world and get as much culture as here in NYC. Yesterday we did an APF and we handed out free lemonade kind of by the Columbia hospital and we met so many amazing people! Also I've forgotten to tell y'all but there is this guy named Russell that is the elevator operator at the subway stop by our house. He's one of our best friends! Haha seriously though he's always watching movies, or listening to music and we always chat with him it's the best. Also there is this crazy lady named Alice in our apartment building that apparently has lived there since forever. She is kind of a hoarder and never goes inside her apartment? So she just sits outside her door, since she lives on the first floor, and yells at everyone and talks to us. She's also next door neighbors with Sis Spencer now and that has been a treat. Haha. Also yesterday at the bus stop this Jewish sat and talked with us forever just because she loved my red hair :) OH and the people of the ER!! So I'm just going to tell you about this one guy. He was waiting with us for like the whole 24 hours, he had like 3 of his toes get cut off in the street but because he left and then missed his return surgery appointment they stuck him in the ER to wait for an available surgery...and he was crazy. He was blaring music, and would leave on his power chair every so often to go to his house around the corner, he offered sis hall drugs and weed and even smoked in the bathroom in the ER. but he was hilarious and was quite entertaining! Well that's just a few of my favorite people recently! People of New York are the best:) 

   Well due to the fact we spent almost all the week in the hospital, I don't have pictures but it was a really good week! :) we had a lot of amazing lessons the past two days and it's good to get back to a normal routine! I love y'all so much and hope you have an amazing week!! Thanks for all your support :)

xoxo

Hermana Smart