President Palmer allowed us some time today to get some more emailing and other stuff in since our Monday and yesterday were completely taken up. So here's how the day went.
We started our preparation day off normally. Woke up, started on laundry and getting ready. Planned, and studied until 8. We had planned to go shopping first thing at 8:30 and then play sports afterwards. We left and started down the street on our bikes on one of the main roads in town. The bike lanes here, when they are there, are pretty small, so there's not much room to dodge things on the street or in the lane when stuff is there. There is a slight shoulder on the road though. As we take this street we pass the church across the street before the first traffic light. Just across the street there was, and probably still is, a thick wood rod, probably from a broken shovel or something, just laying on the side of the road. My companion said it's been there for a while, but I've never noticed it. I missed it and my companion tried to hit it in a way that he could get over it with his bike but instead his front wheel slipped out from under him and he went over the handle bars. Turning quickly and seeing that he didn't get up very quickly I knew it was a hard fall. He hit is head on the pavement and landed on his left arm in a way that broke both bones in his forearm and pushed one of the bones slightly out of the skin.
I immediately called our Mission President and let him know what happened, and some guys stopped to check on us. I asked them to help us get across the street to the church since it was right there and to help my companion over as well. They helped us across and I began to call our district leader who happened to be at the building emailing, and the President's wife to let her know what happened. We also called the Sisters in the area who had the only car available to us, whom we were going to meet at the store to bring stuff back for us, and they brought the car and waited for us to be able to go.
At some point someone on the street had called emergency response people and they started going up and down the street looking for us until they could finally point out it was us they were looking for. Then tons of them showed up to try to get my companion in the ambulance and take him to the ER and work on him. Note: We are advised to never get into the ambulance or accept help from them because of the cost and how long it would take for good quality help to be given. After many calls and talking with the EMT's and Officers we were finally able to leave.
We were at first asked to go to the Mission Doctor who lives 20 minutes south of our area and have him check the arm. Another note: Because the bone came out my companion had bled quite a bit and was pretty faint and in shock during all of this. So we go down there and he brings us to a room after a few minutes and he takes one look and says "It's broken. I'll send you to get some x-rays." Then we went to an imaging place in Turlock which was about 10 minutes away from there, and as we were about to get all of my companion's stuff checked out we got a call from President's wife asking us to leave and meet them at a different radiology place in Modesto, now 20 minutes away. So after already 2 hours since the accident we rushed up to Modesto and finally started on a path to get help. He took some time to get some x-rays, then over to the orthopedic specialist that President has connections to so that he can check my companion's arm out. The doctor wrapped his arm up and told us that he would need surgery the next day to reset the bones and remove some of the damaged tissue from the fall.
We left that office and went to lunch at 1, my first meal that day, at an Italian restaurant in Modesto that Elder Redmon wanted to go to. It was a super nice restaurant and the food was really good. Oh, and we had been dragging our district leader and his companion around this whole time, so they got to have lunch too. Then we went over to the hospital where my companion would be having surgery and they did some blood work which took a couple hours. Then President had me and the other two Elders head to the mission office to take some time to email and he and Elder Redmon went to get some medicine and other stuff. We were there for about an hour and a half, Elder Redmon had come at some point within that time, and we left the mission office.
Side note: We borrowed the Sisters car which left them in Ceres without one to finish their preparation day; our district leader left his tiwi card at the church so he wasn't able to drive the car back at any time, and his companion can't drive. The solution to that was give the one Elder a temporary tiwi card and have him take the car back to Ceres to finish up some preparation day stuff and get it back to the Sisters, we were given a car that was sitting in the parking lot at the church, and it just so happened to be a brand new 2017 Corolla with basically no miles on it. I have the newest car in the family again!
Anyways continuing on, we didn't get back to our apartment until 6pm. Then my companion was resting and up and down, dealing with pain and discomfort, and I just kinda hung out and cleaned and whatever until bedtime. Our district leader dropped off some groceries and stuff for us since we weren't able to get anything that day and they took off. We had been waiting to see what time the next day we had to go to the hospital for Elder Redmon's surgery and I finally got the call from President that said we had to be there by 5am. We ended up staying up a little bit longer and went to bed around the normal time of 10:30, after which my companion couldn't sleep and woke up a little later and stayed up for a little bit and then was able to get back to bed for a couple hours.
We woke up at 4am to get ready and grab mainly what I needed in order to pass time for the whole morning. We drove up to the hospital and checked in and waited for Elder Redmon to be taken into pre-op care, then waited longer before he went to his initial check before surgery in which we had to stay in a waiting room for the duration of that check and his surgery. They started on his surgery around 7:30ish and finished a little after 9. He stayed in recovery and finally made it back over to the pre-op rooms at 11:30ish. We helped him change again and left the hospital around 12. He got to call his mom and let her know how he was doing and we ran up to the mission office to grab some stuff and then took off back to our apartment, which we didn't get to until 1.
I hadn't taken a nap at all the whole day so far so I'm already getting pretty tired, and my companion was pretty dead. He ate a little bit of food and went to bed for a bit and came back down after about an hour. I laid on the floor to try to take a 30 minute nap and got awoken by a call from our ward mission leader about dinner to confirm, since Elder Redmon still wanted to go. I had only barely fallen asleep, so like minutes in, and I couldn't fall asleep again after that. I decided to watch some of the mormon messages and the Joseph Smith movie for a couple hours before dinner, and Elder Redmon walked around the apartment a bit to get some blood flowing, and tried to rest some more. Our ward mission leader picked us up for dinner a little after 5 and then after dinner went to the baptism interview for one of our investigators. After that we went home at about 7 and just hung out and rested. I laid on the floor around 8ish and after about 3 minutes into falling asleep the Sisters called to check in on us and give us some cookies. I then couldn't fall asleep again so I cleaned some more stuff, and looked through some stuff until about 10, then I got ready for bed and we went to bed at 10:30 like normal, and I slept so well. I haven't slept that well in so long. I also felt a lot better when only having 6 hours of sleep compared to 8 earlier yesterday. But that's basically how the last two days went.
Today we went on a walk right after we woke up, and got ready like normal. We took some time to go to the grocery store to grab some extra stuff, and then went back to the apartment to rest more and make lunch. We made some really good "German pancakes" and invited the Spanish Elders over to eat with us. And now we're here. Still exhausted, and Elder Redmon is still in pain but that won't stop for a while. We go back to Modesto tomorrow for a follow-up appointment with the doctor to see what recovery will be like for my companion and see if he can stay out and do recovery here until the end of his mission, or if he will have to go home and do it there. So we will continue to do our best to get some work in here and there, but take time to rest as well.
It's been a crazy couple of days, and as President mentioned to me, it's "not how you expected spend your last 2 weeks huh?" I can't say I expect anything but the unexpected from being on a mission now. You can't predict anything that the Lord will make or allow to happen when in His service. We're doing well now though. I'll keep you posted with more on Monday.
Love,
Elder Weber
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