Re: another week...

Thu, Aug 26, 2010

woot! so. updates on how everything's going. well, as you already know, we stopped by Caguas yesterday. :3 ha ha ha, it was funny cause we actually DID stop by Annie right before we went to the hospital. kinda Ironic that she heard my voice. :D but yeah. we were at the hospital the WHOLE day. super duper fun. we got there at 10 in the morning and left at 5. but basically it was a follow visit for my tests. but he said that basically, because I was still having pain, be it in my special place or in my back, my (possible) kidney stone has been causing me pain for over a month now. So, he gave me orders to get a CT scan to figure out where it is which we got taken care of today in ponce. we get to go pick that up on Monday, and then, unfortunately, we might have to get ourselves back to Caguas, a two and a half hour drive, so we can have Doctor Perez take a look at it. wonderful. but I'm going to talk to Hermana Alvarado to see if there's someplace... well, just a little bit closer, cause Wednesday is our P-day, and I haven't really had a real P-day here in Yauco yet (to answer your question). So much stuff to get ready for. hospital trips, Zone conference prep. stuff like that. it's all so wonderful. :D

a little bit more about our visit yesterday: IIIIIIIII didn't get any sleep past four in the morning cause my back woke me up. and we also got out of bed at six. joyous. that just made the day that much more wonderful. :D so we get to the hospital at ten because the sign up list was supposed to come out at 10:30. buuuuut, we get there and it is just PACKED chock full o' people. LOADED. so we wait till about noon thirty and then we get called in. after filling out a new patient sheet because for some reason I wasn't in the offices system, even though I spent three days at the hospital... I dunno. but anyways, I fill that out and they call me in,
I get the follow up visit and boom. all done with that. so after that, we go out and they ask us to pay. we're like "OK, the mission has an account and we're going to pay for that." and the secretary like "oooo.... you have to pay in cash."

"WHATJKLSD:LF?" we don't have cash!" (it was $85 by the way) and neither of us have very much money this month, eh heh heh... yeah.

"well, lemme call the supervisor. we'll talk with her"

time passes. and some more time passes. "is the supervisor coming?" "wellll, she's actually at lunch, but she'll be back really soon." some MORe time passes. "you sure?" yeah, she's coming back right now." then we come to 3:00 and the supervisor finally walks in. turns out they aren't authorized to charge the account, nor do they have a system to charge it even if they were... (they're in a new part of the hospital.) so we're like "oh crap, what do we do?" we call sister Alvarado- can't send us money on our cards that fast. so after TONS of running around, the number for the Caguas Elders pops into my head (personal revelation for sure). call them up and the zone leaders end up saying, OK we can hook you up with the money. but you're going to have to come and pick it up from the Caguas apartment. hey, that's cool. as long as we can get the money.

well after running up to go pay for our parking, we search around for the parking ticket. it's gone. GREAT! so we can't leave. we call up the zone leaders "um... we can't exactly leave... can you bring us the money? :)" and we had to have the money by four thirty. luckily they get there at four fifteen and I was able to get myself my prescriptions for the cat scan, which they wouldn't give to me till I've paid, obviously.

yes. long day. so we did that, which is basically what we've done this whole last week... it's been really hard cause I haven't got very much sleep and haven't been able to think, so even in lessons I'm just destroyed, and we've been doing some more finding. however, we do have this family that I haven't told you guys about yet, unfortunately...

Francisco and Marcia Morciglio. (more-see-glee-oh. with stress on the "see") but yeah. they have two kids, Justin and Francis. Justin has 12 years, and Francis has 6. Francisco is amazing. he's really reading and praying and he KNOWS that the church is true already. Marcia is still struggling, I think that she might have a few doubts, but part of the problem is that they're leaving to go on vacation from this last Tuesday till the week after the next. so they are going to be out till then, but we just need the chance to extend a baptismal invitation!

Bryan cut his hair! why so short?! :'(

also, that renaissance fair banner with the DC logo is SAWEET! did you get any other pictures from the chain mail artists?

ok... so the current address of where I'm at would be:

Elder Brandon Bryan
Urb. Costa Sur
A21 Calle Brisas del Mar Apt. B
Yauco, PR 00698

and as far as I know, things get here fairly well, although Elder Lehr said that he had a slight problem with one of his packages ending up at the neighbor's house for some reason. but the people here are SOOOOO NICE that if it came for an elder, they know where to put it. but really. the people in Yauco are SOOOOOOOPER nice. you might even say they are souper stars. ;) but I love it. plus, president Alvarado is wanting us to break out of the basic contacting and just start talking to people. be their friends. and then after that, they are going to see that we as missionaries aren't robots, but people that care about them and then they will open up to us. :D

poop... I should probably send this so I can email president. apparently in the west side they started emailing instead of writing letters, so I gotta get that out.

Love you so much! I'm feeling much better though... even though I still get crappy sleep... but yeah...

I love you more than I had to wait at the hospital!

~Brandon

Look!! Sis... he is pretty good n hope h

Wed, Aug 25, 2010

Look this beautifull n big smile!! don't worry Sis... he is pretty good n hope he feel better son ;-). God bless the elders! He made my day!! I'm sooo happy :-D.

Your crazy n awesome son, he is so special 2 me. The other guy elder Lern it's so cool 2 :-).

Ur son don't have idea how much his visit help me to feel better. Trust me, much better!!.

Ur hug :-D!!

:-)!!

A little blurry, sorry:-(.

Hahaha Chilling in the hammock ;-)!

Hope you like! Love, Annie

Re: Getting better?

Wed, Aug 18, 2010
woo, so this week... welp, still not much better. still getting horrible sleep, so I'm so tired to the point where I can't really think, and I'm fighting to stay awake... :-/ however, I got my test resultzorz. heh, Wish I took a picture of the doctors "impression": so. we had zone conference last thursday and afterwards we had some stuff to take care of, like car inspections which were at the dealership and by the time we figured out where all of the keys went and why there was a missing set, and pickin' up my "new" bike. (not that it really matters, neither of us have helmets and Elder Lehr doesn't even have a seat for his. (stolen)) so we're going to continue using our car for now. but, we had to go and pick it up from the zone leaders in their apartment (in ponce). so, we figured hey. we're in ponce, lets go get my results. well, by the time that everything was taken care of, and I got my bike, and we got to the hospital, archives was closed. YAY! :D so we had to go back the next day and get them. so, results: after I picked 'em up I opened 'em up. and then I pulled 'em out, and then I unfolded them, and then I read them. well, I discovered that the testicular scan that I had was an unremarkable scan. even worse, I took a look at my renal (kidney area) scan... apparently it was so unremarkable that it was gross! DAH!!! it said "grossly unremarkable renal scan." great. so there's obviously nothing wrong there, if it was so unremarkable it was disgusting. I hope no one threw up.

but yes. things have unfortuantely changed to the point where I'm almost completely sure that its another kidney stone. which sucks. but I'm hoping that it's already made it past the difficult part and is just taking its sweet time going through, instead of getting stuck at everyones favorite spot: the ureter! :D

yeah, Yauco is a pretty small place. but we have a Big K mart and a sweet grocery store called "Mr Special" alright! but no Walmart. we do have the basic fast food necessities, not that I really feel up to eating out anymore. now that I feel like crap all the time, I don't want to feel even more like crap after eating fast food, so I've been trying to cut it down to a minimum. we also have another even smaller town that's attached to our area because they are included in our branch. the branch is pretty small here. we've only got about seven priesthood holders, and two of them are priests. but, the branch president's son has served a mission, and he also has another son out in Mexico right now with about a year left.

ah, the neighborhood garage sale. well, I hope that you don't sell any of my stuff. >:( that just wouldn't be very nice. :P
hey, I got the pics you sent, but they were all so small! :'( I DID find you in the crowd though! :D hidin over on the right side near the bottom. what was that a picture of? it looks kinda 90's ;)

yeah, I just don't really know whats going on. ESPECIALLY since, jjust like you said, I love talking with people and everything. I just don't get it. I don't know if it's connected with the lack of sleep, and I hope it is, cause that means when I start getting more, everything will smooth out. did you know that doctors can't tell the difference in Brain activity between a half crazy person and a person that isn't getting enough sleep? yeah. learned that last sunday in the gospel principles class: Word of Wisdom. great. thats comforting.

emailing steph back and forth? I have no idea what you're talking about. thats ridiculous.

so yeah... basically I'm just gonna be fighting to keep myself awake so that I can at least say "hi" to people for this week... I dunno. just one more thing for me to cause a problem with.

but yeah... gah! I keep fighting to try and come up with something to write, but I'm just running on empty so my minds just blank all the time, :( but, I'm trying. thats what counts, right?

so yeah, we'll see if things go better this week. I'm trying harder to focus myself on whats been going on here more than just replying to your email, so this week I'm gonna write down specific things I wanna go over, that way I can remember them in the computer lab and not spend half my time thinking. :D

well, I think I'll go with that fer now!

I love you more than I need sleep and a clean kidney. you got any spares handy?

~Brandon

Re: What's new this week?

Wed, Aug 11, 2010
so, to start off, I HAVE been transferred :D I've been moved over to Yauco, on the south side of the Island, twenty minutes away from Ponce. I now have a new companion, as well. his name's Elder Lehr. he was born in Cali, but he moved to Utah when he was a kid. kinda strange that Annie asked how I was liking the west... huh. how did SHE find out?! :-O that's weird. but yes, I'm officially in the west mission. President did a lot of major moving around this last transfer, probably to get the integration of the two missions moving.

yeah, I've had a chance to go to the doctor. we've been driving a lot to ponce these last few days to get some tests done. :3 so I got a Urine test and a Sonogram. yeah, that was weird. especially since they checked out the "problem areas" *ahem* soooooo..... we're going to be getting the results for that tomorrow after Zone conference (which also happens to be out in Ponce) and then we take the results of the test to the Urologist to find out whats been the problem. buuuut, it might just be another wonderful buddy. yay. that makes me so excited. :D can you tell? :D

for the printing out, I would just say the last email from you, and the last one from dad.

we also had a small trade off for the past few days. Elder Tartakoff came to stay with us two starting Sunday at six PM till noon on Tuesday. he actually just got released as an AP and is now a zone leader, but ironically, he's really basically an AP, because he still has some AP responsibilities. but he is amazing. just one of the most loving and Genuine people. I unfortunately... I've been lacking a LOT in the caring about other people category, I don't even know why, either. but that's one of the other things that bothering me. I'm not sure if other people are rubbing off on me in their apathy, or if I'm just tired or worn out, but I just have to try really really hard to put happiness forth... :-/ *sigh* lame.

anyways, Elder Tartakoff is amazing. he's just... he knows how to teach, he knows Spanish, and he's awesome. so I feel all lame. yeah.

ah, Stephanie says you haven't updated the Blog in forever! whats the dealio, yo?!

so robin spent some time with Chase in Cali, or is she still there? she came back with you, right?

but yeah... I;m sorry I haven't written very much... I'm going to try and just focus on other things next week. I need to quit writing about my problems and just focus on the amazing people around me. that's what I need to do. cause there really is some amazing people here. so much more nice than the people in Santurce. :D plus Elder Lehr is amazing. I'm going to try and be more focused on others this week. serving. plus, the scriptures say that when we lose ourselves, we find ourselves. so maybe that's all I need to do.

Well, I love you lots and lots and lots. more than not, I suppose. :P :D

~Brandon

Re: Ya, right!

Tue, Aug 03, 2010

yeah.... I know I need to relax... I'm sorry. everything has just really built up to the point were I have gotten sick of it. I don't really know what the problem is.

But you asked about transfers. I honestly wish I could tell you. Everyone seems to enjoy keeping secrets now, so we keep getting people telling us there’s not a transfer meeting, and then there is and all kinda of ridiculous stuff. BUT, at least one of the three of us is leaving, because we've been told that we need to ALL pack our bags and be at the meeting by 8. Suckage, cause we don't have a car. Which means we have to take the train, 20 minutes walking WITHOUT all of our baggage. so we might just have to get up nice and early tomorrow sweet. so, MAYBE I'm going somewhere, maybe I'm not. But at least you guys know that I'm going to transfer meeting tomorrow. if that counts for anything.

So. Both your message and the one from dad really helped me get things back... into perspective. So thank you. Very much and Thank you very much, Dad. I'm sorry that I haven't written any more. I was mostly pondering on your guys' emails. They’re very helpful. I just wish that I could print them out. Yeah, that would be nice. but I'm going to do my best to keep myself up on top of things this week. Both of your emails had things that I just really needed some assurances and help with, and they really gave me a boost.

but times up, so I’ve gotta bust a move.

Thank you so VERY, VERY much, Mom AND Dad. I love you so very much.

~Brandon