Viruses and the Hospital

This week was pretty crazy!  I discovered, at the end of P-Day last week, that the lab we were using was completely infected with a virus.  Luckily, I figured out how to clean everyone in my district's USB and SD cards, and clean the computers for safe usage, but It's going to be nigh on impossible to eradicate, because of the roughly 700 people here, all using the computers, any of which could have their stuff infected, which would in turn infect the computers.  It's not even a clever virus!  It runs every time you plug something in, and it copies itself onto the drive/SD card, and makes it so whenever you click on something in your flash drive, it runs.  I was really annoyed when I found out.  If anybody wants to research it further, the main file it uses is system.jse, and it creates shortcuts on the flash drive to run itself,  it's scheduled to run in the task scheduler, and the file is stored in $APPDATA$\Roaming\Microsoft\system.jse.  If you wanted to know!  Also, side note, the keyboards in Mexico are slightly different.  Which is quite annoying.  The shift key on the left is super small, and there are some extra letters, and there is an extra modifier called the AltGr key, which acts as a different kind of shift for certain symbols.  It's pretty frustrating!

We sang a musical number on Sunday, and it was awesome!  We sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer, to the tune of Come Thou Fount, in Spanish.  It was pretty great, and then on the last verse, the piano dropped out and we had a guy in our district who sounds like a professional singer sing the last verse in English, in a different key.  He had sheet music detailing the key change, but it was too difficult for our accompanist to play.  So, guess who got to figure out how to transition to the new key?  I did!  It was awesome!  I had the accompanist play two more chords, each one going up a fifth from the last, and it ended right in the key we wanted, and sounded so smooth and natural!  It was so satisfying!

We also watched The Testaments on Sunday, and it was so powerful.  My favorite part is at the end, when Helam hears Christ call his name, and the expression on his face, as he immediately recognizes the voice of our Savior, and the love he feels for him.  It was so powerful, and I felt the spirit so strongly.  It was incredible.

So apparently in Mexico, the Coke tastes better.  Not that I care, because I don't drink Coke, but my companion does.  Also, the CCM is continuously under construction, so there are a ton of workers in here all the time.  The workers bring their own lunches, and guess what they bring in.  3 liter bottles of Mexican coke.  So, naturally, my companion has been pestering me all week to help him go ask a worker to bring him a coke from the outside. He's also trying very hard to get street tacos, which are supposed to be phenomenal here!

Then, on Monday night, disaster struck.  Our district leader could not stop using the restroom.  It got to be 6 times in an hour, and it wasn't healthy at all.  Finally, on Tuesday morning, he went to the hospital with his companion.  We all missed them, and His companion stayed until Wednesday morning, when we began switching off.  We thought he might have had a parasite, but as it turns out, I think the biggest problem was severe dehydration.  He was on an IV, but he could eat and talk and everything, it was mostly just waiting out the disease.  So I got to go visit him this morning, and you can see some pictures of the hospital, which is surprisingly well equipped. Anyway, I wasn't there permanently, I was just there to be the companion of the elder who was staying with him. A nurse said we could get a Krispy Kreme donut, and we took her up on her offer.  Just so you understand, I've been eating basically convenience store candy and chips, and cafeteria Mexican food for 4 weeks.  That fresh Krispy Kreme donut was literally amazing!  I got a Jelly filled one, and it tasted just like home.   Also, our District Leader came home today, and is feeling much better!

Speaking of Krispy Kreme, thank you so much for the donuts!  They were a huge highlight of my week!  Just FYI, One of the Hermana's birthday is on the 23rd, so if you wanted to send me more food, a couple days before that would be awesome, because I think we're having a party.

My maestra finds us videos of people to be our investigators, and she seems to pull a lot of them from the addiction recovery resources of the church.  Consequently, all of the videos have some pretty heavy stuff in them, but to see the transformation in the people is amazing!  It really helps me understand that literally anybody could be ready to listen!  "For my ways are not your ways" and all that!

Also on Tuesday we watched a live broadcast from Provo of David A. Bednar, and it was incredible!  He was explaining one way we can study the general conference talks is by analyzing the main doctrine or principle, the invitation to action, and the promised blessings.  He also said that the themes that emerge in conference are divinely orchestrated, because they have no idea what everyone is going to talk about, they are all inspired by the spirit.  It's super cool!  He also said that as you study the general conference talks, you should record the thoughts you have while reading it, especially the ones you didn't have while hearing it.  As you attempt to answer those questions using the scriptures and the talk, you repeat the process.  As a result, you can learn directly from the prophets, and the spirit, and really feast on the words of Christ.  It's incredible.

Then, on Wednesday, we got to watch another talk by David A. Bednar, and it was awesome!  He was talking about recognizing the spirit, and said that you shouldn't worry about it.  He said that you will rarely be able to recognize a spiritual prompting before action.  It may be years before you can recognize it, but as long as you do what you think is right, you will be an instrument in the Lord's hands.

We then watched the video, which I have seen before, entitled Earthly Father, Heavenly Father.  It is such a beautiful video, and It inspires me to be as selfless as my Father in Heaven.  It is so powerful, and I invite you all to watch it.  I'm so grateful for my earthly father, and how he has helped me come to know my Heavenly Father.  It is really eye opening.

I love you all, and think about you all the time!

--Elder Dahl