"Bunker Hill, Word of Wisdom, ER, Alarms. . ."

Dearest, most amazing people in my LIFE,

This was quite the week. We learn to expect the unexpected and sleep as much as possible. ;) I'll give you a run-down of the basics!!!

Last Monday was AWESOME! After emailing, our zone headed into Boston. We walked through the beautiful streets in the beautiful sunshine until we got to BUNKER HILL!!!! And then we took the 294 stairs to the top of the monument. What a neat experience! I'll see if I can send a couple shots of the view. :)

I had my first Word of Wisdom lesson!!! To JACKSON!!! Hehehe. It was kind of fun. He doesn't have a problem with it, but it took some work to convince him about coffee and tea. :D Well, it was his testimony that convinced him, not us.

Tuesday we had a pretty neat experience, too. :) My lovely companions and I went into Boston again, with permission, and met up with Nick--a man my mom connected with through her podcast months ago. :) :) :) :) Soooooo cool! I'd emailed him a couple of times, and it was pretty awesome to actually meet him! He was very clean cut and impressive. Nice guy. . . he treated my companions and I to a slick burger joint right by Fenway. :D He said he was moved by mom's podcast, and he'd be willing to talk to us again sometime about religion, but he made it clear he's not seeking right now and doesn't want to waste our time. STILL! Super cool, and we're going to try to connect again.

Since we're over two wards now, we have new investigators. One of them is the wife of a recent convert, both of them from Shang Hi (spelled right?). Her name is Golden. And she's GOLDEN. Seriously. She's the kind of investigator everyone wants! We taught her about the Plan of Salvation, and she just DRANK in everything we said! And then she had a million and a half deep doctrine questions. We're instructed to keep it simple, but she just wanted to understand and know so much we ended up explaining some deeper doctrine. Like, I clarified that the Celestial Kingdom would be on the Earth, once the Earth is renewed and glorified. SOOOO COOL.

Here's a fun story! So all of Thursday I had this pretty severe pain in my chest, just under my collarbone. Whenever I took a deep breath or changed positions, I'd feel like someone had shoved a rock into me. Super weird. My district (bless them) became very concerned for my well-being, and so they cohered me into phoning the Doctor. And the Doctor told me to listen to my companions and go straight to the Emergency Room if it got any worse. Which it did, Friday morning. So yeah, I spent half a day in the ER. I'm torn between calling the entire situation adventurous or lame. On the one hand, I got rolled around on a bed and treated to lunch and made lots of phone calls. . . on the other hand, we missed district meeting (no bueno), lost a lot of visiting time, I got my blood drawn, a ton of scans done, an EKG, and an IV stuck in my arm. :P :P :P I'm gonna go with lame. I still have a bruise from that IV. Who can handle a tube going under your skin???? And of course I was perfectly fine. They diagnosed me with costochondritis. Which basically means my rib cartilage was inflamed for an unknown reason. They told me to take Advil and let it go away on its own. So perfectly fine. (Don't worry, mom.) :)

OOooh! I get to tell you about a pretty coooooool lesson. :) :) Elder Bordeau came with us again to teach Mary, so he could speak to her in Haitian Creole. His companion and mine were playing with the kids, and I just sat there listening to them jabber away in their awesome language. And I KNEW something epic was going on, but I didn't know what was happening until after. Elder Bordeau told her that if our church isn't true, we're condemning people, so she has to find out for herself. He told her to read Moroni 10 every single night until Saturday, and that if she did, she would receive an answer that the Book of Mormon was true. And he said, "When you do find out this is true, will you commit yourself, 100%, to everything this Church is and has to offer? That includes baptism, church attendance. . ." And she accepted. EEEKKK!!! Pretty awesome. He said he'd never been that bold on his entire mission! But when the Spirit moves you to action, you act!

Anyway, lots to do!!!! I love love love you all and miss you with all my heart! But the field is white, already to harvest!

Love,
Sister Merkley
MBM Missionary

P.S. Soccer is NOT my sport. We switch off in the early mornings between soccer and Ultimate Frisbee for exercise. Haha. You can tell which one's my favorite.