September 17th Letter

Dear Family,

Well wow. Haha it has been quite the week! I am assuming most of you have heard about my ankle by now.. so I will tell the whole story in my highlights.. 

Tuesday the La Jolla sisters invited us to go play volleyball and of course we accepted. I love volleyball and I love north zone! It was a lot of fun! But near the end I went up to spike the ball and the next thing I knew I was on the ground and my ankle had split basically in half and I heard and felt a popping. I got up and hobbled over to the side and it started to hurt pretty bad. Luckily I was with very athletic elders who probably had done this a time or two so they knew how to help me. They told me not to take my shoe off or it would swell immediately and they got me some ice. I felt a little like I might pass out because as you know I am prone to do that especially when I am tired, but I kept praying I wouldn't so thankfully I didn't :) After about 5 minutes the pain went away and I tried walking on it and I could just fine! Maybe just a little hobble, so I kept playing, but I babied my right foot. We headed back to the battalion to write letters and then I thought I should have Sister Seegmiller look at my ankle so she did and it was hardly even swollen and she was amazed and she said that I should be fine unless it starts hurting really bad then I should go to the doctor. Well we had two appointments that night so we headed to Patricks and on the way my ankle started hurting again and then I got out of the car to walk to Patrick's and I could hardly walk on my foot... well Patrick wasn't home so we headed to our next lesson at the temple with Eric. By this time my ankle started hurting really bad. I had to hop into the temple because I couldn't even put pressure on my foot and then as we were teaching it still was hurting way bad even though there wasn't pressure on it at all. I started getting really light headed and the member who was with us was like 'Sister Rasmussen.. you don't look so good.. your face is really white..' I thought I might pass out again but I just breathed really deeply and laid there for like 5 minutes and I didn't feel like I was going to pass out, but I was still in a lot of pain. My companion wanted to take me to the ER but I was like heck no. They took me in a wheelchair out to the car and I called some of the elders to ask if they would come give me a blessing at the battalion. They gave me a blessing and we went back to our apt and that night was a pretty long night.. I couldn't sleep because of the pain and I had even taken ib profen and so I watched Legacy, Finding faith in Christ, Mormon messages and bible videos, tried reading in the Book of Mormon and praying a lot. I finally fell asleep around 4 and woke up at like 6. Needless to say I was pretty exhausted.

The swollen ankle

Crutches!

Wednesday when I woke up the pain wasn't as bad and I just laid in bed for a while. I got an appointment with the doctor and Sister Seegmiller took me. He thought it might be broken and so I got some xrays, but it wasn't! He said it probably would've been better if I would've broken it because I tore the outside and inside ligaments. He gave me a little boot/brace thing and I got some crutches and headed to zone meeting! Zone meeting was great. My zone was so kind to me and my zone leaders are awesome! Elder Calzada is from Guadalajara and Elder Cena is from Italy. President even came and he was like ..'uh oh sister rasmussen what happened?' haha oops. About the end of zone meeting I started feeling pretty sick. I just was exhausted. We went and got some food and then I had a meeting at the battalion and then I was sent to the couch in the back to rest so I did. I worked on a few projects as well. That night I went to bed early. 

Thursday we had a full day which I was a little nervous for.. being on crutches and all.. but it worked out great! We had training in the morning with President and Elder Seegmiller and they taught us about the spirit. They basically said we need to stop worrying about every little detail because the Holy Ghost can say things that we can't or don't say and how the elect will hear and feel and be influenced. I loved it! We studied and then went to lunch at Elizabeth's. Her mom is in town and she made us the most delicious food and cupcakes! ahhh. so yummy. We talked with them about our relationship with Heavenly Father. Next we had a lesson with Janess and we taught her the plan of salvation. She is so awesome and ready to change right now! We found out we can't teach her anymore though because the Bishop said she needs the support of the family ward so we are going to pass her off to the other sisters, which will be good! But we'll miss her. Next we had an appointment with Kevin but he wasn't there so we tried contacting a referral and then we had a lesson with a referral, Andrea. She is actually Gabriel's sister. She said she is really searching for a church right now and she feels like most of the church's are not focusing on what's important and that they change their standards according to what the world sees. Our jaws like dropped and wow.. she is awesome! We taught her the restoration and she was excited about it all. We went to see Ericka but she wasn't home and we ended up having a cool lesson with her brother Peter. He declined learning further right now unfortunately, but I know he'll come around! Next we were headed to Edgars and we ended up teaching two of his neighbors outside. We taught them both about prayer and they were really grateful for our service. Edgar bought us pizza. So nice of him. We were talking about Patriarchal blessings and gifts and Ortega showed up and we both felt like we needed to show them the mormon message 'Will of God' so we did. After Ortega's eyes were filled with tears and he said 'Can we please watch that again?' So we did and there were more tears. It was cool that it was exactly what he needed. We had a lesson with Sabrina at the church and taught her about service. I love her and Alexis so much! 

Friday I went on exchanges with Sister Brown in Mira Mesa. By the way.. my foot is healing so quickly! Yay for the power of the priesthood! No more crutches for me today. Sister Brown and I taught a recent convert who is amazing She just soaks up the gospel so much and she is one of the most Christlike people I've ever met! We went to this place to meet a less active for lunch. She showed up super late and then when she got there she bought us the food and said she had to go! Haha weird... but the food was really delicious! Next we had a lesson with their investigator, Nadia. As we were going inside, she was trying to get her dogs in the back yard and she has this huge black dog and Sister Brown was trying to keep it away from me and my foot and then her bag like broke so she was picking it up and the dog got past her and came behind me and went through my legs like it wanted me to ride on it hahaha it was super funny and painful because I ended up falling over as I was trying not to step too hard on my bad ankle.. haha. We had a really cool lesson with Nadia about the restoration. She is from Iran! And she is so prepared. It's exactly what she needs in her life.. well duh! Everyone does haha :) Next we were driving to the temple and it was super funny because I was telling Sister Brown how it'd been a while it seemed like since I saw anyone I knew and then who shows up at teh temple? Aunt Sissy, Nate, and Kale! Haha it was so fun and good to see them :) At like 7:45pm Sister Brown and I were packing up to leave and like 20 non members all showed up at the same time in different groups so we started running around trying to talk to them all. I ended up talking to the most adorable little Asian family and was able to get their info so the chinese sisters can contact them! Ah they were so cute! It was way fun to be with Sister Brown today. She is an amazing example of how to be lovingly bold. Something I have worked on my whole mission! I feel like I can do the loving part..but the bold part lacks, haha. 

Kale, Aunt Sissy and Nate with Cassie at the temple

Saturday we had an amazing lesson with David Payne. We followed up with him on President Morgan's invitation for him to be baptized last Sunday and he said he knows it's what he needs to do, but he's not quite ready yet. We talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and showed him the soap demonstration and he really liked that. He told us how he was just scared. Thankfully Robert was there and Robert went through a really similar situation so he testified about how he just needed to do it and that it would bring him far greater happiness than he can imagine. He also told him he just needed to have faith in himself. We read Mosiah 18 with him and asked him if he had the desire to be baptized and he said yes and so then we asked once again if he would be baptized and he said yes! He said he wanted to talk to his family first and that he wanted to finish the BofM which he is almost done. So we set a date.. Sept 28 he will have all of that done and then he will set a baptism date. Ahhhh he's so close!!!!! I have been teaching him for almost 5 months! WE had coordination and then weekly planned and then had the mobat. I finally took tours again even though I hobbled through them haha it was great. 

Elder Long, Sister Frampton and Elder Wilkey

Sunday we had ward council and church. There were some great talks about how we must be aware of those around us! After church we had mobat and Sister Patterson and I took the coolest couple on tour. We got talking to them after and they both have pretty incredible stories. The guy is from India and he married a mormon and they had a daughter and his daughter was raised mormon and a few years ago he and his wife got a divorce... but his daughter never gave up on him and he was baptized a little over a year ago! And the girl she wasn't a member growing up but when she was 16 she was hit by a drunk driver and she said she was killed on impact, but they brought her back to life. The doctors told her and her family that she'd be a vegetable the rest of her life. Her attorney was apparently mormon and he and his family decided to take her in. She was in rehabilitation for 8 years and she miraculously was able to re-learn everything! She had to learn how to read, write, speak, move, walk.. everything! And she did! And if you saw her you would never guess that happened. She was baptized shortly after she was healed!! And she is hilarious and so happy and she talks about how it's all because of the gospel. That God has been so good to her and she just wants to share the gospel with everything! Her mother even was baptized 6 months ago. Ah man it was so cool. I took the most adorable chinese family on tour. We came back to our apt and it smelled super bad. It's been smelling pretty bad the past few days, but it smelled extra bad today so I decided to figure out what teh problem was and lo and behold I found a dead mouse between our counter and fridge. Gross!!!! I called one of the senior elders to come get it, haha. We went to see Juan but he was sleeping so we ended up teaching his brother Joel. He's so cool. We talked about the importance of teh scriptures. Next we tried contacting a referral but ended up teaching this man named Robert who was watering his lawn. He declined learning more, but we offered to come help him with his yard or clean the house and he accepted! 

Monday I woke up and I was super dizzy. I have had dizzy spells every so often on my mission, but they usually go away within and hour or less. This one just wouldn't go away though! And it was making me super nauseous. I went outside for exercise though because I thought fresh air would be good and it was.. but then it just got worse so I laid in bed until about 10:30 and then I started feeling much better and I got my pioneer dress on and went to the mobat and guess who came?? Aunt Sissy, Nate, Kale, and Brandon!!! So Sister Patterson and I took them on tour and it was fun :) I love them so much! And I got mad at Brandon for getting married before I come home.. haha but he showed me lots of pictures so that made me happy. A few hours later I started feeling pretty sick again so I laid down in the back.. I think my body is trying to shut down on me.. but I told it.. I said..'hey.. you only got 2 months to give it your all.. so you can't fail me now!' And thankfully it obeyed haha and I definitely prayed a lot. I started feeling better again. Don't worry Mom I am making sure I don't push myself too much and am taking care of myself :) I think my body was just so overly exhausted from everything going on. We went to our relief society president's house and had a meeting with her. She's so on the ball! It's awesome. We came up with a game plan. We stopped by fhe and then we went to Patrick's and taught him the restoration. 

Kale, Nate, Aunt Sissy, Cassie and Brandon

It was a crazy, but great week! This week I was just extremely grateful for prayer. I am grateful for prayer every day obviously, but this week I really relied on it a lot and I am grateful we have a loving Heavenly Father. I am grateful He gives us strength. And I am grateful He answers our prayers. It's not usually in the way we want or in the timing we want, but He always answers in the way that is best for us. He knows us so well :) Ah. I love being a missionary! I love the gospel. The gospel=pure happiness.

I love you all so much! Thank you for your love and prayers!

Love,

Sister Cassie Rasmussen