My Body is Rejecting Leaving the States

First off,

I leave the USA in 6. days. six. days. siiiixxxxxxx dayyysssss. 

That is nothing, literally. It's so weird thinking back to the age change and how honestly, that feels like just yesterday! AND NOW I'M HERE. I'm going. No mas en los Estados Unidos. ADIOS. It's crazy that time has just flown by.... I hope it goes slower when I am actually on my mission.

Okay now to the point. 

As a lot of 'almost' missionaries can relate to, it seems that right before you leave there is a lot of adversity to going. I feel like i've been really lucky with very minor roadblocks (knocking on wood) but yesterday my body seemed to be rejecting the idea of leaving the states.  

I woke up early to go to the hospital and take pictures of my new baby niece, Olivia. As you can see she is adorable: 

but before doing that, I had a low blood sugar attack. My head started getting really hot and suddenly I blacked out. When I get these attacks, I normally just black out for a couple of seconds here and there, which is what happened. You feel like you need to vomit but your body just won't do it. It honestly feels like every system shuts down. Then I get toast with butter + sugar and every time it seems to get me back to normal really quickly, which is what happened yesterday. 

I felt better while being at the hospital to see my niece, but I kept feeling like I probably shouldn't hold her just in case I really was sick or something. Thankfully I followed that prompting because as soon as I got home, every sick feeling I had, had earlier suddenly came back more ferociously. I felt like I needed food, but if I had any I wouldn't be able to keep it down. It. Was. The. Worst. All day I was going through nausea, headaches, dizziness, fatigue, and some cold symptoms randomly. By the end of the day, I was going through a lot of flu AND cold symptoms. Thankfully my wise mother got me some airborne and I've been feeling a little better today. 

But I woke up with pink eye. So I'm finally getting my weird fluish cold symptoms under control and my eye is straight up red after looking in the mirror. Another small tender mercy was that we had pink eye medicine on hand with Calli's prescription, so we got that in really quick. But no contact in my right eye today which means I'm half blind. 

I'm not telling you all about my sicknesses because I'm angry and upset- in fact it was perfect timing. I went to institute on Tuesday night and we talked about President Uchtdorf's talk, "Grateful in any circumstance" and about how it is important to be grateful in every condition (including sickness). And boy am I grateful for that lesson. I believe it was to prepare me for the days following class- which clearly I needed to remember that! 

I'm also grateful that it's minor, and that we have medication on hand!! It's kind of scary leaving the USA because I feel like this is my safety net- if I'm sick the option to get better is really close and really convenient; whereas, who knows what will be close and convenient in the DR? 

Honestly, times like these I just laugh. Of course I would get pink eye right after feeling better! Of course I would get sick right after a lesson about being grateful! Oh the irony. Heavenly Father does have a sense of humor in the lessons He teaches us, because I needed this one. 

As Uchtdorf said, how much of life do we miss waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God that there is rain?

I'm grateful for a body. When I took New Testament earlier this year, my teacher offered a possible explanation for the story of the legion of devils telling Christ to put them into swine (before the devils actually made the swine drown, which is a whole different discussion). My teacher offered this insight:  

The dark spirits wanted a body SO badly they were willing to go into a pig's body, known as one of the filthiest animals at the time. Do we treat our body as such a blessing? Such a privilege? 

So that's what I've been thinking about since yesterday. It's okay that I have to go through these problems because having a body is worth it. 

So maybe my body is crushing under stress of all that I have left to do and prepare- but right now I'm working on being more grateful and making gratitude my disposition rather than my circumstantial mood. Am I even close to being that? Not even. But I've found so much peace as I have been working on it. And I believe there is a reason for every sickness and pain I go through that is beyond my control, I really do. 

6 days people. Bring it on.