04/17/23 Quarantine again *sigh*

 Hello everyone, 

After surviving my crazy fevers of last Sunday, I thought I was in the clear to have a normal, chill week... but Tuesday morning I woke up having COMPLETELY lost my voice... and a little later starts the congestion and basically by noon our mission presidents wife told us we needed to go to the doctor to see what's up. Well, in order to do that we need a form from the office people. She said they'd send it over within a half hour. Ok cool, so we call a member and she's like, 

ok so where is the clinic? 

-Uhhh in Iquique. 

-but which one? 

-we don't know yet?? 

-hmm well when do you guys want to go? 

-as soon as we get this thing from the office elders

-and when will that be? 

-soon?? We don't know when 

-you guys don't know anything! Call me back when you have all the info. 

And she hung up. 

And you guys. I kid you not. It took like 3 hours to get the thing from the office elders  so when we get all the information from the elders, we call her back and she doesn't pick up... so we text her and she's like, sorry I'm busy. 

So we called some other members who took us and were a lot kinder about it but couldn't take us for another hour or so. So we finally leave here at like 5ish, and there's so much traffic at that hour that we didn't get to the clinic until like 6... and then we had to wait an hour and a half for them to take me back and ask me my symptoms and take my blood pressure... and then another hour for them to take me back a second time for a covid test (they did the upper nose brain kind- I hate those!!) And then they said it would be another hour or two before they had the results.... you're killin me smalls!! 

So, 9:30 they're like, yah so you have covid. 

What?? I do??? Yah, so you can't leave the house until Sunday but your roommates don't have to quarantine, so don't worry about that. 

Well, the mission presidents wife said they actually do have to quarantine, so I was confined to my room, so that no one else would get it, meanwhile everyone was allowed in any part of the house, and I still had to work. Kind of. We were not very effective missionaries this week, I'm not gonna lie. 

Things we did to entertain ourselves: 

•played Uno 

•I played solitaire 

•literally so many other card games 

•failed at making homemade ice cream 

•read gospel topic essays 

•called our favorite members to hear the latest gossip lol 

•screamed 

•made successful homemade ice cream 

•called our district leader and his comp 

•I had a literal tea party with my comps stuffed animas (the first day I ate completely alone, and then my comp decided to eat with me hahah) 

•listened to byu devotionals in English and Spanish 

•duolingo 

•sang songs w my comps ukulele 

•wrote my weekly (haha) 

•crocheted 

•threw things at each other 

•made smores 

•a member brought us churrascos (which are chilean sandwiches) and Coca-Cola 

Sunday we could finally leave! And we honestly saw miracles!! 

First of all, on Sunday we were calling people and texting people to get them to church, and one of them didn't answer, but her brother did and was like, where is your church, I wanna go? And then he came to church!! And so did two other people for the first time!!! It was really cool because he loved it and told us he's living in chile for a year and while he's here he's gonna go to our church. A year is plenty of time for him to be able to feel the truth of the gospel!! 

During lunch we received a message from a recent convert that we didn't know, inviting us over to her house... so we were like, yeah okay! And that night we had a little lesson with her and her husband. She's from bolivia and got baptized a little more than a year ago, and she's such a sweetheart. They have a little 1 1/2 year old who was absolutely full of energy. And the husband is a returned missionary who served in concepción, and then like 12 years later went completely inactive, and then when she started meeting with the missionaries, he reactivated! He had a ton of really really crazy stories from his mission. Stories wayyy crazier than anything that's happened to me  

Something I've been thinking a lot about this week is that... I can do anything. Not because I'm anything special per se, but anyone can do anything. I am resilient, strong, uncrushable. So what does that mean? That means I can put high goals and expectations for myself, as long as I commit to myself that they will get done, they will get done. But that commitment is key! I have to be the one to decide to do anything! 

And have any of you ever heard of the crab theory? I don't remember where this came from, but it's like some kids are catching crabs and putting them in a hole, and one of the crabs starts to climb out and one of the kids is like, oh no the crab is getting out! And the other kid is like, nah they're not gonna escape, don't worry. And so the first kid watches for a while and basically every time a crab almost gets out, another crab reaches up and pulls him back down into the hole. And that's how it is when someone says, I'm gonna go out there and do something! You've got at least three people close there that are like, no you're not. And they pull you back into the hole! 

So we need to decide to do things, we need to take that decision and stick to it, and we need to shake the other crabs off of us!! Because we really can do anything! 

I also read a talk about types of leaders, and it talked about multipliers and diminishers. Diminishers are people who are really intelligent and capable, but crush everyone around them by telling them their ideas are dumb or that they don't know what they're doing, needing to have things their own way, etc. Multipliers are people who multiply others around them! They're not necessarily the most intelligent person on the team, but they know how to help others around them improve and use 100% of the intelligence of those around them. Whereas a diminisher is only using 100% of their own intelligence. 

And anyways, it's been a really long week of quarantine, and I feel like I didn't accomplish much, but the increased alone time meant that I had increased reflection time, and these are the results of that haha. 

Love you all!! 

xo-hna griffin 

Fotos: 

-other members made empanadas and delivered them to our door 

-pictures in the hospital 

-my solitaire setup haha

-wearing masks again was weird, 0/10 would not quarantine again