Rodilla rota

 I've been told that all I do in these emails is complain. Count this email as a journal entry not a complaint.

This week was pretty tough. 

I have been having pretty intense knee pain for the past month or so. It came on out of nowhwhere. Just woke up one day and was in pain and it hasn't stopped since. I haven't said anything about it because I don't want it to affect the work. But this week it got even worse 

Here's my journal entry from Wednesday:

"Went to the doctor today. Holy ned. I cannot even begin to describe the absolute disaster that is the Peruvian healthcare system. It is seriously such a mess. There is the main room where you press a button to get a ticket to wait in line. From there they send you to different doctors to do different tests. None of the people communicate. Ok. Go to this room and have them weigh you. Then come back up and tell this doctor how much you weigh then go to this doctor to get this test. Where's this paper? What did this doctor tell you? Ok we will just take your blood again. They seriously tried to do the exact same blood test 4 times. I won't lie I got pretty frustrated. It is such a joke. And none of them have records of anything. So we were just running around from doctor to doctor while they're asking what this doctor and the other doctor said. It was such a nightmare. How am I supposed to tell you what the results of my Densitimetría ósea y Morfometría Vertebral test were that I took 2 hours ago with Doctor Sanchez? Good grief. Oh. They also X-Rayed my crotch for no aparent reason. I was under the impression that we don't just fire x-rays around willy nilly into whatever part of the body...The picture turned out pretty funny though. Gosh. I left pretty discouraged. I walked out of there convinced I have 55 different diseases."

They have nothing to tell me yet. Basically they look at it. Say "Dios mío! Está hinchada" then send me to another doctor to have them tell me the same thing. 

I'll be alright. No I am not dying. Sorry if this email was a downer. I said in one of my first ever emails from the MTC that I wasn't going to sugar coat my emails. I hate to be the guy to throw myself on prayer lists, but I could use it right now. I have a feeling this next week will be a great week.

I bought some pretty legendary pants this week at a little market.  They're so mello. Probably will never wear them again but I think they're hype. Picture attached

We found some dessert thing the size of a football (like the one dez caught). They're filled with dulce de leche, some other type of caramel, manjar blanco, and some other cream and topped with powdered sugar. I could've eaten 5 they were so good. They were 2.5 soles so like 60 cents. They were so good.

"In addition to having these global desires, many in this audience today have deeply personal hopes: hope for a marriage to improve, or sometimes just hope for a marriage; hope for an addiction to be conquered; hope for a wayward child to come back; hope for physical and emotional pain of a hundred kinds to cease. Because the Restoration reaffirmed the foundational truth that God does work in this world, we can hope, we should hope, even when facing the most insurmountable odds." -Elder Holland 

I think following up Elder Holland in General Conference has got to be the single hardest task one can be given. That guy is an absolute stud.