Chemo and indexing

Hey!

I started chemo yesterday. I feel like it went well, I was able to have food from the hospital cafeteria, and life is swell. Well, as swell as chemo can get. :) I felt a little sick last night, but today haven't felt too bad.

I started something last week, I decided to index every single day. It's been a goal I've been able to stay true to so far. I didn't really get how indexing helped in the grand scheme of things until I started to go through my FamilySearch. When you index something, say a marriage record or an obituary, you can attach that to a person on FamilySearch. I found a family last week that had only a father, mother, and two kids on the record. There was a record suggestion in the mother's file of a census, and on that census there were three more children that were not on FamilySearch. SO based on that, I found three children! I'm not saying this to brag, but it just shows how useful indexing really is. So if you're not ready to jump into your family tree yet, at least do some indexing. When you are able to find family names and people who have not had their ordinance work done yet, it makes each temple trip that much more special! :)

One of my good friends, Connor, just got home last week! I didn't think that I'd be in Cedar for both my friends leaving AND coming home, but it is so awesome. Missions are amazing- NO MATTER WHERE YOU SERVE! I'm so glad I get to serve my mission, even if it's just once a week right now. Once again, I'm learning patience. Hope you all have a great week!!!

Elder G

4 weeks later...

Hello! It's a good thing I'm a service missionary, because if I had been in a different country and not emailed for 4 weeks my mom would probably chop off my head. :) So let me tell you pretty much how the last 4 weeks went down. I'd get past my p-day, Tuesday, and forget to send out my email. Then Friday would come around and I figured I'd just wait til the next week. Repeat. And now I'm jumping the gun... happy Monday! Guess what?? My birthday is on Wednesday. Big bad 21. :) :) :) This Christmas break has been really great. Guess what Chris and Allie (my brother and sister-in-law) got this year? A baby. Haha! My niece Renae is doing so good, and especially for being 6 weeks early! I loved Christmas this year, and this year I really focused on paying more attention to Christ and his life and how it relates to Christmas, more than just his birth. It made Christmas that much more AWESOME. I'm so grateful for our Savior. How blessed are we?? Health update: I finished my 6 weeks of treatment. BOO FREAKING YAH!!!! So happy that it's over. Radiation wasn't near as bad at all this time. Chemo was the B. The last week I pretty much felt like crap the whole week. But it's gotten so much better and the only thing I really feel now is tired. :) We are meeting with the doctors in Cedar on the 19th and will talk about more chemo. It's not a yes, but not a no. "We'll see" is all I can tell you right now. MISSION UPDATE: when I met with Pres Crankshaw last month, he said I could start going back to the temple as soon as I felt good enough to, but start slow. I still need to talk to Present Arnold, like TOMORROW, but I'm hoping to go on Friday of this week, and just go once a week for a little bit and work back into it. The 19th will kind of tell me how things will go as far as my mission too. I'm so glad I can serve a mission where I'm able to play it by ear and it's easy to work around my health. A lady I work with in the cafeteria sent me a really neat Christmas present. She drew it herself and captioned it "Gray Matters". It is a picture of the Savior Jesus Christ. The best part about it is that it's so true. We all matter to Christ. Every single one of us. And he loves us all SO much! Don't forget it. :) Anyway, have a great week. Thanks for all your love and prayers! Elder G