First things first, Eric Chandler is and always will be a great individual. I first met him while I was with Elder Brooksby, and he's super cool! He's been all over the world, and was a student at Tokyo University, yeah you read that right. Tokyo University. That's one of the hardest schools to get into in the world. His Japanese is much better than mine too. Anyway, we did a service project for him once back in March and he seemed pretty happy about it. I bring this person up for a few reasons, the most prominent one being the fact that a week ago we gave him an emergency priesthood blessing while he was in the hospital. This week, we discovered he was still in the hospital. Not only that, but all the procedures the doctors had tried had failed miserably. On Thursday morning, at around 10:50am, we rushed to the hospital to find Brother Chandler on his death bed. Nobody else was there. He was breathing heavily, and it was clear he had buildup in his lungs and throat from the way he was breathing. I'll never be able to forget that sound, it's haunted my dreams each night since this event. He was unable to respond to us, but the nurses informed us that he could hear us. I just sat there and talked to him for a while. We gave him a blessing of comfort, during which I was given the opportunity to instruct him on how to behave during the process of crossing from this life into the spirit world in detail. I won't repeat anything I said at that time, as I hold it sacred, but it was a very interesting and testimony building experience to give that blessing. I couldn't stand watching him suffer like that anymore after we hit the 30 minute mark, and so I said a quick prayer. I asked with all the conviction of my soul that Brother Chandler would not be made to suffer any longer. "If he is to die here" I said "let him die peacefully. I can't bear to watch him suffer anymore. Please come swiftly" Within 5 minutes of that prayer, Brother Chandler began to breath more sporadically, and then, he stopped breathing all together. For another 15 minutes it was just Elder Lopez and I in the room together. Elder Lopez was bawling his eyes out, but the tears wouldn't come to me. I remember being so glad that he wasn't suffering anymore. I was so happy for him. The last words I said to him are burned into my mind and will never leave me, because immediately following my saying them I watched something happen that I had never seen before. Brother Chandler's face changed color, and as it did, I no longer recognized him. I realized immediately that I had just witnessed the moment when a spirit leaves the body. It's a haunting image, and I know I'll never unsee it, but it didn't scare me. I know where Brother Chandler is right now, and I know that the plan of salvation is a real thing, and that his spirit lives. He's in more joy right now than we could ever know. And in case you were wondering what I said to him that day, I'll leave it here for you. The last words Brother Chandler heard before his spirit passed through the veil, were these:
"You have lived a full life. And you can be proud of it."
This wasn't the hard part. I wasn't crying over it, surprisingly. The part of this whole experience that truly hurt to witness, was the part when his best friend, a Japanese man named Takeo and his daughter, ran through the door to see him just 5 minutes after he was pronounced dead. Takeo just sat down and was quiet for a moment, while Sandra tried to write down our number so she could keep in contact with us in the days that followed. Half way through writing our contact information down, the little pen and paper clattered to the floor. It was such a sudden change it almost made me jump. "I... I'm sorry. We were waiting in the parking lot... It was full... They told us... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Takeo." Sandra collapsed onto Takeo and wrapped her arms around him as she began to wail. All my life, I've seen people cry like this on TV, or movies, maybe games...you know. This was the first time I had ever seen it- like honestly seen and heard someone who had just lost all hope cry their eyes out. Takeo didn't say anything. He sat there, motionless, in shock most likely, just sort of trembling while Sandra clung to him.
I'm not going to talk about the rest of that experience, because I can still picture it really clearly and I'd rather not talk about it to be honest. I don't think it really hit me until we got back to the apartment and I just sort of collapsed from the collective exhaustion and stress. I didn't really have time to recover from that experience because I'm still the DL and I'm still busy, so the whole thing is still burning in the back of my mind and and it's made the rest of my week that much harder to deal with. Immediately following that experience I had Zone Leader exchanges. That was extremely stressful and probably one of the longest days of my life. It wasn't even really Elder Collins' fault either, I love that guy, it's just one tiny little problem that ruined the whole experience: Cynophobia. In other words, the crippling fear of dogs. In case you didn't know, I cannot stand dogs and I'm absolutely terrified of them. I don't even know why either, I just can't handle dogs 95% of the time. It's definitely gotten a lot more manageable and I can be around most domestic and well kept dogs at this point but it's definitely a struggle of mine. Now, the zone leaders area is famous for having an insane amount of dogs in it, something I wish I had known before I went into this whole experience in the first place. One of the houses we visited that day is famous among the neighborhood for having 60 dogs. Yes. You read it correctly. 60. Freaking. Dogs. No bueno if you catch my drift. In the words of Elder Collins "This is probably the worst place on planet earth for you to be at huh? Sorry bro" My heart rate accelerated exponentially, and my nightmares have since been a mixture of dogs everywhere and a dead man in a hospital room. The 60 dog house (it was probably more like 45 or 40 dogs but the whole neighborhood says 60 so it's kinda just known for it) was definitely not my favorite experience in the world, and by the end of it I was just wishing I could call Don Resetti in to do my job for me because man my blood pressure has got to be through the roof by now. No time for rest though! After that incredibly busy day we had a back to back exchange with Elder Tulimau from Honomu, which would have been a great recovery day, except we were doing yard work all day as everyone ever absolutely needed us to come help them out at the same time. We ended up setting up an entire party even from 10:00am to 3:00pm, removing vines from trees in the midst of a centipede infested jungle from 3:00 to 4:30, and then skipping dinner entirely to make time to clean up Takeo's yard for him because he's old, his best friend just died this week, and he's too greif stricken to do the yard himself, which is totally understandable and I was happy to help, it's just funny that my "recovery day" ended up being a more tiring experience than the previous days. Forget "one of those days" folks, it's just been "one of those weeks." Anyway, so after that day came and went I wound up back with my own companion who is really only my companion like half the time: Elder Lopez.
The new person we found last week, Nicole, is progressing pretty well. She came to church last week and that was cool.
That's about it for now. I don't really know what else to talk about, and I'm behind on writing comp reports and getting numbers so I'm just going to go back to doing that now and hopefully I won't be late for the meeting tonight again because I really can't have another 30 minute discussion on the importance of being on time. Aloha!
Until next week,
ELDER CADEN ROGERS OVER AND OUT
We went to a free zoo today for our pday activity.
Pictures: The gang deciding what to go see next. From left to right: Elder Bass, Sister Fife, Elder Lopez, and like half of Elder Hollist.
Elder Bass taking his seat in the flower chair.
Tengu lizard, scarlet macaw, tiny faces on tiny monkeys, tiger, and perhaps the most rare and bizarre creature of all!
No comments:
Post a Comment