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I Got the Corona Virus

May 4, 2020

Hello everyone! I hope all of you are doing well! This week, I have a few pretty major things to share...


The first thing is that the Church History Library asked us to submit our journal entries to them to be saved in Church History records forever, so people can always remember what it was like to be a missionary at this time in New York City. So, I sent in some journal entries, and now my journal is official church property, and will likely be read by people for decades to come. I sent in some pictures too, so my great-great-great grandchildren can one day be able to find my mission experiences and pictures! I have never really been good at keeping a journal, but I made a goal to write every single day of my mission, and I haven't missed a day yet! I am glad I made that goal, because it is already paying off.

So, because of that super cool news, I thought it would be appropriate to share my journal entry from yesterday!

May 3rd, 2020
"I got Corona Virus today. I started feeling it while we were on our way to deliver a Book of Mormon. I felt nauseous and I thought I was going to throw up! When we got home, you would not believe how exhausted I was! Like, I could barely lift my phone because I felt so weak. The rest of the day was a bit rough with lessons because I was so tired (I still am), but today is Sunday so we had members teach our lessons to make it more of a church experience for our investigators. My favorite one was with the Vidal kids! Hermana Beltre, the primary president, joined us for a video call, and she taught primary! She did an awesome lesson and then we sang "A Child's Prayer" together. It was awesome! But wow I am exhausted."

Don't worry, I am okay! My biggest symptom is that I am just really, unbelievably tired. I am not in any pain, I just feel very weak. I called the mission doctor and he told me that I am supposed to act as if it was the Corona Virus (because it very well could be). To protect my companion, I am supposed to self-isolate from him for at least a week! So, we moved his mattress into the living room and we wont see each other for a while. I have been told that I can't leave my bedroom unless I need to go to the bathroom, so Elder Goodman will have to prepare all the meals and just leave it by my door. They told me to nap, study, and nap again every day. If I am feeling up to it, I can join Elder Goodman in video call lessons from my bedroom (which I will definitely be doing). The doctor told me that it is an OVER ABUNDANCE of caution, and that it might seem kind of pointless. But, he said that its what the missionary department instructed him to tell me, even though my symptoms are very minimal. The good news is, I get to call home to my family every day until my mega isolation ends! But this will be really tough, so please send me emails throughout the week to read because I might go crazy otherwise!

Other than that, we had lots of success on Facebook this week. This whole technology thing is becoming super effective and we are finding more work to do than before. The work here is progressing a ton! This Saturday, all of the Facebook pages in the mission will be combined into a couple mega pages for each Borough and language. That means that instead of us creating a bunch of content for our page, a large group of missionaries will be creating content for 1 combined page. We are going to start doing paid advertisements so that our stuff will reach even more people, and there will be a lot more live events like devotionals that people can watch. There are a lot of plans on how we are going to make Facebook just crank out referrals for us, but it will take a bit of time! I am excited to see it all unfold.

This week was also my first week as a district leader! It went well! I haven't run into any issues yet besides district council being a little awkward on Facebook Messenger. But it's going well! I will have to lead another district council this week alone from my bed, so that will be an interesting experience! Anyway, that's all for now!! Have a great week!

Elder Webster


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