Dear Grandchildren,
Well, says one, how did your week go? Well, says I, it went. Mostly fast. But some parts seemed slow when they were upon me. Take my hospital visit last Monday. I went to have my voice checked out and have my ear checked out (that’s two check-outs, if you are counting). I had agreed to be there by 10 a.m. to meet the doctor. I reached the check-in counter and stated that I wanted to see a certain doctor. Twice I said his name. Then I sat down in a pretty packed waiting room. At one point I could see the doctor in the corridor, beyond the counter. I waited 35 minutes. Usually, I have been ushered into his office within two minutes. But not this time. Finally, I took his card to the young lady behind the counter and she found one of the interns and he took me along the corridor to the doctor’s office. Knock, knock. (This was not a joke.) Not in. (Not in who?) Finally, the intern found him with a patient in an examination room. I waited.
When I was ushered into the room, the doctor and four interns were waiting for me. Then they all disappeared. After a couple of minutes, he and one of the interns came back through the door and he produced that little camera and light that goes through the nose, stops in the throat, and then gags the patient. Yup. Sure enough. I gagged, even though I fought it. After I made some unintelligible noises that he wanted me to gurgle, he said that the left side of my voice box was beginning to work and all should be fine. (Actually, my voice has been coming back a little at a time.) Then it was off to the audiology department for a hearing test. I was told by the intern that there were a lot of patients that day, so I would have to wait.
And wait I did. Almost an hour and a half. In my anxiety to get going, I was just composing a text to the doctor, explaining that I had to do a couple of time-sensitive tasks and would be available later in the week for the test, when a young fellow, very young, came through the main door and asked for Mr. Brown. I stopped writing the text. He led me down a familiar corridor but into an unfamiliar sound room. He and several other teens (so they seemed) kept walking past the door and looking in at me as if I were the newest acquisition for the zoo. I did not see a competent person in the bunch. Fifteen minutes later, an intern came into the room and invited me to another sound room that I had gone to a month before for my first ear test. The young people there (mostly young women) seemed to be talking more about themselves than about the test that they were to administer. Oddly, I missed the older, professional lady who had run the prior test. These people kept fiddling with the controls while nothing happened inside the sound room where I was to take the test. At last, an intern came and began the test. Fine, I thought. At last.
The test was rather repetitious and, to concentrate, I closed my eyes (no, I was not dozing). After a few minutes of the test, a fellow in his forties poked his head in the door and said that the people running the test thought I looked bored. I responded that I closed my eyes to concentrate on what I was hearing through the head phones. Fortunately, I held my tongue and did not say anything about the very evident lack of competence and experience among those doing the testing. It turned out that I had four tests, all of which, according to the doctor, pointed to an eventual, natural healing of my ear. So far, no news has reached me from my ear that it is getting better. Oh well.
Last Thursday, we went to a conference in Istanbul. One of the enduring images was of a young fellow who had returned from his service in Turkey three months ago. He had taken a selfie on his tractor on his parents’ farm in eastern Washington. The MP put it on the screen. The young fellow went home expecting to see the girl friend to whom he had written for two years and learned from his mother that she was about to marry another guy. He wrote to the MP saying that he used to have more than a hundred conversations a week with interesting people and now he talks to no one while riding the tractor. When someone asks him about his two years of service, he has the distinct impression that they do not really want him to tell them. They want the six-word answer — "Fine, I enjoyed it very much." The MP tried to make the point that all should make these two years count because they don’t know what is coming after being released.
We are looking forward to our YSA conference that begins in a few days. Young people are coming from Kazakhstan and from all over this country. I for one will be interested to see how people interact with one another, especially when there are some substantial language barriers. The one last year, which included people from several missions, produced four marriages. The numbers for the one during the coming week are many fewer, but the potential exists for getting some folks together. I am to talk a couple of times. I hope that my voice makes some improvement. It is still suspect but is more or less working. If my voice goes south, there were be some people who won't know much about the three ancient apostles who once graced this land (Peter, Paul, John). My other presentation will focus on how the Bible Videos were put together. Wish me luck, and wish my listeners luck. They will surely need it.
We were 18 in our Sacrament Meeting today, twelve in the room and six joining us by Skype. The only two non-members sat in the living room of a member family living in a distant city. The woman in the member family is a hustler and has gotten the couple interested in reading the Book of Mormon. During the coming week, the YVs are going to that distant city to visit another member and to meet an investigator. They will take a small supply of Books of Mormon with them. Flowers seem to sprout where we least expect them.
I love you and pray for each of you every day.
Grandpa Brown
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