I'm free! I spent the past few days in the MTC quarentine for the flu. As I said last week, on Monday I tested negative for the flu. But then, on Wednesday I woke up with a fever and let's just say it's a good thing I hadn't eaten much the night before. So it was back to the doctor to be tested yet again. It was positive this time so they sent me to lockdown. I went back to the residence hall to pack things for a few days and a security guard with a sweet british accent came and picked me up in one of those little electric cars. He drove me to the "quarentine building" and I was the only sister on the floor for the first day. I wasn't very happy because I had a fever and just wanted to crawl in bed and die, but I had to make the bed first. GRRRR! Then I couldn't take any medicine because I had to wait for them to bring me food. So I slept until lunch came, forced down a few bites and took some ibuprofen and tamiflu and then crashed again until dinner. By the way, they bring you SO MUCH FOOD when you're in quarentine. I didn't even come close to eating half of it. That's pretty incredible when you think about how much food I can normally pack away!
I sound like I'm complaining a lot, really it was a pretty good experience. If anything, I learned what it would feel like to be a leper. We had to put masks on when people knocked on our door and then half of the time they would have put the food or mail or whatever they were bringing on the floor and be as far away as possible when we opened the door. As soon as they saw that we got whatever they were delivering they would disappear. Needless to say, I really appreciated the people that actually handed things to me like I wasn't diseased.
Anyway, after dinner that first day I decided to start reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning to see how far I could get. The original plan was to finish the whole thing, but I grossly underestimated the time that I would be sleeping. I ended up getting to Alma 31.
The second day in there I got a roommate, but she slept the whole time so all I did was read and eat and I took one nap. I read 170 pages that day. Does anyone realize just how awesome the Book of Mormon is? That may sound like a stupid question, but it is so amazing that anyone at any time in their life can find something that applies to them in there. Besides that, the plot is so involved, there is no possible way that Joseph Smith could have just pulled that out of a hat.
Day 3 I got a study plan from one of my teachers so I didn't have much time to read because I was studying spanish and whatnot. The doctor got IT to check out a laptop to me so that I could do some lessons on the computer. That was super nice so I actually had some activities to do to reinforce what I was learning.
Saturday I was so excited because I was going to be freed, but the doctor was really late getting there. I called the front desk to see what was going on and wouldn't you know that the day I was going to get out was the day of the BYU homecoming parade. All the roads were blocked off... That was the longest three hours of my life...
So anyway, I am once again free and I never thought I would be so happy to be able to see people and talk to someone. Being alone for so long changes you a lot. I almost forgot, though, one night before I went to bed I heard some elders on the floor above me singing a song about the swine flu written to the music of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. It was AWESOME! Turns out that one of the elders that helped write it is in my zone so I got the words from him. That is going in my journal because it seriously made me so happy.
The adjustment after quarentine has probably been the hardest part of all of this. I got used to being able to just get in bed whenever I was tired. Not a luxury that I have anymore...I have these huge dark circles under my eyes all the time and I probably look like death, but I'm happy to have a structured schedule again.
We are supposed to get our travel plans this Thursday so you'll probably be hearing about that next week. I can't believe that we only have two weeks left. I don't know any spanish! AHHHH!
I'm out of time, so until next week. I love you all.
Hermana Larsen