The Power of Positive Thinking

Sister Peay & I. Notice how tan (in a red sort of way) I was by the line on my shoulder.

During my last few weeks in the the mission I was beat. I'd given so much for so long that I was physically a wreck. Each morning my alarm would go off. I'd open my eyes and stare a the ceiling. Then I'd tell my body to get up.

It wouldn't budge. So I'd tell it again.
Nothing.
I'd insist.
No movement.

Finally I would pray. "God, if you can just help me get on my knees to pray, I think I can make it through the rest of the day." And somehow, miraculously, I'd muster up enough energy to roll off the bed and on to my knees. And I'd make it through the day.

At this same time my companion, Sister Peay, had pinched a nerve in her neck. She was stalwart and would work anyway. Until I'd be contacting some woman at the bus stop, and turn around to introduce my companion, only to see Sister Peay compulsively vomiting all over the sidewalk. Then I'd insist we go home.

Sister Peay was throwing up every time she stood up this day. We sat on these steps for over an hour.

And so, in an attempt to lighten up how awful we felt, Sister Peay and I started playing a game. I would describe how terrible I felt in a sarcastic, humorous (and often icky) way, and she would attempt to one-up me with her retort. Then I'd try to beat that, and so on. It went something like this:
(By the way, these are exact quotes that Sister Peay wrote in my mission journal.)

me: I feel like someone tied anvils to my eyelids.
Peay: I feel like someone fried my brains and ate them for breakfast.
me: I feel like someone hooked me up to an IV and filled my veins with lead.
Peay: I feel like someone is frying my eyeballs on a shish-kabob stick.
me: I feel like someone ran over my legs with a dump truck.

Anvil Eyelids

Obviously Sister Peay would always win because she was way more creative (and graphic) than I was! Well, at first we would get ourselves laughing - really hard - and it seemed to help lighten the mood. But after a few weeks we started noticing something: any time that we weren't doing missionary work, we were focusing on how miserable we were. We were actually making ourselves feel worse.

So we reversed the game and tried to come up with positive and sappy descriptions about how we felt. ("I feel like I just spent an hour at a masseuse.") Well, that wasn't nearly as funny. It lasted a couple days and then we got sick of it and quit. But I learned something from that experience: when I thought happy thoughts, I actually felt better.

That is why I'm not going to write the post about how sick I am of...

potty training,
picking up toys,
doing laundry,
washing dishes,
standing up,
being hit, kicked, and scratched by my children,
taking 'the boy who cried potty' to the restroom ten times after bedtime because this time it might be real,
and getting headbutts in my jaw get that require me to go on all-liquid diets until I can actually chew again.

No, instead I'm going to tell you things I love. As soon as I can think of some ...