Zombie Szabo.

To start this is probably going to be the worst letter you've ever gotten from me.

Alright do you want the good news or the bad news first...... Ok good news it is! 

     This week we had the wonderful opportunity of being visited by Elder Kearon of the 70 who is the President of the Europe area. He gave a talk in general conference a while ago. He shared the story about the scorpion in the desert. I'll attach a link at the bottom to refresh your memory. Anyways. We had a mission conference with him from 10-4 on Tuesday and then the following day we had MLC with him for about 3 hours. I love being able to be in such close contact with general authorities. I've been able to hear from 4 over the last couple months and it's always an uplifting experience. The mission conference was a stand and deliver where he talked about some missionary topics and we had some discussions. He is a very personable and funny guy. We often think of general authorities as scary unapproachable men (which some are but) but a lot are friendly and have a sense of humor. At one point he mentioned that he felt like he was monologing and then he stopped and said what movie was that? it was the incredibles... What a great movie wasn't it! General authorities like the incredibles!! People the gospel is true. haha It was a really good experience though and he said a lot things that really hit me. One of the big ones was after the lunch break he showed some funny videos and then talked about how it's up to us to change. If we want to we can go out and do it. Change and interrupt it and go out and become the person you want to be... Wow sounds like something I would like.  The next day we had our MLC where we had a training from him and it was a what did you learn from yesterday kind of thing and we discussed and then talked about how we could give one commitment to the mission based off the things we said. It's very interesting getting 10 people to decide on one thing. I don't know how the 12 and first presidency does it but they are probably a little more led by the spirit than a bunch of 20 year olds. Both of the meetings were very uplifting and it's one of those things that you don't get every day. It was interesting as well how much what kind of people we are after the mission was discussed. It's not just a 2 year mission but what kind of disciples we will be after as well. The biggest thing I wanted to share that he said that is the most applicable to everyone is this.... He said he travels around Europe a lot for stake conferences and in the adult session he would always ask people what was the spiritual high light of your life and almost always they would say my mission or the second answer was when I was bishop or relief society pres..... That is tragic he said. Absolutely terrible! It should always be in the recent past. Yes a mission is an accelerated experience but you should always be progressing and at a rate that don't have to say that 10 20 60 years ago was the spiritual high light of your life. BE PROGRESSING. It really hit hard. How often do we think oh my mission it was the high light i'll never get back to that point... Why? We should always be progressing and spiritually having experiences that you can say last week was the spiritual high of my life. Stop and think about that for a second and do an evaluation for you life and ask yourself what was the spiritual high light of your life.... Boom. 70s drop bombs people. So that was the good news of the week. Spiritual meetings, revelation, and rainbows. 

     Now for the bad news.... I was extremely sick the entire week. Starting Tuesday morning at about 12 30 am and ended Saturday morning ish. I'll spare you all the details but lets just say Elder Szabo's body did not hold onto anything he put in his body and it wasn't nice about how it got rid of it. I threw up 3 times over the week and my body just held onto nothing. I was tired and basically didn't eat all week. I eat but my body just got rid of it. There was a lot of sleep less nights and tiredness and stomach pain. I would wake up at about 12 or 1 and throw up and feel a little better so the next day I would eat a little and then it just started all over again. On Saturday I decided to do the hard thing and call the mission nurse ( she is known for long phone calls and being pretty harsh about behaviors haha just a joke around the mission. She is a great lady just has a reputation.) So after an hour long call with her I got put on the B.R.A.T. diet. Elder Szabo what's the brat diet??? Well let me tell you! It stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. That is all i'm allowed to eat and AND I have to eat it extremely slowly meaning take an hour to eat 1 banana or a piece of toast or little bowl of rice. and I had to drink Gatorade because I had lost a lot of nutrients. I hadn't held onto anything all week. So I did that Saturday and it was super nice to be able to get food in my body.  I stayed on it Sunday as well but upped my portions and i'll be darned it worked! I'm still not 100 percent better but i'm almost there and feel soooooo much better than I did. A run down of my week. Woke up at 12 30 Tuesday morning and had a fun time emptying my body of all that was in it and finally was about to fall asleep when our alarm went off to get up and get ready to go to Tirana so I got up went to the meeting and felt absolutely terrible during the first half. At the lunch break chugged a ton of water and ate some pizza and felt a ton better then later that night started feeling terrible again and ended up throwing up again that night. Wednesday we had MLC I felt a lot better but still out of it so we just rested and went to our recent converts house. Thursday night not great but no throwing up so we tried to get out and work but about an hour in didn't feel good so came home and just stayed in for most of the day. Friday almost all day stayed inside except for at night had a couple lessons. Friday night threw up again and felt absolutely terrible so I called the nurse and we stayed inside for almost the whole day. Sunday went to church took a long lunch and worked almost the whole night. That was the very short and sweet over view but there is a lot of details that no one wants to know about. Suffices to say it was a terrible rotten no good long sick week. BUT Thanks to the help of our trusted neighborhood nurse and lots of rest I am almost all better and my stomach doesn't treat food like Donald Trump would with all the immigrants so I am happy about that. Expect a better letter next week full of health and exciting finding stories. We have our zone training this week so that should be fun. I love you all. Have a great week.     Elder Szabo.