Since some of you may not know on Friday morning we received an email from Elise's Mission President:
Dear
Brother and Sister Ellison,
Your
daughter has had severe pains this past week and been in and out of the
hospital. In conjunction with the Area Medical Advisor in Lima, who has
coordinated with the doctors here in Bolivia, they have decided to remove a
kidney stone that is causing quite a bit of pain.
My
wife would like to call and give you more details if you could send me a cell
number.
She
has had a blessing from a member of the stake presidency there in Tarija and is
in very good hands. We are seeing to all the details to make sure that
everything goes well. We love her and are so blessed by her example of faith
and courage.
So when parents get an email like this, a little panic sets in. Mostly from not knowing or not being able to talk with you child. We did speak to Sister Willard, President Willard's sweet wife briefly after this email to find out the details. Elise was at the hospital and they were going to be doing some procedure in a very short amount of time. Apparently, Elise was very sick over the weekend, which we knew about from her last blog, but what was really going on was something worse than flu or virus. On Monday night, or Tuesday early morning, she awoke with tremendous pain and had to go to the clinic or hospital; she was sent home after some treatment, but the same thing happened the next early morning..about 4am. She awoke to tremendous pain and went in again. Now we are not sure what happened between then and Friday morning but now you are all caught up.
After discussing the procedure with Sister Willard, we were still worried, but confident in the Lord's plan to take care of our daughter. It was a blessing to hear from Sister Willard and learn of the great love and admiration that they both have for her. She could hardly speak about her without crying about how wonderful she is and how if they only had a Son...they would want her for a daughter-in-law.
After the call, we just had to wait. Wait for Sister Willard to call us back to let us know how she did. She was going to try and get us a call with her, but this became impossible to have in the hospital.
After some time of waiting, we got the call and Sister Willard tells us that she did not have Kidney stones, but a very bad kidney infection. That along with a heavy dose of antibiotics her procedure was done and the two or three days in the hospital was the next step.
After that, I had too much time to worry and read up on Google what a bad kidney infection could be or do. I had questions. I sent them to President Willard for him to get them to the LDS doctor stationed in Lima Peru. He answered very shortly after that...that the hospital was in good condition, the medical personal was excellent and they knew what they were doing. Elise was not in a dirty hospital with dirt floors or no pillows or blankets, but was in good hands. WE had a few very good friends, even offer to fly us out there to be with her. We went with having faith and did not make any flight arrangements.
After fasting and many prayers, Elise was released from the hospital in 24 hours. The many updates from President and Sister Willard have been wonderful.
She is now home resting for the next several days. It has been Carnival in Bolivia, which means she couldn't go out anyways, or email us; what a blessing it was for Elise to have the well needed rest and not feel bad for not going out to teach and find the people of Bolivia to share her glad message. She is clearly a disciple of God and loves His divine message. She is a worrier fighting the battle that she promised to fight to deliver the message to her wayward brothers and sisters. She is committed to that task until her work is done. She will not come home early or stop doing what she needs to do until April 10th....or after if you know Elise.
I love her and have a great testimony of Prayer, Faith and the ability to know that our Heavenly Father does have a plan for each of us and that even though we don't know it, can't control it always we can choose to be a part of it and Love it, no matter what the outcome may be. He loves us and only wants us to be happy. We must know Pain to truly know Love and joy.
Hope Elise is writing this again next week. She can fill in any details that are still unknown to us.
Yours truly,
Ryan Ellison
Thank you so much for such a Great Missionary President couple "The Willards"
