All Saints Day

The whole internet thing here is a little whacky. I’m not sure if we already have an internet connection in our apartment right now or not. We are staying in the apartment of a Dentist who helped get the Clinic up and running and then had to go home to take care of his family because his child got killed in a airplane accident. I don’t know if it was a son or daughter but their grandchildren are without a home and he will not be coming back until after the holidays maybe sometime in January. We will be staying in this apartment until ours will be ready sometime in the middle of November.

When I get to the Dental Clinic they have Wi-Fi connected to the LDS access and most of the time it is running very well. But we are so busy that I haven’t had time to really do more than check on a few things for the 5 or 10 minutes I snatch. I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to those who wrote – I will in a day or two.

When the missionaries arrive at the MTC we have an intake day. The week after intake day is really a mad scramble for the clinic as we only have 2 ½ weeks until the missionaries are in the field. So the first week the most needy missionaries are seen first – usually those who have had no dental care in their entire lives and have holes all over their teeth. Dr. Stewart will numb one side of their mouth and do as many procedures as he can and then have them come in the next day or day after that and do the other half of their mouth. Sometimes they can have many fillings and pulp caps or root cannels and they are lucky if nothing is bad enough to be extracted. Dr. Stewart will do everything he can to save a tooth. The missionary president’s wives would live close to Manila, try to get their missionaries into the MTC clinic because when they send missionaries to the regular dentists they tend to extract the tooth whenever there is a toothache.

Sister Stewart told me about one missionary president’s wife telling the elder to tell the dentist to save his tooth. When he got back from the dentist he asked the president’s wife what she wanted to do with the tooth he brought back in a little bag. I had to laugh because understanding for me is difficult too.

Today the Stewarts started seeing missionaries at 6 am and didn’t take a lunch break because there was an emergency patient from the missionary field who had been in pain for 10 days. When I went home at 5:15 pm they were in taking care of the last patient. I’m hoping they get home at a reasonable time tonight and get some sleep. We have a very tight schedule tomorrow too.

I’m writing this at home and hoping I can post it in between breaks tomorrow – if there are any – I do think about you sometimes during my day though mostly I’m earning my “merit badges” as Sister Stewart and I call each of the different duties I learn and figure out. Mostly I just drop into bed each night. Tonight I’m determined to stay awake until 9 so I can get up at a reasonable time like 5 instead of 1 or 3 like Jeffrey is doing. That’s ok for him as he has been receiving some incredible insight and dreams. This whole mission is wonderful and fantastic!