Group Emails are "Back"

Short but sweet this week! Wanted to say sorry for my absence of writting to keep y'all in the loop!

Things are going pretty well. I'm still here in Porto getting my back taken care of and hanging out in the office.

My back's doing better which is nice, I've started being able to sleep on my side at night without it really hurting. I feel like I'm getting my mobility back. It still hurts during the day and towards the end, so that's still bad. But when I started the PT massages my lumbar muscles were tight and painful when they hit them right, but they've loosened up a lot and I clench my back a lot less and it feels better. Today actually I haven't felt hardly any pain so far, though it's only 2pm. But I mean I cleaned the house and felt pretty good. I've just had a headache all day though. But we'll see if on Monday they put me to work at muscle strengthening or if I'll get massages a little longer.

This week we met a really cool guy named Rui Correia. He believes in the Universe and not really any "god" but he believes a lot of principles we teach. We managed to convice him to let us come back and teach him our message at least once, so he agreed, if we did it in English haha. We came back and it turned into us teaching in Portuguese and he responding in fair English. Be he's Portuguese, and the Portuguese talk A LOT, and the fact he was trying to do it in English made him slower, so we left that lesson 2 hours later! haha holy cow. We made an appointment to come back yesterday, but he apparently had to leave. BUT HE LEFT A NOTE! haha :) That's the first time I think an investigator has ever left a note when they had to leave haha :) he's cool!

We also are going to teach José's sister today! So that'll be super cool. We're hoping to make her a progressing investigator.

Not much to report aside from that. Hope everyone has a great week!

Abraço,

Elder Buchanan

Back Update

Lucas has been having pain in his back and we recently got an update. They have tried muscle relaxers, pain medication, injections and nothing has really worked. He had an MRI and a doctor appointment that was rescheduled several times. We finally have the scoop. The doctor that read the MRI said that he has a deterioration of the cartilage between two of his discs. They think that it is probably hereditary. The solution that they are going to try is to keep him in the office for at least half of the next transfer and start him in physical therapy to strengthen the muscles in his back. Hopefully that will help and he can continue on in the mission. Here is what he wrote about it.
"My back, so, from everything I understood, it's not a cyst or a hernia, which is good. The disk in between my L4 and L3 vertebrae has lost cartilage and become more rigid and essentially loosing its function to support weight and impact. That then inflames my spinal muscles because they have to take on a larger role. Its apparently inoperable and could lead to a hernia if I'm not careful. I can't gain weight, and I have to strengthen my abdominal and back muscles. I think there's gonna be physical therapy involved. I'm not entirely sure. But Sister Amorim and President seemed relived it wasn't something more serious. But I can spend too long sitting, or too long standing, it has to be a back and forth."


As far as what he has been up to in the office, he hangs around trying to be helpful, then goes out with Elder Erhardt and Elder Morrison in the evenings. Looks like he got in a game of bowling on p-day. Maybe that's part of the PT?

I'm sure he would appreciate prayers for a speedy recovery and some strong back muscles.