Last Saturday the elders were playing some basketball in the adjoining stake center. This cute Elder Hegerhorst went up for a basket and came down on someone's foot. The consequence was.......a foot that looked like it had been completely displaced from the leg. Two of the other elders headed for the MTC in a dead run calling for help. We jumped in the car and drove the few yards and found him lying on the floor in extreme pain. Local security called for an ambulance and they arrived while Richard was giving him a blessing.
I have to say, the parpamedic could not have been better. He immediately got him breathing some gas to ease the pain and then ever so carefully removed his shoe and put the leg in a wrap to stablize it. Under his direction, the other elders lifted him onto the stretcher and put him in the ambulance where they administered heavy doses of morphine to sedate him. When they arrived at the hospital the attending orthopedic doctor just happened to be a member of the church and besides being very skilled he was very kind. Now the miracle is......the ankle was dislocated (understatement) but there were no fractures -- much to the amazement of all who saw it!
The sweet thing is that while the elder was lying on the floor he just kept asking, "Will I have to go home? I don't want to go home!" He was more worried about that than his leg. And as word spread through the MTC, the missionaries gathered together to petition the Lord and pray for their friend. It is in these moments that you see these young men as just that, and not the teenagers they were only minute ago.
The postscript is that he left this morning for the mission field with a big grin on his face, a solid walking boot on his foot and a handsome pair of crutches under his arms and he is almost pain free.
Truely missionaries are watched over by a loving Heavenly Father!
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