"Just so you know, we're going on a trip tomorrow to Oravský Castle. It's an hour away by car. Don't know if you can make it, but we wanted to invite you, since we're always doing stuff without you."
I said, "That would be tough. An hour and a half both ways between Banská and Žilina, then an hour to the castle, I don't know if we'd have time to get anything else done. But I can ask Elder Barton. Elder Barton, what do you think?"
"Let's do it," came the reply.
"Oh, I guess we're coming," I said. "See you tomorrow."
In order to take care of everything, we were working almost straight out of bed, but we got everything done by early afternoon and left for Žilina. The Elders and Sisters from Žilina were there as well as the senior couple (the Dreshers) and an investigator, making nine of us. The castle was fun and afterward we went to a reštaurácia. The waitress was a little stunned that 8 Americans just came in and all ordered halušky.
We slept over in Žilina so we could have district meeting in the morning. After retiring to bed, Elders Brennan, Webb, Barton and I stayed up for a little talking about our favorite TV show. Meanwhile, something didn't feel right in my stomach. We finally stopped talking and fell asleep, at least everyone except for me. 15 minutes later, everyone woke up to the sound of my violent vomiting. It was bad. The lights were now on and everyone was sitting up in his bed when I got back into the bedroom.
"Are you okay?" said Elder Brennan.
"I feel fine now, but that was rough," I said. "What could it have been from?"
"What did you eat in the past 24 hours?" he asked.
I thought for a minute, "Nothing too special, just the usual. Oh, and that halušky we all ate." All of the sudden the feeling came back and I disappeared to the bathroom. Again I threw up.
Elder Brennan called Sister Glasser, who lives in the Czech Republic and is in charge of handling these kinds of situations. He described the situation as best he could.
Glasser: "What did he eat in the last 24 hours?"
Brennan: "Nothing special. Halušky, I guess."
G: "Did anyone else eat it?"
B: "Yep, his companion. And Elder Webb and I. And the Sisters. And the Dreshers. And our investigator."
G: "The Dreshers? Oh dear."
It was far from over. For the rest of the night, I stayed in the bathroom trying to hydrate myself as my body was rejecting the water I was giving it. I threw up about every five minutes until 3 a.m., and it's the most ill I remember being in my life. I was finally able to get some rest before throwing up again in the morning.
After sleeping some more, my body was finally ready to take water. Elders Brennan, Webb and Barton gathered around my bed.
"I thought I might die, that was so bad last night," I said.
"That was honestly terrifying," said Elder Brennan. "I lay awake, thinking if it was because of the halušky, we're all dead. But it doesn't seem to be the case."
We then reminisced that despite the horror of last night, we were able to make jokes, discuss grammar and talk about Elder Barton's future football plans between my throwing up. For example, we talked about how to conjugate "vracať" (1. to return 2. to throw up). I'll admit though, every time I threw up, I lost a little bit of my appetite for humor.
I stayed in the apartment and slept while Elders Brennan and Webb went to district meeting. Eventually, we felt that it would be wise to go home and continue resting there. Just one problem: there was an hour and a half train ride between us and home, and Elder Barton was feeling queasy. Well, one thing led to another and we were both throwing up on the train. Later, we received news that Elder Webb was throwing up. Then I was feeling somewhat alright, so I tried some beef for dinner. Too early, so threw it up. No one was having fun.
***
By Friday, we were ready to get going. So we decided to go to the gym with one of our investigators. It had been a while since I'd worked out with actual weights, but it shouldn't be too bad. For starters, I went for the 20 lb. dumbbells but to my dismay, I soon found that I couldn't do a single bicep curl. It hasn't been THAT long, I thought. Then I realized that in Europe, they measure their weights in kilograms, not pounds. Our investigator saw my struggle and said, "When you're just starting, you use light weights." Thanks.
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