I keep telling myself I’m going to start writing in my journal every night again, then I forgot when night comes around. Well, it’s 11:15 and I just remembered. Today was fast Sunday. I haven’t really fasted a full 24 hours since my whole cancer ordeal. Today I fasted for about 19 hours and it was no problem at all. Last week when our home teachers came I asked for a priesthood blessing so that I could continue to take Gleevec without a problem. I have been concerned since I broke out in hives a few weeks ago and had to go off of it for a week. Since being back on it I haven’t really had any problems.

I played church basketball Thursday night. It was really my first strenous exercise since having surgury. I took it relatively easy. My stomach is a little tight where my scar is and I didn’t want to over stretch it. I did OK. The worst part was dehydration. I drank so much and still felt so parched.

I bore my testimony at church – mainly centered around my testimony of fast offerings. Last week I paid for my 30 day supply of Gleevec. The pills are about $5000 for a 30 day supply. With my insurance I have to cover our family $3000 deductibe then pay a $21 copay. The bill came to $3013! A year ago there is no way I could pay for something like that. But for the past six month I have been making between $2000 – $5000 extra per month from my satellite TV comparison site. It has been a huge blessing. I really believe it has been a blessing of re-doubling our fast offerings. The past six months or so I have been paying $100 per month for fast offerings – the most we have ever paid.

In my testimony I told the story of my first experience paying fast offerings. Our bishop’s wife gave a talk about the topic. She said every time they were in a financial crisis she doubled their fast offerings. Each time she did she would recieve some kind of miracle help to pay the bills. Being young I put this to the test. I had never paid fast offerings before. When the deacons came I asked my dad to wait. I ran to my room and grabbed all the money I had – $2.00, and paid it to fast offerings. Over the course of the next few weeks, I fournd a $20 bill riding my bike home from church, $10 bill in a grocery store parking lot, and another $20 bill in a bowling alley parking lot. I don’t remember at the time equating it to paying fast offerings. It was probaby a number of years later that I put it all together, but looking back I really believe it was the Lord confirming my trial of faith.