Sister Galli Goes to Washington: My MORE Hectic Week 🐞

So I totally shouldn't have complained about last week being hectic because this week has topped it, easily.

Story time!

When we last left off at the story of Sister Galli's mission, we had just spent 12 of the last 20 hours in the ER and/or other hospital rooms and Sister Vespucci hadn't been feeling well. One week later, Sister Vespucci is still doing fine. However, circumstances of another genre have certainly come our way.

Tuesday

We had been warned of a blizzard that would bring over 20 inches of snow to our cute corner of the world. We were told to not drive for ANY reason that morning and wait for further instructions. We woke up Tuesday and there was maybe 4 inches of snow on the ground. A bit of a disappointment but we still couldn't drive. So we took this opportunity to deep clean the apartment and organize some closets and drawers that obviously hadn't seen the light in many moons. We ended up with four crates of teaching materials in over 11 different languages that we donated to the mission office.

We spent the rest of the evening knocking the doors in our apartment complex, and even though we didn't spend a ton of time proselyting that day, it was a much needed deep clean.

Wednesday

There was still snow and ice on the ground so we didn't know if we were going to be allowed to drive until 10 am to which we were okayed to go. However, one of our roommates comes up to Sister Vespucci and I just as we're packing up to leave, and she hands us an insect that's stuck between two layer of tape (so he's trapped). She asks, "Is this a bed bug?" I sure hope not but type "bedbug" into a note and then ask my iPad to define the word (#MissionaryGoogle). It pulls up a beautiful picture of an insect that is most certainly identical to what we have trapped in tape.

Yay.

We just sit there for a second wondering what we're supposed to do now. Deep sigh... and we call a senior missionary couple that works in the mission office to ask them how we should proceed. She tells us to go show the taped bug to the leasing office and they'll get an exterminator to fix it.

So the four of us head out to drive up the street to the mission office. Except we can't. Because the 2-3 inches of snow on our cars have since turned into ice and the scrapers are completely useless--we actually broke two of the four scrapers trying to peel away the ice. What is this country?

After much travail, we were able to hop in the car, drive up the street, tell the office, and be back in the apartment within 10 minutes. They sent us an email giving us instructions of how to prep our apartment for the exterminator, and it boiled down to: Put everything you own in trash bags and remove it from the apartment. Kind of a rough order for people with no other place to keep their things... Thankfully, though, we do have a balcony, so currently everything we own is in trash bags on our balcony. Fun.

We spent most of the day preparing for that feat and, once again, didn't do too much in the way of proselyting. But priorities.

Thursday

Zone Conference at the church building by the Temple. Awesome, but there was one problem. There was a Sisters' meeting at 8 am and essentially the only route from our apartment to the Temple has the worst traffic in the US on it (<--Actual fact. The I-495 beltway is now worse than even California traffic). So we left our apartment at 6:45 am and still got there late. It wasn't even a far drive--12 or so miles only. But we got to the sisters' meeting and it was 80% about how sisters are bad drivers.... thanks. The rest of the zone conference was really good, surprisingly, and I feel like we all learned a lot. (There was one break-out session that's worth mentioning. A senior Elder was telling us how to keep our vacuum, apartments fans, smoke alarms, etc up and working. He was talking about our carbon monoxide detectors and said, "Your bodies are also great carbon monoxide detectors. You drop. And then you don't get up. Ever." #TrueStory

Towards the end however, I started to feel sick, and so after a member meal that evening, we just went home so I could rest.

Friday

Woke up feeling like I couldn't breathe. Always exciting. Sister Vespucci also woke up with the same thing, so we probably both caught something from the hospital. We slept in and then spent all but that evening preparing, once again, for our apartment to be all but gutted and sprayed on Monday.

Saturday

That day was actually really good. We had a tour at the VC with Suzannah (not sure if I mentioned her last week) but she's awesome! She's the girlfriend of a less-active member in our ward and they've been seriously dating for (my guess) 2-3 years. She's beyond gold; she's platinum. Never met anyone quite like her before. For example, we gave her the option of if she wanted to watch an hour long video or a twenty minute version of the same video, and she wanted the hour one. We walked around the temple afterwards and talked about how she felt. I can't express the joy I felt to teach her on Saturday.

That afternoon, we also got the Elders to come remove our couches. Not because of the bed bugs but because the mission president handbook says that each apartment should have no more than one bed, chair, and desk per missionary and one dining table.

So... our apartment is going to be very sparse from now on...

Sunday

It overall was a really good time at church. Really good talks and lessons. No outrageously screaming children. Can't complain.

Last night was the fireside called "Why I Believe" designed for recent converts and investigators and their missionaries to attend because it's speakers talking about Why they Believe (whatever the topic is). Last night's theme was that Jesus Christ is our Personal Savior. And guess who came? Suzannah! And guess who she brought? Her less-active boyfriend, Jack! We had also talked to her on Saturday about coming to church which would be a problem for her because she works at a farmer's market on the weekends, but at the fireside, she told us that she had gotten Sundays off and would be able to come to church! (Internal squeals!)

Also, almost got in two car accidents because people did some very reckless things. (Neither would have been my fault FYI)

But just last week I read the book of Job in the Bible, so I know I'm still in a better spot than him and he never cursed God.

No matter how hard your week or life is, remember Job. He is a great example of how to endure our circumstances well.

Pray for me that the bedbugs will be gone in one treatment! Because the sooner they're gone, the more missionary work we can do!

~Sister Galli