Hacked iPads 📱

Buenos Dias!
This week seems to have flown by incredibly fast.  Maybe it's because
I really like my new companion, maybe it's because we finally have a
progressing investigator.  I don't know though.  It's just been a
really good week :)

For those of that don't actually read my email and just wanna know
about my subject line, you can scroll to the bottom.

As for missionary work, we had another set of sisters in our ward, but
after transfers a week ago, they left and we inherited their area book
and all their investigators.  For the moment, we have three
investigators that are showing potential :)
The one we found and two we "stole".  We met with all three this week
and it was so good to finally be able to teach an investigator (unlike
the whole first 10 weeks of my mission).
The one, we don't know all that much about.  Just that she's roommates
with a member who's only recently decided to come back to church so
that's exciting :)
The one we found, his name is Sean and he's a hoot.  He's only a few
years older than us and I think his favorite hobby is going off on
tangents.  Teaching him always tests our skills on how quickly we can
adapt to his questions.  He's not too sure about organized religion as
a whole, but he actually believes in a lot of the same things we do
already.  However, we'll probably be passing him off to the elders in
the Young Single Adult ward because he needs to surround himself with
people that are peers and good influences.
The third we're teaching, her name is Patty and she's also a
character.  She's probably old enough to be my grandma, and although
she has a few concerns with the Word of Wisdom, she knows she needs to
be baptized and wants to come closer to Christ.  She told us, "I want
to go inside that temple, but the sisters said I first have to be
dipped in the water."  She's really funny.  She told us she loves
coming to church, especially on Fast and Testimony week, but she said
she just can't get into our music.

For P-day today, we're going to the city.  Sister Minguito wanted to
take me to a Spaniard restaurant and then we'll go to a museum or two.

As for my subject line, on Tuesday I left my iPad at the VC on
accident (I was there Wednesday morning so no big deal really).  But I
opened up my iPad and this was my home screen: 

Gotta love the VC! Hope you all have a great rest of the week!

- Sister Galli

Random building, according to Sis Galli.
It looks like it says Dept of Justice on it.

National Air and Space Museum pano

National Air and Space Museum pano

Sis Galli and Sis Minguito outside the National Air and Space Museum

Sister Galli and Sister Minguito

This last picture didn't come from Sis Galli. 

It was sent to me (via text) from a church member in her area with this message:

"Hello! This is the Hellewell Family from the Kentlands Ward in the Washington DC Stake. I had a great visit with these excellent sisters tonight. Just wanted to let you know they are working hard and doing great things! - Rob"

These surprise pictures are so fun to get. I love it when kind people take the time to think about the moms of these young people and send a quick message. It makes my day every time! Plus, Hannah is actually the tall one for a change. I bet she loves that!

Transfers and Spaniards 🇪🇸

¡Hola Amigos!

I hope all of your weekends were fantastic :)

This week, like I mentioned last week, was transfers where I got my
new companion.  Her name is Sister Minguito.  She's been on her
mission for 16 months and is from Spain.  It's super nice because we
have a lot in common.  This week has been great because although I've
been working harder than ever, I've also been a lot happier.
Interesting that an increase in one leads to an increase in the other.
Correlation or causation, you decide ;)

We got a heck of a lot done this week.  The Chinese sisters that were
sharing our ward and area left for other parts of the mission, so we
inherited all their contacts.  We got an investigator out of that as
well as a few other potential investigators.  Then by our own efforts,
we met with an investigator and he seems super interested in learning
more :) some of his extended family lives in Utah so he's heard some
pretty funny half-truths about Mormonism--quite a few from his tattoo
artist ;)

Today is more of a relaxing p-day filled with cleaning, emailing, and
napping.  It's necessary every once in a while, y'know?

But I guess I've never really explained what we do at the VC, have I?
Well it's not too complicated :)
6/7 days a week, we go to the VC for either a morning or evening shift
(from 9-3:30 or 3:30-9).  The rest of the day, we're in our normal
proselyting areas doing normal missionary things (i.e. Tracting,
having lessons, street contacting, etc.).  My area is about a 25-30
minute drive away from the VC so that takes a lot out of our day.
But at the VC itself, we help a lot of members and nonmembers.  My
favorite thing to explain to nonmembers is the temple model: a 5 ft
tall, 3D printed cutout model of the temple.  What's cool is that
there are only two temple models in the world--this one and the one in
Salt Lake.  So many people come in wondering what that "big white
castle is off the beltway".  After explaining what each of the rooms
are used for in the temple, some people just think it's cool, but
others actually want to learn more about our religion which is
exciting :)
When we're not on "the floor" helping those that come in, we're in the
back on computers where we essentially run Mormon.org.  We run the
chats on there and send Bibles to people who request them.  It's
really fun actually :)  a lot of missionaries say they get home and
have to relearn how to type (because of how rarely they use computers
on their missions), but not me :)  I have to quickly type every day.

So there's a little bit more about what's going on in my life.  What
about yours? I've heard from so few of you.  I love emails :)

I love you all!

~Sister Galli

Sister Galli and her new companion, Sister Minguito from Spain.
(This is a really good thing - valuable lessons have been learned, but prayers have definitely been answered.)

Bonus pics

Well, thanks to her new iPad, I received a bunch of pictures this afternoon from their p-day adventure today. They might not be terribly interesting to everyone, but since I'm printing this blog out at the end of her mission, I want all of the pics in there.

They accidentally took the wrong exit and ended up at IKEA :)

Pirate ship on Chesapeake Bay

Sister Galli and Sister Hadley at Chesapeake Bay

Maryland State House

A street in Annapolis

The place they ate lunch - yes, that is a 6 pound milkshake.

Why Am I Awake?

I am leaving for Girls Camp early tomorrow morning, so I'm busy getting ready today, but I wanted to get the blog updated before I left mainly because there are lots of good pictures this week. Here's her letter:

You may be asking yourself why I'm up at 5:30 am writing p-day emails.
To be completely honest, I wish I knew why.  But what you didn't know
is that my companion and one member of the other companionship we
always hang out with are off at the DC mall waiting for the sun to
rise over the Washington monument.  I had every intention to go with
them but the other member of the other companion wanted to sleep
instead.  This meant that I was getting up stupid early regardless to
be dropped off at their apartment.  *sigh* I've actually been awake
since 3 because of all this.   I think I'll hopefully try to fall back
asleep on the couch after I send this email because no one is on this
early to email me back (nor do I blame you).
But I can honestly say that this week was less eventful than last (if
it's even possible?).  After a series of events, including my
companion needing to go to the doctors' (don't worry, nothing serious
at all), we really only did missionary work at the VC.
I did run into two people I knew from Utah this week at the VC,
however, so that was a nice touch.

But this Wednesday marks the end of my first Transfer 😱
Every 6 weeks, we have transfers where every missionary in our mission
has the possibility of changing companion, area, or apartment.  We get
a call Saturday night telling us if we're leaving or staying, but
until Monday night, we don't know where those that are leaving are
going.  This transfer, I'm staying in my area, but my companion is
leaving.  It's strange because most companionships are together for 2
transfers on average, but there's no definite rules.  It's all
according to what God needs.

But hallelujah this week I finally got my iPad!  I waited over 60 days
for this thing and oh how distance makes the heart grow fonder ;)  but
it honestly has been really nice to not need to share a tiny iPad for
the very limited, precious hours on p-day.
On it, the app selection is very limited and very regulated, but
I did grab an app to help me relearn a little bit of Chinese because
there are so many Chinese people in our area and it'd be super useful.

Not too much to report this week.  I'm doing well (although this
weather is killing me) (why would somebody want to live here?) ;)
Hopefully my area will pick up soon and I'll actually have something
cool to email about :P

~Sister Galli

She said she's going to take a picture like this every week to see watch the writing wear off with use over time.

These are her two 'moms'. Sister McArthur (left) was assigned to be her first companion, but because she is from Haiti she can't drive here in the US. Hannah didn't feel comfortable driving there yet, so they assigned her to Sister Williams (right). Photobomb by the Elders.

Pooling their money to buy a cake at a charity auction.

She finally has an electronic device!

The handing out of the coveted iPads.

Riding the metro to the mall

Court of Appeals

A visit from Madi Michaels, one of the young women from our last ward, and someone who Hannah and I both adore. What a fun surprise!

This pic was actually from p-day a couple of weeks ago when their zone played beach volleyball near the Lincoln Memorial.

Using Pokemon to convert

Hannah has been a Pokemon fanatic ever since she was a kid. She literally knew everything there was to know about every Pokemon, every move, every version of the video game (from Gameboy to 3DS), EVERYTHING! So what are the chances that a month and a half after she leaves for her mission, the biggest thing to ever happen to Pokemon HAPPENS? Enter Pokemon GO. As soon as I heard about it I knew I needed to get into it on her behalf. We've all told her things about it, while trying to downplay it somewhat. But let's face it, she's not living under a rock. You better believe people are playing it all over Washington DC, and (although she is getting her iPad tomorrow - YAY!) she can't participate in it. This is probably one of the first big worldly sacrifices of her mission, after turning her beloved phone over to Hayden. I know that the commitments she has made and her desire to follow the rules she has agreed to will win out. She has the big picture in mind right now and this is such a trivial thing in contrast. But she's still a 19-year-old 'kid' in a lot of ways, and it has to be hard for her. It makes me even more proud of her. I love that she used it as the title of her email this week. Here it is:


I really wish I had some cool baptism story to report for this week,
but we don't :/
We were able to meet with a guy and his wife who's been inactive for
most of his life, so we're progressing towards finding an investigator
*nervous laughter*

We have a really hard area - I was told that from the start so I guess
I'm not too surprised - but this is just an area full of people that
have a lot of money and big nice houses.  They're just content in
their possessions and have no desire to change.  I honestly just wanna
tell half of them "it doesn't matter what religion you are--you're not
gonna take your stuff with you when you die".  But I refrain because
I'd rather not be shot.  Our area is really safe, however, so that's a
blessing.  One of the companionships of sisters lives a half hour away
from their area because the apartments in their area are 100% not safe
- we're talking there have been homicides there recently.  So I'm
really blessed in that sense.

I'm reminded of a Native American proverb which goes something like this.
We all have two wolves inside of us and they are always fighting.  One
represents truth, honesty, happiness, compassion, charity, goodwill,
love, and light.  The other represents lies, deceit, sadness,
selfishness, bitterness, hatred, and darkness.  The question then
remains, which wolf wins?  And the answer is quite simple.  The one
that wins, is the one you feed.

Oh how much this is like life!  If we focus on the bad, then certainly
we will view our lives and situations with disgust.  True happiness
comes not from having a good situation but having a good outlook.

I've had to take a step back and look at my situation as a whole many
times this past month or so.  Absolutely, we have one of the hardest
areas in our mission, we don't have any investigators, and we're
dragging down the averages.  But man, I have a car with air
conditioning, I don't have to worry about my safety, and I get to
consecrate 18 months of my life to serving the Omnipotent being that
created me and loves me dearly - yes, even God.

Who knew perspective could mean so much?

I love DC!
~Sister Galli

P.S. The Temple is a special location on Pokemon GO (a new app that's
sweeping the nation), so we have people staring at their phones,
wandering the temple grounds.  We, at the VC, are trying to find a way
to use this to our advantage.

Sister Galli has been out for 56 days, and Sister William has 56 days left.
Of course the math girl would figure that coincidence out.

Everyone Has a Dog

Nothing funny or noteworthy for me to report this week, so I'll just go ahead and post her letter and pics:

Interesting how Monday's are the most hated day of the week except for
missionaries and their friends and family ;)

This week was, yet again, pretty uneventful.  We did however, have a
small miracle on Tuesday that I hope to be able to follow up on this
week :)
We were tracting in a neighborhood for over and hour and the second to
last house we knocked, an Indian man answered the door.  We did our
spiel on what our message was and instead of the usual "no I'm
not interested" he actually asked "Well, is it just you talking or do
you have materials?"  I was taken back, not knowing how to deal with a
positive answer, but Sister Williams and I were happy to give him a
Book of Mormon and our numbers :)
Hopefully that'll turn into something amazing in the future :)
But the lesson I've learned this week (and much of the past weeks) is
patience.  Everyone has the God-given gift of agency, and although
they may not accept the invitation to learn more about our church, we
have still been successful because our purpose is to Invite others to
come unto Christ.  And we have been doing just that.  :)

This last P-day and today we had a lot of fun.  Last week we went to
this awesome burger place called Shake Shack.  I don't like burgers.
This was delicious.  That's how good they were.

Today, we had a zone activity where we went to beach volleyball courts
by the Lincoln Memorial.  I'll have to poke through the pictures
of it this week and send the best ones next week :)

Also, fun fact about Maryland, there are more dogs than children.

With much love
-Sister Galli

At the Shake Shack with Sister Hadley last p-day (7/4)

Playing sand volleyball at a zone activity near the Lincoln Memorial (7/11)

She says that Sister Hadley is her unofficial exchange companion every p-day because their companions are best friends. Only a couple more weeks until she has her own iPad to use. I bet she can't wait. I'm just hoping that means more pictures.

Bonus pics!

I have a few pictures that I didn't include yesterday - I forgot about a couple of them that were from last week, and a couple others came later in the day. I definitely want them on here though since we are printing this blog out at the end of her mission.

A lady who is visiting this mission posted this picture on Sunday of these sisters in Relief Society  

Her missionary plaque that will hang at the church until she completes her mission next year

A few of the sisters with the new mission president and his wife

Staging a 'door-knocking' picture at a member's house who wasn't home.
On exchanges with Sister Buhler.