Baptism Number 4! 🎉

What an uneventful week leading up to an incredibly eventful weekend!

On Saturday, we were able to arrange so that all 7 sisters that helped teach Mario (back in Ft. Meade) could go to his baptism!  Sister Hadley and I swapped companions and we took the trek up to Ft. Meade Saturday evening.  After that it was a party. Once at the chapel, we began by taking pictures and smashing wine and other alcohol-containing bottles of Mario's in the parking lot (the video is included). Then the normal baptismal events took place.  All the sisters who taught him had a part in the program. Two giving the opening and closing prayers, three singing a musical number, and myself, I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost.  Apparently while Mario and the sisters were making the program a few weeks ago, he thought it'd be fun to hear a talk from me because, when I was his missionary, we would always have super deep discussions.  So I felt very honored :) The ordinance went smoothly with Elder Spencer getting it all right on the first try (always a win). After getting all dried off and changed, Mario came back into the room and bore a powerful testimony that everyone knew he believed with all his heart. When the program was finished, everyone gathered to the parking lot for cookies, noise makers, and poppers because Mario wanted it to be a celebration. He also had dinner catered for his family and his missionaries of authentic Greek food that we ate in the gym. All-in-all and 110.9 miles later, it was one of the best days on the mission and a day I'll never forget.

Some days are freaking hard, but it's days like Saturday that make it all worth it.

~Sister Galli

Sisters Galli, Hadley, Hampshire, Greenhalgh, Lemperle, Rawlins and Bingham
at Mario's baptism

Each of these sisters played a part in Mario's conversion

Helping Mario get rid of his alcohol stash

Finding friends while tracting

District activity last week
Sand volleyball, frisbee golf, and lunch

Sister Galli and Sister Yang will be together for another transfer (6 weeks)

Picture Week 📷

Howdy all!
Not too much in the way of exciting news this week, but I do have a
fair amount of pictures from last p-day.
Tonight is call-outs which means I'll know this evening who my 9th
companion will be.  I can never hold onto them for very long, can I?
Haha, stay good and keep pressing on!

~Sister Galli

The zoo with the trio

Lunch at Shake Shack off Dupont Circle, my treat

Off to the mall 

I caught a firefly and put him in a jar. I'm now a true American. (Don't worry, I let him go shortly after)

No email this week 🙁

Last week, Sister Galli mentioned that they had been given permission to go into DC on this p-day for Sister Yang's birthday. Because of this, they left early and got home after their p-day time had ended, so no official email this week. However, I have received pictures via text message from two different people this week, so I thought would post them here:

This picture of Sister Galli and Sister Yang was sent to my by a family from Ephraim, UT
who were on a road trip and visiting DC
So funny to see Hannah as the 'tall' one at 5'4" :)

Sister Galli with Sister Karren
(she was my kids' elementary school principal who is serving a mission in DC now with her husband).
I get these selfies from Sis Karren every time she sees Hannah at a meeting, etc. and it is such treat!
Definitely one of the perks of having a friend who is serving in the same mission as your daughter.

These three pictures were taken at a meeting with a visiting general authority  (Elder Brent H Nielson).
I'm guessing the VC sisters are singing, but I'm not sure.

Service: It's Why We're Here

We got an interesting call this week from our roommates.

"Hey Sisters. Our car won't start. Can we catch a ride with you to Zone Conference?"

Um, sure. 

So they have been our passengers for the past 5 days while their car is being fixed.  

This has been a bit of a challenge as very little of our areas overlap (they're Spanish, we're English) and they have back-to-back appointments (because we're half convinced that they've committed every Hispanic in their area to be baptized).

However, a few melted jumper cables later, they have traded out their new 2017 Subaru Legacy for a...less nice car.

In life, we don't always get to choose some things--either because of others' agency or just because we live in an imperfect world--but every day we can choose our attitudes and perspectives. 

Sister Yang and I could have been incredibly upset and annoyed with our inconvenience (and it was an inconvenience) or we could have looked at this as an opportunity to serve our fellow missionaries.  And though we aren't baptizing, they are, and now that we've helped them be able to teach those people, we've helped their investigators come closer to baptism, too! We all have a part to play.

On an only semi-random note, since we are serving in the VC for full days now, we can sign up to feed all the sisters there (11-12 sisters) on one or two nights of the month and people have been really generous and also gotten very creative.  On Wednesday, we made fried rice. On Friday, the sister from Korea and her companions made Korean BBQ.   It's been fun to serve and be served in a delicious way :)

Service is in the air, people!  It adds meaning to our lives. So do it!

~Sister Galli

P.S. There will either be no email or a short email next week as we will be going into the city for Sister Yang's birthday! 🎉

What's the Point?

Howdy Howdy Y'all!

Over the past few weeks since this transfer began, I've been having a bit of a trial-some period--feeling really down with no real explanation of why.  It's been difficult to find joy in the work lately.

However, after fasting and praying about it yesterday, I received an answer to why I've been feeling this way--I didn't feel like I had a purpose, or at least I was unaware of my purpose in being sent to this new area with this new companion and going back to the VC. Long story short, through talking with some of the other VC sisters last night, I realized what my purpose is in being sent to this area. Knowing the 'what' and the 'why' has now given me the motivation to do my best to achieve what I have been sent here to do.

This must be how everyone must feel if they do not know the Plan of Salvation: the Plan that God has for each one of us.  To be sent to earth with no clue on how one should conduct their life or find any meaning from the day to day, it must be a challenge to have the desire to continue sometimes.
I feel so blessed to know what God expects of me in the long run (and now in the short run, too!).  I'd like to challenge each one of you to share God's plan for each of His children with somebody who is not as fortunate as we are.  And if you're questioning your purpose, be it big or small, ask God, and He will let you know.  He wants you to be happy and He wants you to have meaning in your life.

Love you all!
~Sister Galli

That awesome moment when your area resembles Book of Mormon geography

Made a sock cat for one of the sisters in the VC

Ah, it's always so beautiful!

We cleaned out the keyboards at the VC, and afterward I 'fixed' the keys ;)

Got Dippin' Dots from the mall

Just Believe Christ!

Not too much to report this week.  We met with recent converts, investigators, and did a lot of tracting.  I was also able to spend a lot of time helping others in the VC, from teaching non-members who had never seen the temple before, to sending a dozen referrals online, and from helping an hermana with her study of the Book of Mormon, to fixing a new sister's tablet.  But nothing too exciting or funny, so I'll just talk about the Gospel because the mission makes it so you can do that for hours.

I begin my spiritual thought with a quote found in an Ensign Article given in April 1992 by  Stephen E. Robinson:

"One of the most terrifying dilemmas in the universe consists of two facts. The first is expressed in Doctrine and Covenants 1:31: “I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” That means he can’t tolerate it. He can’t blink or look the other way. The other fact is very simply put: We all sin. If the equation consisted of only those two facts, the conclusion would be inescapable: As sinful beings, we can never enter God’s presence. But that is not all there is. There is the atonement of Jesus Christ—that glorious plan by which this dilemma can be resolved. And the amazing thing is that the Atonement works in practical ways."

One of the differences between conversion and a testimony comes down to the application of our knowledge.

You can believe in Christ as much as you want, but true power and true conversion comes when you stop and take a minute to just believe Christ.  Believe that when He says He can make your burdens light, He will.  Believe that when He forgives all who repent, that includes you.  Believe that when He promises blessings, they can in all reality be ours.

In the eyes of God, we are mere children--toddlers stumbling through life.  But just like any loving parent, Heavenly Father is so excited when we make efforts to talk to Him, to walk after His Son, and to strive to be better every day.

Elder Holland said it best in April 2012 when he said,

"I do not know who in this vast audience today may need to hear the message of forgiveness inherent in this parable [of the laborers], but however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines."

But Christ does not eliminate our personal responsibility. Stephen E. Robinson continues,

"We all fail at living the full celestial level. That’s why we need a Savior. The Lord says, 'Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.' (Matt. 5:6.) We frequently misinterpret that verse. We think it means 'Blessed are the righteous.' It does not. When are you hungry? When are you thirsty? When you don’t have the object of your desire. It is those who don’t have the righteousness that God has—but who hunger and thirst after it—who are blessed, for if that is the desire of their hearts, the Lord will help them achieve it."

If righteousness is something we have to achieve, then we also have to put in the necessary effort.

"With the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the strength of heaven to help us, we can improve, and the great thing about the gospel is we get credit for trying, even if we don’t always succeed." --Elder Holland April 2016

I would like to end my soap-box-ing with a quote from President Hinckley from April 1995, "May we go with determination to try a little harder to be a little better."

~Sister Galli

Car selfie with Sister Yang

We had exchanges! I had the chance once again to be with Sister Escobar, my MTC companion.

Video: City driving

Sister Galli Goes to China!

你好！
This week marks my 8th companion, 5th area, and 4th zone! All in one year :)

For this next transfer I'll be in Gaithersburg with Sister Yang! (Say the "a" like you would in "water") She's from Mainland China and has been out two transfers, so I'm what's called "greenie breaking", which I have done once before. This transfer is sadly not a complete white wash. I had a good streak going. But we did take over another area in our ward, so it is 1/2 whitewashing.

I'm happy to be back at the VC. Something is different now, however. Instead of each companionship going in every day for half of the day, we all go in every other day for the entire day.  It will take some getting used to, but it will save us a ton of driving time and will get us more time in our proselyting area.

I'm still trying to adjust to my new area, so I don't have too much in the way of pictures or more to say, but just know, that I'm slowly turning Asian again. Today I bought seaweed, rice, and lychee from a Korean market Sister Yang likes. Time to break out the chopsticks!

~Sister Galli