Punk Rockin' 🤘🏼

Good Morning, Monday!
I hope all of you enjoyed Mole Day for me yesterday. #JustChemistryThings⚗

This week was transfers and......... Sister Watkins and I are together
another transfer!  So now she's my first companion to last longer than
6 weeks.  This also means I'll be in the Kentlands area for at least 6
months of my mission...that's a long time, but it hasn't felt that
long...

We lost 3 sisters on Wednesday and gained 6 new ones--that's a ton
when you consider that our VC was only ever intended to hold 24
sisters and we're now sitting at 29.  Our VC has had quite the
turn-over of sisters since summer started.

We've also seen a lot of miracles this week.  I personally contribute
them to our companionship being more obedient and also more
consecrated--It just goes to show that God helps you out when you help
yourself.

We had three killer lessons with our three most progressing sets of
investigators too.
We had a lesson with our Polish family of five and talked about the
importance of the Book of Mormon, and how by reading it, you can find
answers to the soul--like where did I come from, what's it like after
I die, and how do I have a stronger family.  (Selfish note: I really
want them to get baptized soon so I can be able to go to their
sealing, because they're going to join the church, it's just a matter
of when.)

We also had a lesson with a lady that Sister Watkins and Hermana
Klaass had put on baptismal date the week before (on exchanges).  The
only problem we're having with her is that she has three little kids
and no car so we can't really ask people to give her a ride nor does
she have somebody that could watch the kids while she comes to church.

We also had another lesson Friday night with Mireille--she's the one
that randomly turned up at church last week, and it was one of the
most picture-perfect lessons we've had.  We covered the entire
Restoration, gave her one copy of the Book of Mormon in English and
another in French, and she came to church yesterday too!  She is so
prepared to receive the Gospel.

Keep praying for me but more importantly, the investigators that we're
working with--they're all so close to joining the church!

I hope you all have a great rest of your week!  Also, can't wait to
see your costumes for Halloween!

~Sister Galli

Sister Watkins decided she wanted to do my hair on Saturday and I'm
still trying to decide if I like it...leaning towards yes.  It's
braided on the side that looks pinned back.

On Tuesday the 18th, these gals hit their 5 month mark

Eating Chinese take-out so they can stay in their pjs for most of the day

P-day adventure: mouse under the couch

Bait!

She doesn't have any mouse traps and didn't want to go to the store quite yet.
Not sure what she's going to do with it after she catches it.
This apartment is teaching her so many life skills, mainly survival.

Livin' on the Edge 🏞

This week was super exciting for the Utahns. Look what we found!

 IT'S A HILL! (tears of joy) We may have driven 45 minutes to the very northwestern edge of our mission to find it, but we came off victorious.

For all of you that are incredibly confused, Maryland is SUPER flat, so a hill like that is the closest thing I can get to a mountain. This (below) is the view from the 17th or 18th floor of some of the apartments. FLAT!

Why were we there? Our ward had a Halloween party and they all invited a ton of non-member friends so it was a super great activity in a lot of ways :) Here's what the rest of the property looks like. We were in a really nice barn.

So, random stuff aside, it was a great week. Nothing really big happened, but just a lot of tiny miracles--like making it on time to your 7:00 am Sunday meetings that are 15 miles away, and having random investigators show up to church and then accept an invitation to meet with us and come back to church next week. 

The struggle of this week, however, has once again been our apartment. This time we are having to deal with no heat.  The last few days of last week as well as the first few days of this week, we had no hot water either (they're changing up the utilities so there are growing pains). There was really no solution for the lack of hot water until it was fixed, but as for not having any heat, we did find that boiling water heats up the apartment really fast. So some mornings we just chilled by the stove like hobos.

Not too much more to report this week. We'll know tonight if either of us are being transferred, but I highly doubt it. We get 6 new sisters at the VC this week, making it so that out of the 29 sisters at the VC, I am ranked at number 11 for mission-oldest. #MissionTurnover. Crazy to be in charge when I have no idea what I'm doing *nervous laughter*

Love you all so much,

~Sister Galli

Empty Subject Lines...

I almost feel bad sending this email out to all of you solely because
so little actually happened this week, especially compared to last.
BUT, I have plants that need to be watered and pets taken care of at
home, and my mom has told me she may forget about them if I don't
write and send pictures.  😉 So here I am.

Tuesday was Specialized Training part 2! (Code for Sister Watkins and
all the other trainees got their iPads).  It's so nice not having to
share, not only on p-days, but when we daily and weekly plan as well.
We can be doing two things at once.  I'm still trying to decide why
this mission has it so people don't get their iPads until a month or
more of being in the field.  I guess I should just be happy we have
them at all.  At this training, we play a game at the very end where
all the companionships team up, and they can only use one arm each and
one copy of the Book of Mormon.  Then the APs give us all a scenario
and a concern that an investigator could have and we need to use a
scripture to answer the question.  The first person from each of the 4
concerns they have move onto the next round.  Sister Watkins and I
blew through that first and also the second rounds.  The third is
where there are only two companionships.  On a board is the First
Vision divided up by phrase in random order and you and your companion
need to get them in order by alternate shooting them with Nerf guns.
It's really fun.  Obviously we won that too.  (Sister Minguito may or
may not have been helping us out by whispering where the next phrase
was behind us...lol).  It was a fun time.

On Wednesday, we had a member of The Seventy come, his name was Elder
Bennett and he actually spoke at the MTC while I was there too.  We
got to the designated chapel after driving for 90 minutes through
crazy traffic.  He talked about how change is good and that we all
need to be consecrated missionaries--he may or may not have talked for
40 minutes to an hour solely on how important it is to wake up at 6:30
sharp.  But man oh man that guy can talk.  He talked from 9 am to 1:30
pm without a single break or even a sip of water.  Then after a short
lunch, he resumed talking for another 2 hours.  He taught a lot of
things that I wrote down that really impacted the way I look at my
mission.  Plus, he demonstrated a few ways to teach better and also
how to find more people to teach.

Friday we were at the VC for 9 and a half hours so we could cover some
of the sisters that couldn't come in until later.   I'm really happy I
get to spend half of my day in an area as well.  I think being in a
building all day every day would kill me.

But that's pretty much the extent of my week.  The work goes on and
the days are getting shorter.

Love you and wish you all the best
~Sister Galli

Sister Galli and Sister Watkins online at the Visitor's Center.
They respond to people who request more information about the church.

I received this picture (on Wednesday) via text message from a random stranger who was visiting DC from Riverton, UT.

I received this picture via text yesterday while sitting in sacrament meeting. This person was visiting DC from Sandy, UT.

Before specialized training

After specialized training :)

City Day! 🏙

With help from Sister Minguito, Sister Watkins and I were able to go
with her and her companion to the National Mall! So excited!
Our day started quite early because we wanted to make sure we took
full advantage of this rare opportunity.  So we woke up at 4:45 to get
on the Metro by 5:45 and then be in DC by 6:30 to watch the sun rise
over the Washington at 7.  So pretty.  The colors were stunning and
the weather was actually a lot nicer than forecasted.  I lie, the
weather was perfect.  We then hiked over to a Starbucks for breakfast
and a little emailing.  We went to the Museum of Natural History right
when it opened at 10 and stayed there for a couple hours.  I could
spend a lifetime in there I think.  There's so much to see.
Afterwards, we swung by the botanical gardens.  Something really cool
that they have there is they have multiple habitats all connected, only
separated by glass automatic doors, but they have engineered the
climate of each to mimic the environment that the plants usually grow.
So we walked from Jungle to Desert in one glass door and the
difference was like Maryland to Utah. Nice dry heat.
We then sat on Capitol Hill for a few minutes to rest.  They're
already prepping the Capitol to look nice for the inauguration in
January.
We then wandered around the mall for an hour or so but then decided we
probably ought to head home as we were all exhausted.
We were lucky able to check off all the things Sister Minguito still
has on her list before she heads back to Spain in a few weeks.  But my
goodness, we walked so flipping much.  I'm so so thankful to have a
car and the VC.
We stopped by Shake Shack on our way home.  Those burgers are so good.
They're a little over priced for their size, but the taste and texture
make up for it.
But that was just today.  The rest of the week was good too! We were
finally able to meet with the Wozniaks over dinner at their home.
Their Polish nature makes them very blunt and honest, which might be
hard for some people to work with, but I honestly work best with that.
That way there's no miscommunication.
General conference was pretty good this weekend! Quite a few talks
were about missionary work which will make it easier for members to
watch to help us out more :)
I don't really have much more to say, plus there's little time as
we're getting home just a few minutes before p-day ends.
I hope you all have a great rest of your week!
~Sister Galli

Sister Galli and Sister Minguito

Sister Watkins and Sister Barr

Washington Monument at sunrise

Sister Galli and Sister Watkins
(I'm guessing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial)

Lincoln Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Washington Monument

Starbucks for breakfast

'High School Musical' jump at the Washington Monument

The United States Capitol

Eating at The Shake Shack on the way home

Contagious Companions and Miracle Cards

Bom dia todos!
When starting this email, I thought it'd be really short like last week, and then my fingers started flying on my new Bluetooth keyboard and this week's is actually quite long.

It's sad to say that the most exciting part of our week was that Sister Watkins got sick. On Wednesday, she said she wasn't feeling good and then Thursday morning she said she needed to go to the doctors because she had a hard time walking.  One trip to the doctor's later and a stop by the pharmacy, she was drugged up with antibiotics, but nothing for the pain, so we sat around a lot both Thursday and Friday.  Friday night, however, she got a priesthood blessing to help her get better.
On Saturday, I let her sleep in for a couple of hours and when she did get up, she was hobbling.  It looked painful to breathe.  She acted tough, but it was obvious that dying probably looked like a better option. However, she took a bath Saturday morning, and when she got out, she was healed.  Like miraculously.  She felt completely fine--a little sore, I think she said--but you would not have been able to tell that she was "dying" just a few minutes before. (She was never actually contagious, but it just sounded good in the subject line).

This week, we did the inevitable.  We have been teaching CJ quite consistently this past month or so, but we had a feeling he didn't live in our area.  On Tuesday, we were finally able to get him to tell us his address, and sure enough, he did not live in our area.  Even though we found him, helped him get a testimony, committed him to be baptized, and taught him literally all he needs to know before being baptized, we have to pass him to other missionaries.  It's kind of irking and annoying, but it's the way it is for a reason, I guess.  We passed him to an area that gets a couple baptisms a month and the Kentlands curse is still in effect--that we have had one baptism this year and before that, it's been about 2/2.5 years since the last baptism #KentlandsCurse  It's just hard being in one of the lowest baptizing areas in the whole mission  :/

Our Polish family has now come to church 5 times and some of the ward activities as well.  Joanna and her daughter came to part of the General Women's broadcast on Saturday and she enjoyed it, but she said that if she had to watch it at her home, she wouldn't.... So we'll see how General Conference next week goes. Their family is really good about telling their friends what they believe.  They've even recently started telling them that they go to the Mormon church.  Which is interesting because we haven't been able to teach them the first thing about what Mormons believe yet...we're working on working around both our and their busy schedules...but at least they're excited :)

Another cool story for this week! So at the VC, we send missionaries referrals of those who come online to Mormon.org to request free copies of the Bibles etc, and then we stay in touch with them to make sure the missionaries give them what they asked for and to see if they're interested in learning more about the Church.  What's awesome is that a lot of those people actually do learn more and some even get baptized because of our efforts :) At the VC we have a goal of getting one baptism a day for a monthly goal of 30 or 31 baptisms.  This month we were struggling hardcore, with 9 baptisms on the 22nd of the month.  So the Sister Training Leaders got us all together and told us that we set the goal of having one baptism a day and we set that goal with faith, so Heavenly Father is going to help us reach that goal.  We were told that we needed to focus all our efforts for the rest of the month on finding those that have been baptized that we haven't followed up on.  This was a daunting task seeing as we had 8 days to find 21 baptisms, but we trusted in the Lord and went to work.
We all got out our old contacts and started to call and text everybody we haven't followed up with.  I personally, am pretty good at staying on top of those I send referrals to, but some sisters were calling people that they hadn't talked to since April and before. Those of us that either don't have a lot of people to follow up with or those that have followed up with all those that we have were then given another task.
An "upper box" is what we call a little card that a person who comes to the VC can fill out with their name and information saying that they want to learn more about the Church.  By the end of a VC sister's mission, they can collect a hundred of these little cards, but also by the end, many of the sisters (at least recently) had gotten lazy and many cards remained uncontacted. Our task, was to go through some of the bags of these cards of the sisters who have recently left and follow up on every single person. This task was almost more daunting than the first.
Sister Watkins and I decided to take up Sister E Wilson's bag and call all her contacts.  We weren't surprised with what we found.  There was one that was a bit surprising though.  Thursday night, Sister Watkins found somebody who had come into the VC over 3 years ago and had been baptized not very long after that.  So that means, this card was passed down from at least one other sister to Sister Wilson to Sister Watkins before anyone ever had the idea to call the person to see how they were doing.  That shouldn't happen.  But we added a baptism to the list and were one step closer to our goal :)
Last night--still going through these cards--I found a guy who was so prepared to hear the Gospel.  He had come in either a year ago or two years ago, or even longer ago for Christmas time, and he had never had missionaries come by his home.  He was so ready that he even took notes about what the Church believes while I was talking on the phone with him.  It was awesome.  However, at one point he asked me about what the meaning of the Church's name is.  This was a first.  I explained that we are the same church Christ established 2000 years ago, hence The Church of Jesus Christ.  Then I explained that "Latter-day" meant "last days" because we are living in the last days, all whilst, he was taking notes and saying "uh huh, okay".  And when I thought he was satisfied, he asked what the "Saint" part meant--what it meant to be a saint.  I wasn't exactly sure how to answer this question.  Here I am, my entire life, saying "I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" and I don't even know what I'm saying.  Little did he know that this was a teaching moment for both him and I when I told him that a saint is a person who tries their best to follow Jesus Christ.

It's as simple as that.  Jesus only wants us to try our best.  That's all He can ask.  But He also knows what we can become if we try our hardest and push ourselves to become greater than we now are.

"Keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever."
~Elder Jeffrey R Holland

Love you all so much!
~Sister Galli

All (but two who were sick) of the Visitors' Center sister missionaries.
Also, a senior missionary couple and the VC director and his wife.

VC sisters chatting in the hallway after their meeting

Sister Galli and Sister Watkins
(Someone sent this pic to me via text yesterday - LOVE it when that happens!)

Time is Ticking 🕑

Happy p-day everybody :)
I hope you've all had a wonderful week with many smiles
Unlike usual, I'll start out this email with the most exciting fact
and that is that yesterday marked my 4 month mark 🎉😱
It's both exciting and terrifying for me.
I'm mere days away from my 25% completion day.
I should have believed all those wise souls that said missions were short.
Although it is quite an accomplishment to have been serving God with
all the fibers of my being for four months, I'm more terrified to
think that I still have so much work to get done before I have to
begin "real life" again.
But time is so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  We really
ought to cherish all the time that we have.
No matter where you've been, who you were or who you are, you can
change.  You can improve.  Today is the first day of the rest of your
life.  So act today in a way that you'd like to be for the rest of
your life.  But we also know life doesn't even end with death.
Moments are the molecules that make up eternity.
I think this video is really good an applies to a lot of our hectic lives
https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-06-012-moments-that-matter-most?lang=eng

Not much update on the work in Kentlands.  We met with Patty and CJ
again last week and are planning to meet with both of them again this
week.  Also, our Polish family were finally able to move into their
town house so once they're unpacked, we'll be able to actually teach
them the lessons and not just trying to explain things during church
while the teachers are speaking.

Sorry if this email sounds a little jumbled or scatterbrained--trying
to write it quickly so Sister Watkins can use my iPad to email her
family.
~Sister Galli

Six of the 14 missionaries that came from the MTC together

Bambi Took Place in Maryland 🌲

Happy Fall one and all!  

Well, kinda.  It still gets up to 95° here every day, but the sun is setting earlier, so it gets down to a comfortable 86° by the time we're heading home.🙃

Our air conditioning broke again this week so we set up the space cooler again #InRecordTime

But as for the news you've all been reading this email for, I have been training this week!

The trainees arrived safely Tuesday afternoon and we got to meet them and be assigned this Wednesday.  My companion for this transfer is.... *drumroll* Sister Watkins.  She's from West Jordan.  Her personality reminds me a lot of Brandon (my brother)--very yellow (color code).  Not as perfect of a match as Sister Minguito and I, but we still get a long and laugh a lot... Probably too much.

Fellow missionaries, it is the weirdest flipping thing going from being trained to training with no time in between.  One day it's like, ah, the senior companion will handle it to, Ah! I'm the senior companion and I have to handle this.

Every transfer (6 weeks) our VC schedule changes, and this transfer, we'll have a lot less time in our area, so it'll be difficult to get in everything that we need to do.

Our golden Polish family has consistently come to church for the past three weeks but have been super busy throughout the week that we haven't met with them to give them a formal lesson.  We hope to meet with them Saturday to help them unpack and teach the Restoration.

A few last things before I wrap this up.

One, now that I'm the senior companion, I'm driving us around everywhere.  

Two, Maryland drivers are crazy.  

Three, this mission has one of the highest rates of auto accidents (mostly missionaries being rear-ended or hitting deer). 

Four, I haven't gone an entire day in Maryland without seeing at least one deer (but it's usually closer to 4/5). 

All these facts are leading up to while I was turning on the on-ramp to get on the freeway (accelerating, mind you), three deer decide it's a good idea to run across the road.  Luckily I saw them in time to hit the brakes really quick and thank goodness no one was behind me.  #MarioKartTaughtMeFastReactionTime

Everyone survived the encounter, including us, the car, and the deer, but the deer won't last much longer if they're stupid enough to dash across parts of the freeway. #NaturalSelection #SadButTrue 

Remember, the Church is True, the Book is Blue, and God loves You!

~Sister Galli

Final picture being Sister Minguito's companion
(Hannah says she misses her a lot. They only see each other for a few minutes every other day now.
She misses her wisdom. Hannah said, "She'll be one of those people I'll be friends with throughout life and in the eternities". As a mom, it warms my heart to hear her talk about her trainer this way.
I thank my Heavenly Father for putting this amazing person in Sister Galli's path.)  

New companion, Sister Watkins from West Jordan, UT

Random selfie with Hermana Ruiz de Mendoza, who is also from Spain

They are doing some exterior work on the temple and Moroni came down for some TLC

Some of the VC sisters with the Angel Moroni in the background

For size reference

Many of the VC missionaries

#NoFilter #NoNothin'