DONT LET THE BED BUGS BITE.... 6/16/2014

Heeeeeeeeey!

I LITERALLY don't know where this week went. I know I say that every week, but its a serious problem.

Monday was Pday and we really didnt do much. I wrote like I actually sad down and wrote letters for the first time in months. Talk about slacking, I know. 

My planner for Monday says:

studies

library

groceries

lunch

letters
something fun.

I think the "something fun" was me taking a nap. Hardcore pday for sure.

At 6:00 we headed to the church to have FHE with the YSA kids in the ward. I've been really inspired to get more YSA activities going, not for me to have fun, but to get some recent converts and members and investigators to create friendships and bring their friends. So far its been great!

We cooked brats and played kickball and it was a blast and a half. We were worried that we were going to get rained out, but we didnt!

Tuesday we had Zone Training and it was AWESOME for many reasons. 1) It was basically a pep rally for missionary work. haha. We basically got told that we all need to be more obedient and expect more miracles to happen. President Cutler has a vision for the mission, and our job is to make his vision our vision too. We are now asked to hand out a Book of Mormon each day with a powerful invitation to read it 10 minutes a day. It's been really cool to see the focus on the Book of Mormon get stronger and stronger that past 10 months. It truly is the sickle of the harvest. (As we have been diligent in keeping our commitment, we have see MIRACLES! But I'll get to those later.) We all left edified and ready to go out at DO!  2) I got to see Elder Larsen! Remember him from the good ol' Appleton days? Now he's in Madison Hmong, so it's also a party at zone things. I love mission friends. 

After ZTM we saw the Crists and Chantalle and Jane and Tiffany and had dinner with the Fife family and it was great.

Wednesday was a super busy day. We drove alllllllllover J-town to find Rock Haven nursing home. We saw James and his dad. It was delightfully awkward as they talked about us to each other in Bulgarian.
Then we had a lesson with Deidre at the Thompsons home. We read Jacob 5 and pretended to understand :P haha. .
Nancy cancelled last minute via voicemail where you could hear her husband telling her everything to say. It literally sounded like the phone calls in movies of people being held hostage. He does not like mormons and its sad that he is preventing her from progressing, but we do what we can.
We had lunch and then saw Mikayla at her house. We got to teach her family the Restoration! She is so cute and ready for the gospel and its soooooo cool to see her want her family to feel the same thing she is feeling. She came to church on Sunday with the LeFevres and she loved it. She wrote on one of the chalkboards in the YW's room, "This church is amazing". Cute, huh? We then had dinner with the Nielsen family and then rushed to Book of Mormon class where we are studying the Christlike attributes. It was great!

Thursday was our first day volunteering at the womens shelter. It was....boring. All three of us felt sick and lethargic and had the worst headache ever, so we watched the District on mormonchannel. We just sit at the front desk and answer phones and help residents and stuff, so its pretty easy. 

Then we saw James at the library and more miracles happened! His friend Roy joined us, so we taught the Restoration and James got to testify and it was precious. Roy is really prepared and is looking for peace in his life. And the great news is that as representatives of Jesus Christ, we CAN promise him peace if he reads the Book of Mormon! YAY(: So. New investigator. Another person reading the Book of Mormon. We left the lesson like, "seriously, what just happened?' People find US in Janesville. Its awesome. 

We weekly planned and then had a really awkward lesson with Jeff in his garage because the member that was going to come with us backed out last minute. He basically dropped us. But. Thats okay, because time will help him. 

All of our other appointments cancelled, so we contacted different people and then had Culvers for dinner(: And we talked to the Adams-Friendship Elders about a referral and it was delightfully awkward as most referral calls go. And for those of you who dont know, the Adams-Friendship elders are Elder Ben Shurts and Zachary Hadlock. You BYUI friends know Elder Shurts, and all you Butler clan know Elder Hadlock since he's Aunt Beths brother. SO. That was legit. Smalllllll world. (:

Friday was another crazy day.

We saw Sister Pike in the morning and had a good lesson with her. We've been really pushing to get her to come to church, and this week we really felt that we needed to reassure her that we love her and so we watched JSPOTR (Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration) with her and talked about it. 

We walked home and had lunch and then bike to Sister Gardner's. We read Helaman 1 with her and had a great discussion. Sometimes its hard to relate the war chapters to ourselves, but the Spirit was really strong and we got a lot out of our discussion.
We stayed on bikes for the rest of the day. We saw Karen and Mark and Sister Teal and Gary. GARY! How could I forget?

The other week I had my BOM out on the desk while I was emailing on a pday. The guy next to me points to it and asks, "Are you a mormon?" and now he's THE MOST golden investigator I've ever met. He said that the book drew him to it and that he feels that God led him to it and that we are going to help him find peace and where he needs to go. He's had a really hard life and has struggled with addictions and has such faith in God. I just think its so cool how God led us to each other. The computer I was originally on would NOT work, so I moved. If I hadnt moved, I wouldnt have met Gary. Crazy. God is soooooo aware. Anyway. We taught Gary the Restoration and he soaked it in and I am really excited about him. 

Oh! Another cool story! I found a Butler relative!

We had dinner with the Leavitts. She told me that her maiden name was Butler and when I asked her where her family came from she told me that the farthest they can go right now is Oklahoma. Okay. I was JUST doing family history on the Butler line and the farthest I can find is George Willis Butler who lived and died in Oklahoma. I FOUND A COUSIN! That was sooo super cool. 

Oh my heavens, this is the longest email of my life. But we are just getting to the good part.

Yeah, so next time someone says, "dont let the bed bugs bite!" I WILL punch them in the face (sound familiar? hahaha) 

Because....WE GOT BED BUGS AND IT WAS THE WORST DAY EVER.

Okay. Let me explain.

We are doing the normal  missionary thing; seeing miracles, inviting people to read the Book of Mormon, testifyin', the works, ya know? We go to our appointment with a less active sister and her sister who is investigating. We walk in and their apartment is TORN APART. They invite us in and clear off a spot for us to sit on the couch and explain that they have to clean because the exterminators are coming on Monday and they have to do this and that and the other. We dont think too much about it because it is not surprising for us anymore to be in really gross houses, everyone in Wisconsin seems to be a hoarder. haha Anyway. We follow up on their Book of Mormon reading and talk and testify and they keep coming back to complaining about having to clean everything. Sister Jardine worked selling pest control, so she asks what the exterminators are coming for (we figured it was spiders because they are a problem around these parts right now) and THEN she says "termites.....earwigs.....and uh....bed bugs." :O! Sister J and I look at each other like "0.0" and say with our eyes, "We NEED to get out of here!" We had already been sitting in there for like half an hour and so we wrapped up as fast as we could. We got outside and panicked. Both her and I knew that we couldnt get in our car or go into our apartment without infesting everything, and Sister Elkington was so confused cause she didnt even know bed bugs were real and that they are nearly impossible to get rid of once they get into an apartment and so we called Sister Cutler and Sister Kopetsky (the mission nurse) and they told us to take a bus home and then have a member run into our apartment and get us new clothes and a garbage bag and to change in our garage and to take our clothes to a laundromat and put them on the highest heat setting in the driers. Oh my heavens. We couldnt catch a bus so we walked FOUR miles to get home and no one would answer their phone to help us and we were creeped out and ugh. Like. We were picking off bed bugs from each other. No joke. They were all over us.

SICK.
I feel itchy just talking about it.

 But. Sister Thompson finally came to our rescue and we changed clothes and showered while the elders went to pick up our car across town. And then we went to Aja's for dinner, but she wasnt home. That was the last straw. After hours of walking and picking bugs off of us and taking EVERY precaution to not get them in our car or house or anyone/thing else, we were exhausted. So. We went to dinner at Fudruckers with the Elders because they were already there and we needed dinner anyway.

Holy heck, that was a long day. But. We are now bed bug free and I have a really good story to tell my kids. haha

So. Yeah. 

Check your beds.

But the cool thing about that experience is that God was TOTALLY aware of us. We didnt have any appointments scheduled for the time that it took to walk home and change and shower and we would have made it to Aja's on time, if she had been home. He was looking out for us. He couldnt prevent us from going in because it was their agency to say, "come in, come in! Have a seat!", but He could help us have the time to deal with the consequences of that choice.

He's just really really cool. <3