Sister Allie Slater: Sleep Tight, Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite.

Monday: Monday was the busiest p-day of my life. We went to the library first thing. I love getting to talk to my family! I miss them so much :( but it is ok :) Savannah keeps me updated on everything so I feel like I pretty much am there haha :) We had a lot of technical difficulties for some reason so that made writing time very long, then we went grocery shopping after. I got healthy things! I got spinach, and some turkey, and I resisted the candy haha :) We were going to go to Goodwill after and look for some Ohio State stuff for me to wear, just like hoodies and sweatpants but it was too far away and we have limited miles on our car so we just went home. At this point, it was like 2 and we hadn't had lunch yet. It was POURING rain. I am grateful we have a car this week.. haha. We ate lunch and took a nap it felt so nice. After that we cleaned our apartment. We had to cut our P-day an hour short cause we made an appointment with Richard to see him at 5. Brother D. met us there so he could teach with us. When we got there, Richard was cooking dinner and was too busy.. such a bummer. So we re-scheduled with him again for Wednesday. Unfortunately I won’t be there though.. cause it is EXCHANGES! I am going to Madison Lake with Sister Verhagen. Haha I even sleep in her apartment that night. Anyway, we visited a member after that and gave her a BOM that she could give to her friend. I love when members are missionaries themselves. It is so amazing. We met up with Brother Flanders and he took us to meet a bunch of people. Robin was first, she is the nicest woman ever! She was telling us how she loves Studio C on BYUTV, haha I didn't know anyone watched that but Mormons! We invited her to church. We went and saw Shauna next! She really likes learning about the church but is hardcore Catholic. When we were driving to her place the rain was so crazy. Well.. it was hardcore hail actually, and there was thunder and lightning everywhere! It was crazy! It was nice meeting Shauna. When I got home there was two packages waiting for me!!:) The first one I opened was from my mommy and she put all this Ohio State and BYU stuff in there for my comp and I. WE LOVED IT MOM!! Thank you!!:) Football season is a good time of year :) I have to represent both teams :) The second was from my other family the Brittains :) They put all of my favorite things in thereJ Chocolate milk, mac and cheese, Pringles, popcorn, m&ms, and like 10 packs of king size Reese’s sticks.. goodness they know my so well :) Haha I couldn’t resist the Reese’s sticks so I ate some :) haha I will eat healthy next week :) Thanks Morgy and Heidi I love you two!:) Those packages really made my night so awesome I am so grateful! So that was pretty much it for P-day.. It was crazy but always very fun :)

Tuesday: Lot’s of service this day. We woke up did our thing, then headed to Carmine’s to help her pack. Missionaries have been helping her every Tuesday for like a year, she really isn't interested in the church though.. so it is funny. She is like cat lady central. Goodness gracious. She has to many cats and I am so allergic. It wasn't a good mix haha. I was getting allergies so bad but I was ok :) We were just helping her pack stuff in her boxes. She pulled out this blue velvet dress from like the 70’s. She was so excited and was like “oh my goodness this could like fit you! It is a size 10 but it is a petite!” Haha it was the ugliest thing I have ever seen I just thanked her though and told her to keep it :) She is a sweetheart. And she is a hoarder so she has a bunch of cool random things. Sister Horsley got sick, so we had to stay inside for a bit so she could sleep, we got a call though telling us we got another car in our area!! YAY! So this means we get a car for 2 weeks, then one week without it. We were pretty much freaking out. It is so exciting! So we had to run to the mission office to get all of that situated and straight after that it was off to dinner at the Ballsteads. As soon as I walked into the house I smelled fresh rolls and I knew what we were having. Mashed potatoes. AHHH man, I have been missing those. They tasted so dang good I ate way too much but it was worth it! I didn’t know when the next time would be I would get mashed potatoes and gravy! Yummy. After dinner we had service for Sister Collins. She had us fold her laundry and her millions of socks.. I kid you not. I felt like the guy in Halloweentown. Haha Savannah would get that :) I legit couldn't find any pairs. I searched for a good hour and found maybe 5 pairs. There were just too many socks! After Sister Collins we went home. Sister Horsley still didn’t feel well and so we hurried and planned and got to bed. It was a good day though! Especially cause we got another car :)

Wednesday: Exchanges day. I was excited but also really nervous to go with a different missionary than Sister Horsley, but I knew it would be an awesome experience. :) So we had zone meeting where we just talked about a bunch of stuff. I really enjoyed it. Since President Daines is still new to the mission a lot of things are changing.. but I think it is good! On the way to the meeting the Sister Training Leaders tire blew up on the highway haha so they had to change it by themselves in their skirts. No one stopped to help! It is so sad haha but they eventually made it to the meeting. After the meeting I jumped in the car with Sister Verhagen but we had to get the tires changed so we went there, and got some Chick Fil A for lunch yay! :) Love that place! They took only like an hour so we were on our way to London after that. Yup, I went to London. Haha :) We got there and went straight to work. First we went to visit Kate. She is on date to be baptized on the 18^th! But she has a smoking problem. She told us after this last pack she has she would stop. Haha, yeah right. So we told her she didn’t need it and to give us the pack she has. She said, “Oh but it was like 6 bucks!” So, I got out my wallet and gave her 6 dollars and she handed over the pack. She really wants to change, and I know she can. She is awesome! After, we visited Anita. She is in the hospital and the sweetest lady ever. She said “I may not understand all you are teaching me but, I know God wants me to hear this and he sent you to me for a reason.” Oh my goodness! She is awesome. God is preparing her. :) After Anita we went to teach Richard. He is awesome. He believes in Joseph Smith and the BOM after like one lesson! We asked him if he would like to work to being baptized on the 25^th and he said yes!! But, he just did not quite understand that our baptism is different than others because we have the priesthood authority. He understood eventually!... I think… anyway. After Richard we went to help Suzanne shop for groceries. She just got out of the hospital so she needed the help. She is the coolest lady! She knows the church is true she is just stubborn and won’t stop smoking. Haha but she is so awesome. :) We went to Walmart and were her little slaves. She would tell us what to get and we would run and go get it. She bought Sister Verhagen and I a bag of Chips Ahoy. The kind with the Reese’s. Yum. We ate the whole bag in like 10 minutes.. no judgment. After we ate the whole bag we went to mutual for a minute to see Kaileigh. She is an investigator and was trying out Young Womens. She looked like she was loving it! We had to bolt out of there though to get to our dinner appointment. On the way Sister Verhagen and I were wondering why it was so dark outside we like couldn’t see a thing outside the car! Turns out her lights were off.. like the whole way there. Haha way to be. We got to the Stonehaven’s for dinner and they are the COOLEST family. The dad is not a member, but the rest of the family is and their son is on a mission! The dad is speaking with the Elders so they are really cool :) We showed them Elder Bednar’s talk and the dad really enjoyed it. It answered some questions he had. After dinner we were driving home jamming to some songs when I saw just two beady eyes in the middle of the street. I literally lost my words so I just screamed haha it scared Sister Verhagen so bad then she saw the eyes and screamed but no worries we dodged it whatever it was :) We got home nice and safe and went to bed :) It was a crazy busy day in London, Ohio! But I loved meeting all these new people. Exchanges are fun!

Thursday: Sister Verhagen and I got up and worked out, ate breakfast, did the usual thing. It was nice having a change of scenery. After study we headed home. When we got back to my apartment Sister Horsley and Sister Griffith were acting very strange, they said they had a little surprise for us. I got a little excited not gonna lie haha but then they dropped the bomb. We had bed bugs. Oh my goodness I have never felt so gross in my life haha. They were mostly found in Sister Horsley’s bed. None were found in mine, but still!!! AHHHH!! Thank goodness for Sister Griffith cause she knew exactly what to do. Ew ew ew! I couldn’t get over it. A senior couple came over and gave us this intense spray to spray our house with. So we did so and I still have the heeber-jeebers but it will all be ok :) I do have some sort of bug bite on my leg though that is huge and has a bruise around it.. but all is good here in Ohio :) haha. Sister Horsley got NO sleep the night before. She and Sister Griffith slept in the car cause they were freaked out by the bed bugs. I felt really bad. They are troopers though. But you could tell how tired they were. So pretty much we did some bed bug stuff for the afternoon then headed to Dublin cause we finally had our lesson with RYAN! We asked him if he knew the BOM was true and he said no. Bummer. But he is still working on it, so that is always good. Goodness. He is just so stubborn. God will give him an answer I know he will :) After we headed to our lesson with Steve. We talked to him Monday. He read the restoration pamphlet and had questions about “John Smith” haha it is so funny when people call Joseph John. Anyway our lesson went well and he is committed to read the BOM! Yay!! He has potential for sure :) After our lesson we had dinner and training.. not too exciting except that our house is bed bug infected. Don’t worry mom it is all taken care of :) ha.. I think.

Friday: NEW MISSIONARY TRAINING! I was super excited for this today because I knew all my MTC buddies would be there :) Oh how I miss my MTC district! We were all so close! So I was way excited to see themJ We had to be to The Ohio State campus at nine, so we really didn’t study much today. We met in the institute building there. I saw a lot of my MTC Elders and we all had a reunion haha. We were pumped to see each other, I was most excited to see Sister Russ though :) Goodness I miss her! The meeting started and she walked in late but I was of course still freaking out haha. I pray we will be companions one day. We had opening exercises then we were split into two groups. First group went to talk with President. I was in that group. The trainers and trainees were separated so I got to be with my MTC district yay!!:) Sister Russ and I talked for like.. well.. the whole time haha we love each other lots :) But it was really casual anyway they were just asking us new missionaries what we like about mission life! After that we had to go on campus and pass out some cards and a Restoration pamphlet. We had an OSU missionary with us though :) They are so cool! I want to serve on campus one day.. anyway. I passed out the pamphlet and some cards!:) I was so proud of myself. I wasn’t that nervous either. After training I said goodbye to my MTC friends :( and headed home. For lunch I had good old top ramen. After lunch we rode our bikes up to see Susan. Boy, am I out of shape haha that bike ride was so killer, and of course she wasn’t home so we had to ride the 30 min back home. We had full intentions to go see Beth but we had revelation of something we needed to do for Ryan so we found lots of scriptures for him about Christ establishing his church on the earth, cause he didn’t know Jesus established a church haha. By the time we finished that it was dinner time! Brother Suey took us to Chipotle! He is so nice, and it was so delicious. After that we went to Ryan’s to take him a talk and the scriptures we wrote down for him. He wasn’t home.. but Sister Horlsey had to pee so bad haha she almost peed her pants! So we hurried and drove to Kohls. It was so funny we were running through the store to get there in time. After Sister Horsley was okay we went back to Ryan’s and he was home! We talked to him for a little bit then headed to Sister Kohn. She had brain surgery like a week ago. We just love her! She is the one who gave us the cheesecake :) She isn’t doing very well but she is a trooper :) We are gonna do something nice for her! Afterwards we just went home, did planning, and went to sleep.

Saturday: Ha.. Saturday was fun.. woke up to bed bugs in my bed. Yup, they were on the wall so we lifted my mattress up and found more. Yay.. We used to spray the mission office gave us and called Brother Flanders. He is like the manager of Greenex bug spray company. He told us the spray the office gave us doesn’t kill the bed bugs, it just kinda shocks them. GREAT! Haha but no worries he said he will get his guys to us by Monday. So, hopefully by Monday it won’t be an issue anymore. But it is messing with our whole week which stinks. After the bed bug problem we did planning, then went to the library to do our ward progress record. I also looked at a bunch of Mormon messages and downloaded them onto my flash drive. We wanted to visit some referrals we got but when we got to their houses there were a ton of cars and we couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then it hit us, and OSU game was going. You better believe we didn’t visit anyone. Haha we don’t bother people when a game is going or else they get way mad. So after that we went home and did weekly planning. In the middle of that we went to see Herman and Beth. Beth wasn’t home, either was Herman but Herman’s wife was! We talked to her for a bit and then Herman pulled up and we asked if he could come back and teach him. He said "Sure, why not?" haha so that is exciting. We went home, had dinner, I had shape mac and cheese :) Thanks Morgan and Heidi for that! Then we had daily planning and we went to bed. Overall a good day but the bed bugs are really messing with me.

Sunday: Ok I am going to be 100% honest this week has pretty much sucked haha. Well the end of the week has. Sister Horsley and I are running on very little sleep. It is hard knowing you are going to bed with bed bugs haha. It is really getting to our minds but that doesn’t stop us from the work!:) I have been missing home a lot though. Today was fast Sunday so sacrament meeting was good I love hearing all the testimonies of everyone. We went in with the Young Women today because we are planning a mutual activity for them in November! It will be so fun :) We are thinking a murder mystery dinner where they can invite their non-member friends. After church I was starving but we went straight to work. We rode our bikes to the Hintze’s to burn some CD’s of the Missionary Next Door. You all need to listen to that it is amazing. Then we rode our bikes to like a million different houses to visit some former and potential investigators, and no one answered. My legs were seriously killing me by the end, not to mention I was hungry so overall wasn’t a good mix haha. At 5 we came inside and had a snack. FOOD!! It tasted so good. After that we updated our area book and began to plan the mutual activity. I am serisouly so pumped for it. We had dinner at the Howard’s. They are the coolest family! We had a traditional Portuguese dinner. It was yummy! Just rice and beans haha, And Brother and Sister Howard told us their hilarious story of how they fell in love it was so great! After Brother Howard showed us this ghetto video he made while on his mission. It reminded me of Saturday’s Warrior haha. We had brownies and ice cream for dessert. I was in heaven. After dinner we went home and planned. Now, I am writing this sitting in my bed filled with bed bugs. We are having professionals come tomorrow though to take care of it so don’t worry. Also my nasty spider bite on my leg has gotten bigger and has a big bruise around it haha. I love the mission life. I really do though. It is so incredible! This is all just part of the experience.

Hope everyone had a great week! Life is great here in the OCM! I appreciate all the prayers! Love you all!