Moving

This week has been totally nuts. I'll start with the not so nuts part of it. Transfers are on Wednesday, I'm staying here in Chevy Chase and Willums is leaving! Sad, but I'm excited for a change. Also, we had an actual lesson this week! We went over to Dottie's place last night and taught her all about the Book of Mormon and church. She was super close to being baptized the last time missionaries taught her, but then she fell and ended up in the hospital and they lost contact. So we see lots of potential there! YAAAES. 

Ok, on to the crazies. Wednesday or Thursday night (all the days blend together) we got a call from the zone leaders telling us that we were being evicted. Sort of. Those apartments were super awful haha so they cut the lease and moved us out. In like 2 days. They told us that we were moving to Bethesda with Sister Wathen & Cain, and that we had to be out by Saturday. WHAT. So, we spent all day Friday packing and cleaning. Saturday morning a whole herd of elders came over (elders in the apartment is the weirdest thing EVER) to move our furniture out. Then they left to go move some other sisters or something. Our roommates were at the VC, so Willums and I spent ALL. DAY. cleaning and packing and cleaning and moving and AGH. It was nuts. Our new apartment is a hundred times better though. Worth it.

Another crazy: sisters aren't allowed to be out after 6:30pm anymore unless we have set appointments that we can drive to and go straight in. We have to be in the apartment by the time the sun goes down until November 1st, then we have to be in at 6:30. WHAT. So that's SUPER crazy. We'll either be doing studies or online proselyting during those hours now. So weird. 

Women's conference was great as always! I'm SOOOO beyond pumped for conference. 3 new apostles haven't been called for just over 100 years. NUTS. The Lord is hastening His work on both sides of the veil! 

Well, sorry this is pretty short and lame. It's been a crazy, long week! I love you all! 

Sister Wilson 

 Dinner with Emily at Cityburger -- SO GOOD

 Before

 After

 After

 The presidents - so cool!

 Harry Reid

 The lamest people in the whole world. Smart cars are the WORST.

Roach killer 💀

This week has been way better than others. First and foremost, we found someone to teach! Kind of. I'll get to that later. On Tuesday Williams and I gave a workshop for all the new missionaries and it was SO FUN. We played jeopardy. It was awesome. It was all about the role of the Holy Ghost in conversion. Super fun! We also had interviews that day which are always awesome. President Cooke is the best person I've met ever. I love that guy. Oh boy. That was great.

On Wednesday, the Latvian ambassador came to the VC. Sister Williams accompanied Sister Sundwall who sang "Glorious" and "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again". Sister Capson and I went on exchanges that night while they performed! She's brand new and hasn't been to the Mall yet, so we met up with the DC2 sisters and went contacting down there! It was super fun. We met a couple cool people, one of them was a Brazillian man that's been living in Minnesota. Turns out he plays soccer with a ton of LDS people every Saturday, and one of them served in Brazil and is fluent in Portuguese! He's been teaching him a lot about the church and everything. This guy was so solid! We taught him the first lesson and gave him a BOM. Then, an hour or so later when we were getting on the metro, this same guy found us again! He was getting on the same train as us. He was so cute, he was so excited about his Book of Mormon! "Sisters! I was just about to sit down and start reading this book, and then I saw you!" He was so cool! We taught him a lot more on the ride home. He's going to get baptized someday for sure. Driving back to the VC from the metro, some giant spider made its way INSIDE our car. After several "check your speed"s and an "aggressive driving" or two from Tiwi, we killed the thing and made it there safely. East coast bugs don't mess around. More on that later. 

 Thursday we went over to visit Bernice, an 86 year old Nigerian lady in our ward. The same one that we ate lunch with in the cafeteria of her retirement home. She's SO CUTE. We had lunch with her again and met her friend Dottie! Dottie is 75 or so and has met with quite a few missionaries in the past. We talked to her a lot about that and set up another appointment with her! She still has all the materials that the missionaries left and studies them a lot. She's super Catholic, but loves our church and almost got baptized before her family stepped in. She has a lot of potential so we're excited to work with her! We had another appointment with her Saturday night, and we helped her with some family history (I'm starting to like family history, yikes). 10 of her 12 siblings have passed away along with both of her parents, so family history is super exciting for her! Back to Bernice. Our mission is doing a big push on doing service right now, so we went over to put together a big bookshelf for Bernice. It started off really well! After we we were about 95% done, we were looking at it and something didn't look right. The bottom piece of the bookshelf was upside down. A total 180 of what it was supposed to be. Flipped the wrong way. No Bueno. We had to totally undo everything and start over. Which would've been pretty simple had the entire thing not been nailed together with nails. Little, tiny, 1" nails. Not screws. Nails. It was such a pain. What should have taken us an hour took us almost 3. It was nuts. We were an hour late to shift. Crazy. It was so stinking funny haha. 

Saturday we met with Dottie again. She's great. I have so much faith her! Sunday was nuts haha it was awesome! Ward council is always a riot, this ward is hilarious. It was just a solid Sunday. We left shift a few minutes early to get to the Ellis's house for dinner! Oh my gosh I love them. Favorite family ever. They're SO AWESOME. They also invited Cynthia, Berta, Robin, a family from Virginia, and one of the mid-singles too. It was so much fun! Then we all headed back to the VC for Why I Believe, which was also awesome. John and Hannah Smith spoke, he was the head lawyer for homelands security for Prez Bush or something. Super great. Willums and Sundwall performed again because they're amazing and so talented. It was just a good day. One of Willums friends from back home came in to the VC that afternoon, and her aunt and uncle that live in Virginia came for why I believe. Crazy! Seeing people from home is weird (not that I've seen anybody, I've seen like 2 people lol). It's a totally different world though! I've decided that I'm just going to go by Sister Wilson forever, i like that much better than Emily. Haha. So weird! Being a missionary is the best ever and I love it so, so much. It's the best thing ever. I love Jesus Christ and I love His work. Prayers are answered, and a lot of answers come through the Book of Mormon. The Church is super true. I love it! 

Love you all!

Sister Wilson 

OH so the roach story. So you know how our apartment is already infested with silverfish? Yeah, nasty. Well, we have roaches now too. This week I killed the first cockroach of my life. And I didn't cry or anything. DC is nasty. East coast bugs are nasty. Ew.

 East coast bugs are NO JOKE

 Ellis family! MY HEART AGH

 Bryce and Tyce!

 

We woke up early this morning to go take some pictures (Willums does photography but hasn't taken pics since she's been here so we went out this morning!) we got to the spot and realized the camera was dead lol  The one pic that turned out.

 The Gillespies went home this week (heartbreak UGHH).

  We all got a hug from Elder Gillespie and it was amazing. Everyone cried.

 Jeopardy!

 LOLLLL

 Exchanges with sister Capson!

There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly... Literally.

It's been an eventful week over here in Washington DC. The Gillespies are going home in 2 days (ACK HEARTBREAK) so we had a little goodbye party for them at the VC on Monday. On Tuesday we had zone district meeting and then went to Simpson & Klaass's apartment for lunch. They. Are. So. Fancy. More about that later. 

Tuesday night I was on exchanges with Sister Amparo, it was super fun. An adventure for sure. We had dinner with the Cannon family, they're the best! Oh man I love them a lot haha. They're so cute. We street contacted for the rest of the night and it was awesome! We talked with SO MANY PEOPLE! Amparo is so stinking good at talking with people it's nuts. We taught a stinking ton of street lessons and got some peoples information! So cool! Our new investigator is a homeless man that told us all about how he's running from the law and has done some pretty shady stuff. So. WOOP. That'll be fun. We met quite a few personalities that night. One of those personalities decided to fly RIGHT into my esophagus in the middle of a lesson. We had just stopped this man and started talking with him. At the exact moment that I opened my mouth to say something, a small, flying creature flew into and lodged itself right behind my tonsil. I started gagging, and the only thing I could think to say was, "Holy crap, I just ate a bug." The man looked at me and just said "....that's really gross...". Luckily it wasn't gross enough to scare him away. Amparo kept talking to him while I silently freaked out that this bug was still alive, moving around behind my tonsil. He wasn't the typical bug that flies in your mouth and dies. Nope. This guy fought for his life, he wasn't going down without a fight. Within the course of this short conversation with this man, the bug crawled/flew behind both of my tonsils, up into my sinus, down my throat, and back up my throat. Eventually, after chugging my entire water bottle, he got washed down my throat and stayed there. Probably the nastiest thing of my life. Lolllll. 

On Thursday we had an awesome lesson in the VC with a couple ladies from Anacostia. They asked lots of deep doctrine questions so I looooved it. It was rad. Friday we weren't allowed to be in our area since we're in DC and it was 9/11. Also my 7 month mark, woah. We had training meeting in the morning (Gillespies had their departing testimonies), and then went over to Sister Amparo and Urbina's apartment (same ones Simpy and Klaass live in.) They're called the Safeway towers, and they're beyond fancy. Brand. new. And they live on the 17th floor. SO. FANCY. The guy that build them is the temple president so he gave the mission a good deal on them, so now there are like 15 companionships living in these beyond fancy apartments. It's ridiculous. We're over here putting sheets in our vents to keep the smoke out and battling silverfish daily. Oh well, there are missionaries in South America sleeping in grass huts on dirt floors. #gratitude.

Saturday morning, our zone went down to the Nats stadium to volunteer for a blind 5k. (no, not a run for the blind, these were blind people running). Getting there was quite the adventure! For those of you that haven't driven in Maryland/DC before, it's awful. If you make a wrong turn, you can't flip around and get back on track, the road will be a one-way freeway that will take you 8 miles before there's another exit that takes you even farther off track. It's crazy. So, we re on our way to the stadium and everything was going really well. And then all of a sudden we were crossing the Potomac (not our mission). And then we were passing the Pentagon (not our mission). We got all the way to Arlington cemetery before we found a place to pull over and figure out where in the heck we were haha. Simpy called the AP's. "So, we have a bit of a problem. We just passed the Pentagon." HAHA. Eventually we found our way back to the freeway and made our way back to our mission. We missed another exit and ended up in Anacostia. We got to the stadium eventually and it was rad. Stinkin DC. Hahahaa. 

It's been a great week! Being a missionary here is the best. It's hard, but so rewarding. I love this country, and I love the Lord! 

Love you all! 

Sister Wilson

 Zone activity today! Played beach volleyball, SO FUN. Potomac. Edge of the mish.

 ITS FALL

 NATS NATS NATS

 View from Amparo's apartment.

 View from our apartment.

 Harry Reid's secret service people. Rad.

 People here are weird.

 Street contacting and we found this GORGEOUS little woodsy area. Such a nice change from buildings

Costco

Lots has happened this week but I,m making cinnamon rolls today so I'll try to get it all in as briefly as possible. YAY. It's been a good (long) week. We still don't have anybody to teach but that's ok! We're working super hard and praying and fasting lots. It's good. Tuesday we had sisters conference which was awesome! We all met up at Riley's Lock (SO PRETTY, one of the places the soldiers stayed and crossed the Potomac during the civil war) and had a little morning walk and got prepped for the theme of the day (Proverbs 3:5-6). After that we went back to the stake center and heard from lots of speakers, had lunch, did a talent show (I was in it representing grab rack stuff haha). It was AWESOME. Such an incredible experience. After that we were coming home and we saw TACO BELL. Made a quick pit stop but their freeze machine was broken (during happy hour of all times). Worth it though. Yum.

For a member meal this week, Heidi took us to COSTCOOOO. ON THE INSIDEEEEE. So that was incredible. By the way, apparently a Costco membership is only $50 and can be split between two people. So that's happening this week.

Our mission is really focusing on doing service right now, but we haven't been able to find anybody that will let us do anything for them. Literally no person ever. Not even the members. Frustrating. So on Saturday we were on our way to the metro to go check on a less active and street contact when we ran into two guys putting us signs all over. We started talking to them and then asked if we could help (not knowing what these posters were at the time). BUT THEY SAID YES. Turns out the Pope is coming to DC in a couple weeks for some huge rally about political equality and global warming and poverty rates and stuff. And these guys were putting up signs on everything they could find. And then they enlisted us to help. And we're missionaries. And this was politics. AGH. These guys said that if we helped they'd get us seats at the rally to sit right behind the pope. WHUT. That was hard to turn down. After we helped them put up signs for 40 mins or so we politely told them that we couldn't help them anymore (they weren't fond of that). So close to meeting the Pope. AGH. 

Anyways, sorry this email is really lame. It's been good. Life's good. We dropped Nimi forever this week. Apparently he just hopped over to another Ward instead. Ugh. Anyways. That's all. Love you guys. 

 Glory glory

 Never been so happy to see so much PB

 Found a cat last night SC and we became best friends for like an hour. #crookshanks

 Main man.

 Rally with Pope Francis

 Really. Come Rally with Pope Francis everybody.

LA wasn't home but we found this Giant preying mantis. So. #win

 

The trainers are bomb and sometimes they go on Starbucks runs. #blessed

Cold air and loud music

It's super weird emailing again since I emailed a few days ago. Haha sorry if I repeat some things that I said on Tues/Wed.

MIRACLES. For those of you that are unaware, DC is the "Europe of the U.S.". Not a whole lot of people to teach. Actually 0 people to teach for the past few weeks. We've been doing a lot of finding and not having a lot of success. On Friday, we were street contacting our way to the metro to check on a less active, and we saw a family sitting waiting for the bus. We stopped and started to talk to them (DC has taught me to be super bold and direct) about the temple and eternal families. Turns out they've been looking for a new church and we got their information! WHAT. Not even that, it was actually their REAL information! WHAAT. #miracle. We set an appointment for the following evening. You can imagine we're pretty stoked about this. The rest of the day we're walking on air, until we actually mapped their address. Haha God has a sense of humor for sure. They live LESS THAN A BLOCK OUTSIDE OF OUR AREA. No joke. Not even one whole block. That was amusing haha. We went to the appointment on Saturday, we're going to teach them once and get them settled in before we pass them over to our roomies. It wasn't a good time for them, we rescheduled for next Saturday. Stay tuned.

Saturday was pretty great. Do you guys know Al Fox? She's the Mormon convert with all the tattoos? Has a super successful blog and she's kinda famous? Yeeeeeeep. We met her. She came to the VC. She's so cute. She came with Hank Smith (the up and rising John Bytheway) for an all day thing for the youth (and whoever else showed up). She told her story, then Hank had different classes/sessions throughout the rest of the day. We didn't get to hear Al, but we got to listen to one of Hank's! It was SO GOOD. He talked about building a foundation and lots of great things. Everybody go listen to him, he's my new favorite. We had dinner with the Lindsay's, they're rad. Love them. 

This week has been pretty uneventful, sorry! I love Chevy Chase, and I love you all! have a great week! 

Sister Wilson 

No idea what to caption these, pretty self explanatory. Enjoy I guess?