Bugs and Transferred

Dearest Mother,

Who came home to keep me from being your favorite missionary in Modesto 1st Ward? Shouldn't I be your favorite anyway since I am your child? Also, why in the world am I not your favorite missionary in the world? Having favorites outside of your children is not allowed.. It's hard enough to compete for the spot with 4 other people, we don't need to be adding in any more.. ;)

So we had an interesting adventure this week.. Last Sunday (the 13th) Sister Maher and I went home for lunch and Sister Maher went into our room to take a nap, while I stayed in our living room and read (what a surprise!) when Sister Maher starts freaking out and yelling and ran back into this room, grabbed her shoe and went back in our room. I followed her in, and discovered BUGS!!! There were many little black bugs crawling around our room, that had been there for who knows how long, but since we are only ever really in our room at the end of the day or the beginning of the day we never noticed them.. I then freaked out because it meant that I had been sleeping with bugs for who knows how long. Pretty much cried for the rest of the day. The Senior couple here who is in charge of helping with housing in this area told us to try to spray everything with permetherin (as did the Senior couple over housing for the whole mission) so Sister Maher and I spent the next 5 hours doing just that. And then we checked the mattresses for bugs (because we figured out it was bed bugs on the wall) and they were clean so we sprayed them again and brought them out to the living room and had a terrible night sleep as both of us couldn't stop thinking about the bugs. Day two of the bugs was P-day so after we finished emailing, we went home and vacuumed and sprayed everything again. We also called the office for our apartment complex (they were closed on Sunday) and told them that we had potentially bed bugs. They told us they would have the Knox people come look at it soon. So anyway, we did that again, I might have had a minor meltdown as well again because I realized that it was all on my side of the room that the bugs were, and we are pretty sure I had been bitten on my legs from before. (Nasty).

Tuesday comes along, and I am done with the bugs so I started to pack, because I didn't want any of my stuff to have the bugs in them so I checked and sprayed everything I owned before I packed it all.. At about 9 the Knox guy came for a inspection and when he went into our room, he flipped over our box springs. Mine was solid black in every corner on the bottom, and Sister Mahers only had a few. Super nasty. They then gave a checklist to us of all the things we had to do before they could come and spray our apartment. So we spent the next 6 hours doing all the stuff on it. Essentially it was like we were moving apartments, but we had to wipe down and spray everything in the process. So my beautiful map that I made a few months ago had to be taken down, all the fabric in our apartment had to be put in heavy duty trash bags to be washed when we left, all the stuff on the counters and bookshelfs and etc had to be put in bags and either taken with us, or we could leave them (but we took the supplies with us since most of them are paper, and we didn't know how those would fare in the bug bombing). The Sisters in the other ward, who we were going to stay with for the next week came and helped us pack all our stuff and clean everything. We filled both our cars with stuff and took it to the other Sisters apartment where we sprayed their apartment and then put the bags from our apartment in the middle of the room with a permetherin boundary around the whole thing so they don't spread. And then we went and did missionary stuff for a few hours, and then came home to the sister apartment and began what would end up to be over 15 loads of laundry. I stayed up that night until about 1 switching laundry around so that we didn't have to stay at the apartment and do it. As we took it out, then we sprayed them again and folded them.

The next day we had to go back to our apartment to vacuum the whole thing (including our room, which we honestly hadn't touched yet because neither of us wanted to deal with the bugs). We also had to get rid of our beds and box springs since the mission was going to just pay for new ones, so we called some members to come get them, since they had a truck, and we don't and so three of the brethren in the ward came to get them for us. We asked them before the went in to grab them if they wanted us to spray them, and they said no, then they went and got it all and afterwards asked us to spray them. (apparently after seeing it, they changed their minds.) Better safe than sorry people! 

Apparently we found out later, each of them went home to their wives and told them it was probably the worst they had ever seen it, and it completely freaked them out. So my meltdown Sunday was completely validated, even though Sister Maher was laughing the whole time.. I am the Queen of Drama is all:) Basically after we finished cleaning we left the apartment and haven't been back since. I will never be in that apartment again so that is strange. We still and to clean the rest of our clothes and we even had to send some to the dry cleaners which was interesting, but hopefully when we can go back it will all be fixed and there will be no more problems. They even get new mattresses and box springs so they know there are no bugs in them. It has been fun though at the other Sister's apartment for the last week. Tonight is our last night there.

Another blessing that came from this was the fact that after I cleaned everything of mine, I was able to pack it all, and transfer calls were last Saturday. Either way I would have had to pack it, so I just packed on the off chance I was going to get transferred, and I'm getting transferred! Luckily because this happened, we don't have to clean our apartment, and I don't have to try to locate everything that is mine, because everything is already packed. We also don't have to go shopping today because there is no point as we have no place to put it until we can get back in our apartment tomorrow. So I don't have to pack, or shop, or clean my apartment today, and I can just go say goodbye to people all day instead.

I am getting transferred by the way. I found out Saturday. I have been here 6 months and I knew it was probably time for me to leave. It will be interesting. I don't know where I am going though. I kinda hope I am either going to Savannah or Augusta but my thought is that I will go to Fort Stewart area since my last two areas have been military places. (Fort Stewart is over by those two places either way). We will find out what happens tomorrow and I will tell you all next week where I am and who I am with! :)

Also I am super excited to be able to talk with you when I get home because I am learning so much from my studies that I can't all email home, but that I am writing down for everyone to read (namely my companion because she wants to read it later when she can understand it better). Much of it is the thoughts and connections I have made in Jesus the Christ, but some of it is from my study of the Book of Mormon as well.. Super awesome! Plan for a whole month mom where I am just going to talk your ear off. It will be great!! :) Someday in the long distant eons of time these questions will be answered.

Super excited for that day.

Love you all!! Hope all is well with you:) I am thinking about you every day:)

-Sister Monica Walker