Cabin Fever

HOLLA BACK!!!!! SOO this week. was pretty interesting. the bed bugs are all gone!!!! woot! it's so so nice to be able to sleep without feeling things crawling all over :) and yeah! so sister de la mare was pretty sick this WHOLE week and we had to stay in... a lot. and before i left i thought that having your comp be sick would be basically like a vacation because you get the best of both worlds right? you aren't sick -- but you get to stay in. i found out i was wrong :) i found out REALLY creative ways of doing the work while we stayed inside. but it turned out to be an AWESOME week. so tuesday we had interviews with president nelson and that was really good. he is super chill and already calls me smitty. good guy. and sister nelson is incredible too. she brought all of us granola bars and was talking to me - she said that as soon as the elders come into her house she tells them to forget the word homemade because it's just not going to happen :) she cracks me up.

so after tuesday sister de la mare and i couldn't leave the apt. until today. so we got to do a ton of stuff with our area -- the "potential investigators" list is out of control because you meet a billion people on the bus and they were all on there and it hasn't been cleaned out since 2008. WELL, don't you worry - we cleaned that right out and it was great! i kinda felt like i was back at qualtrics because i made a million phone calls and afterwards when people were calling me back -- yeah i said "hello it's michelle with qualtrics how can i help you?" embarrassing! oh well. so as for the rest of the week -- i felt so bad for sister de la mare! and i was trying to do anything i could to make her feel better -- so one day we turned our entire apartment into a fort and one of the hermanas that we live with gave us nerf guns :) :) YEAH! so during lunch and dinner things got a little crazy. and then we hid and waited for the hermanas to come home and plastered them with nerf bullets when they walked in the door. and i found a pirate patch because i finished cleaning (SCOURING actually) our apartment and it was in all the crap that other missionaries leave behind (any returned missionary reading this knows EXACTLY what i'm talking about... it's a little ridiculous) but anyway. i love my pirate patch :) some other things we did to keep sister de la mare occupied -- we played scrabble with these lame letter beads that we use for making bracelets and stuff for our investigators. OH YEAH. we found a whole new use for them! and i was SO blessed to have the hermanas in our apartment this week. we went on exchanges a lot and they helped me keep some of the really important appointments we had. INCLUDING probably the highlight of my week :) his name is winford. so we met winford on the bus and i just sat right next to him (which makes people SUPER uncomfortable by the way -- HAH!!) and started talking and kept talking and set up a time to meet with him. well, he wanted to meet us at the Brooklyn Public Library... HOLY COW that library is SWEET!!!! and me and an hermana went to this awesome library and -- of course winford wasn't there. BUT i couldn't remember what he looked like - i just remembered he was big and he was black. well, that describes most of Brooklyn so-- me and one of the hermanas ended up literally CHASING two guys through the library and yelling winford several times. it was pretty funny -- and then we left because we figured winford would have recognized us -- funny that we were the only two white girls running around in dresses in the brooklyn public library. but yeah. so we left and MIRACLE! we left at the exact time to catch winford at the corner. and yeah - he recognized us pretty quickly and flagged us down. and then he apologized up and down and.. HE BROUGHT UP CHURCH~!! usually it's like pulling teeth to remind people about church, but no. winford said he really wanted to come. and come to church he did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you can't tell, it's kind of a big deal when people come to church. and the awkward part -- he went to hug me when he saw me in sacrament meeting because he didn't really know what to do (or obviously didn't know that i can't hug the man) and i tried to make it the least awkward side-hug-weird-something that i could. but of course, the entire bishopbric now thinks i'm some crazy missionary that is not so obedient :) but it was funny so whatever. and -- this guy reginald came to church too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! big deal. he is a miracle. and i am pretty positive i told y'all about him last letter. yeah. i did. he is the dude that i miraculously had a french book of mormon for. oh and last week the elders gave away a bengali book of mormon. diversity? yes we do have that here :) it really is cool to walk down the street and hear ten or twelve different languages. and a lot of jamaican music. i love jamaicans. they crack me up. people really do sit outside their apartment buildings and play chess or checkers just like the movies and i love it!! and i'm trying to think of anything else cool that happened. the hermanas and elders in my district and zone are incredible. INCREDIBLE. the hermanas suprised sister de la mare and i with our favorite ice cream because we had to stay inside and the elders are suprising sister de la mare with lunch in just a couple of minutes. so sweet. love them all. and i love you all!!! i realize that this letter is the most scattered letter hopefully i ever write -- but i love you. and that's all that matters. and huge shout out to the people who wrote me this week!!!!!!!!!!! alyss, jolee, catherine, matt -- i did get your letters and i will write back today hopefully!

the church is true. god is real. we have a pretty SWEET life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and i love you.

sister mich

(some pics before i go)
so this was another adventure that me and sis. de la mare had this week -- we went on the roof (even though there is a big ol fatty sign saying no one is allowed on the roof) and yeah. it was SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is where i LIVE!! but you don't see this ever until you are 4 stories up and on a roof :)

the brooklyn public library and ...................... well, it was a long night :) oh and the library had the big ol statue that said "to the defenders of the union" -- dall that one is for you!!!!