The One Where I Rip a Smoke Detector out of a Wall, Play Exterminator and Steal a Table!

Hello Everybody! 

Another great week here on the mission! 

I wish I had more things to talk about this week, but it was a pretty mediocre week. Didn't really find anyone new to teach and even got copies of the book of Mormon returned to us. That was a really sad story. We went over to contact someone who agreed to a return appointment but had missed the first one. We talked with them briefly and set up another return appointment for a few hours later because they had company coming over. When we went back a few hours later to see them and teach them, one of them was standing on the back porch and handed us the copies of the Book of Mormon back. We told him that he could keep them, but he said his mother didn't want us talking with them and that we shouldn't come back. Overall a pretty sad story. However, a member honked and waved to us on her way home from work while we were on our walk back so that cheered us up a bit.

So I have a funny story.  I was woken up at 3:30 AM on Wednesday by a chirping noise. And, since I recognized the sound, I decided to go and try and fix it. So about every minute or so this smoke alarm and carbon monoxide tester on our wall was making a noise. (This happened one morning about a month ago) I try to fix it the way I fixed it before, by pressing the test/silence button. Only this time, instead of silence, I decided to test! So now we have this incredibly loud alarm siren blaring throughout our apartment. Elder Dortch comes flying down the stairs to see me banging my fist on the stupid thing to try and get it to shut up. I told him to go back to bed but he's freaking out that we are going to die so I explained the situation and he goes back upstairs. I'm about to walk away thinking the shenanigans are over with when the little box decided to start chirping again. I ripped that thing out of the wall, took out its batteries, and went back to bed. I read the back of the thing to see  why it chirps only to see it needs new batteries. It couldn't have done that during the day!?

Also that night we were getting back to the apartment and as we pulled in we saw a table sitting on the side of the road next to the garbage cans. It was a nice looking coffee table just sitting on the side of the road. So when we going to the apartment I scoped out of the window and waited for there to be no one outside and no cars coming. Then I pounced! I ran quickly outside picked up the table and brought it back inside. Now we have a nice table in our apartment! Hopefully that wasn't someone's they wanted to keep. Shouldn't have left it on the side of the road. 

So on day we went to contact this one less active way out in the middle of nowhere. And when I mean in the middle of nowhere it was quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Put it this way. We had to drive actually one whole mile to get down the driveway. The driveway was 1 mile long! Let that sink in for a second. Every time you would think that you were getting to the end of it you would just turn another corner and there would be another hill. So we made a video of the driveway with a fun song as the background music. The GPS was a grey wasteland because we were driving so far off the road.

We were able to do some more service this week. We cleaned out M's basement that was full of a bunch of water damaged stuff. When I moved this one really soggy, really big cardboard box full of junk  there were literally hundreds (and when I say hundreds I mean hundreds) of tiny cockroaches underneath the box. I went straight chemical warfare on those things they didn't even know what hit them. I dumped a half empty bottle of cleaning solution with bleach on them, plus some rubbing alcohol. Then I picked of the stragglers with another spray bottle of bleach cleaner. They didn't even know what hit them. Her son and I were contemplating using his lighter to burn the alcohol and the cockroaches but we decided against it. We didn't want to burn down the house we were trying to fix. 

Another funny story. I just cut Elder Dortch's hair. He bought clippers at Walmart and I thought I'd give it a go. It actually didn't turn out too bad but let's just say I'm no professional. I'm making it sound worse than it actually is. It blends nicely and it's not too short. 

Elder Dortch's Haircut...not too bad?

Well that's about it for me this week. I really should start getting better at writing spiritual experiences, because the white handbook says to, but I guess I'm just a rule breaker. An exactly obedient rule breaker. I'll try to get better at it next week. Well I hope everyone has a good week and be nice to your missionaries in your areas.

Love Ya!

Elder Galvin