Week 18  Moving Adventures

This week was a crazy week let me tell you that. Started out with trying to clean the apartment and dealing with our not so happy landlord...she's a jerk let's just say. The struggle with cleaning and packing was that here in Georgia the landlord supplies furniture and dishes most the time. We have an inventory sheet that lists what is the churches and what is the landlords...ours was not updated...and was way off. So a lot of packing was guessing and hoping that we weren't "stealing" the landlords stuff on accident. She hasn't called us yet, so I think we are OK. The other struggle was missionaries have lived in our old apartment for over 5 years, which means we had a lot of missionary crap. We went through a lot of it and threw a good chunk of it away. Tuesday was dedicated to cleaning, which there is a story about that I will include in my spiritual thought in the end. Our landlord that day called and said we had to pay twice this month for some reason which did not make any sense, she was a complete jerk on the phone. We did not pay it because we were not going to pay twice for something we've only needed to pay for once in the past 5 years. She never brought it up again after that call, something says she was just trying to get the most money out of us before we left. Didn't work. Your welcome future missionaries that come after us because you have a new wonderful landlord at the new Saburtalo apartment. Wednesday was more cleaning at the old apartment. There has only been 3 sister companionship in the old apartment, so the rest of the 5 years it was occupied by elders...which means we had A LOT to clean. Lets just say a lot of stains and a lot of grease. We tried our best and it didn't look to bad in the end. Thursday was moving day! The elders from our district came to help take down the bed and help us move. Fun stuff happened that day. The power went out in the middle of the day so not only did we have to haul down a bunch a stuff 12 flights of stairs because the elevator didnt work, but also up 12 flights of stairs to our new apartment because there is no elevator in the building. Even though there is no elevator and we will have to climb 12 flights of stairs every day, the new apartment is still 10x better.  We also were struggling to flag down taxis to carry big stuff, since for some reason there are no moving trucks in Georgia. We found a car that was long enough and could fit the broken down twin bed and mattress. Sister Van Brocklin and I went in that car. She sat in the front while I sat in the back. I was in-between the car floor and the top of the bed, since the bed went all the way to the drivers seat and none of the back seat could be up. Probably so unsafe, but super fun. I was just curled up in a ball while we drove praying didn't get in a wreck. That night we were supposed to see our old landlord to give the keys, but she ended up just calling and saying to leave the keys under the map. She didn't want to see us and to be honest, we didn't really want to see her either. Friday we basically unpacking. We met our investigator with the baptismal date (I am just going to call her x from now on) that day because on the phone she said she would probably not go to church this Sunday and she would explain when we met. We rushed over there. Turns out she just didn't want to impose on anyone's kindness since she isn't a member. Long story short she came to church that Sunday. Super cool thing though is that her bird is how we can tell when the spirit is there or not. When lady x starts to rant about how much she hates this one thing and how she can never forgive it, the bird starts to squawk. When we have a solid spiritual meeting the bird is completely quiet. We always know how the meeting will go based on the bird. Koki, the bird, is literally the best! Our little spirit detector! Saturday we unpacked even more and cleaned. We had scripture study group that night at the church and we taught it. I was able to wing some sentences up so yeah! It wasn't perfect, but I was able to speak, so I will take it. Sunday was normal and now we are here. We are seeing the other sister missionaries today and showing them our apartment. Which by the way has a "balcony"! Not really it's a whole in the wall next to our apartment that goes onto the roof. Not kidding about the whole in the wall, I am attaching a picture in the email. I freakin' love this thing! I love the new apartment. Super crazy week, but super fun non the less.

OK, the spiritual thought: So going home from district meeting on Tuesday we had a lot of boxes. We took a marshukta which is basically a long van (bus) with a hallway of sorts. We got on and there was only one seat left and we had like four boxes. I remembered that sister Van Broklin said she wasn't feeling well, so I told her to sit and that I would stand and hold on to the boxes. The ride was not the most comfortable thing since I had to stand for about 35 minutes and old on for dear life since the driver was...a Georgian driver. We were nearing our stop and I thought "you know what Rachel, I can stop the marshukta since I know where we are" (you have to say stop for the driver or he will keep going). I said stop and we got off. Sister Van Broklin unknown to me was in a lot of pain from that drive and when she got off almost threw up. She had no idea where we were and just needed to get home. We got home and she of course laid down for a bit while I cleaned. I thought about this experience and little bit and it reminded me of a talk I watched in the MTC, by Elder Bednar. He talked about how we should stop worrying about whether or not its the spirit, and just be a good boy and a good girl and when you think of something, act, and you will be fine. I felt that this experience matched his message. It was definitely the spirit guiding me in those small moments. It just came in thinking of the information I had of Sister Van Brocklin and speaking up and acting on the spirit. 

That is the week! This week will go back to normal a little bit. We get new senior missionaries this Saturday so that will be fun. Til next week!

-და ჯენსენი