Bed Bugs...‏

Hello Family and Friends!

So this week has been a good one! Its been pretty warm during
the day for the most part and chilly at night. Right now it is
raining and rained a little bit on saturday. But for the most part
the weather is TOOOOOO good. I love it!

The week has been one of ups and downs. Not too major to get me
down, but something enough to "bug" me. So if you cant tell by the
subject, i got bed bugs... rather, we got bed bugs. So let me tell ya
all about it in my week.

Monday 1-16-12
I didnt write a journal entry for this day... it was a pretty boring
P-day from what i remember...

Tuesday 1-17-12
We woke up and i noticed i had bites all over my legs and arms... and
i remember the mission workers telling us about bed bugs going
throughout the mission... And i noticed my bites look like the ones
they showed us in the pictures and they itched like CRAZY!!! So.... i
called the mission office and let them know. Now we are in a big bed
bug battle. This is what bed bugs require. We have to Spray
everything in our apartment, mostly the bed and closet, baseboards,
bed frame, mattress, pillows, etc... the list goes on. Then! We have
to bomb our apartment with Bed bug bombs, thats fun, and then we have
to wash EVERY article of clothing and bedding we own. So since we
didnt have any spray on tuesday i endured another two nights being a
meal to the bed bugs and we commenced war on Thursday, which i will
tell you all about. Oh and the worst part of it all is that we have
to spray, bomb, and wash for 4 weeks. Because when we spray that kills
the bugs, but then their eggs hatch and they run rampant again... so
you have to kill those ones.... so basically its a really pain in the
butt. But it could be worse lets just say that. I have a good
picture of my hip, where i've been bit, which i will not be sending,
but it looks pretty gnarly haha i'll maybe have to show it to mum and
dad.


So then we went to an old ladies house to do some service for her, we
dug around her trees and waterd them. Then we went home and ate
lunch, but for lunch we ate nothing but apples and drank apple juice,
ya see we me and my companion have not been feeling well to our
stomachs, so we thought a nice good cleanse would fix it. I heard
that an apple cleanse works really well. So thats what we did, worste
lunch EVER! Oh we also had apples and apple juice for breakfast.
Then after that we went to the Crazy ladies house. (The one with the
amazon backyard) we went over and just started workingon it some
more.... it went ok.


Then we had a few minutes and since we were still in our service
clothes we thought we would go over to the Guidos and take down their
christmas lights since we put them up. That only took 20 minutes.

Then we went over to sister Dungans house and she has SUPER tall
orange trees in her back yard and so we went and shaked them all out!
Sorry mom, i thought about your email, it said, "quit climbing in
trees and on roofs" and i have done both of those this week... haha at
least i was thinking about how you said that so i was cautious! So we
got as many oranges out of the trees as possible and then they gave
them all to us to give to people, which we did. We also tried to make
juice... which was unsuccessful. Brother Dungan (who is a non member)
was taking pictures and doing a video while we were doing that little
service project, he said he would edit it and give us a copy to send
home, so if i get it any time soon be on the look out family!

Then after that we had ANOTHER service appointment over at Brother
Fernilious' house, he was tearing up his grass to put in fake grass
but he had roots in the ground the size of tree branches, super thick
ones. So we dug those out!

Then we went on splitls ate more apples and apple juice for dinner and
by the time i got back home from splits i said FORGET THE CLEANSE! I
was so hungry! So i whipped up me and Elder Lane some Egg Burrittos!
The Cleanse was only meant to last 3 days... but it was hard, plus it
was giving me a head ache from not eathing anything but that junk!
Maybe i'll do it when i get home.

Wed 1-18-12
I didnt do a journal entry but what i do remember is that we bagged
all of our things in preparation to bomb our apartment and to wash it
the next day.

Thursday 1-19-12
We had Zone Conference. And we had a special Guest coming. BUT
Before i get to that i'll tell you what we did... We left all our
clothes and stuff in the apartment so they could be around for the
bombing and then we set off the bomb. When you set off the bomb you
have to leave it for 5 hours before you come back in, then you have to
air it out for 30 minutes until you can go in. Its such a hassle.
You cant have any dishes out, or food otherwise they become
contaminated. So we went to Zone Conference, and our special guest
was Elder Zwick and his wife. He is apart of the quorum of the 70.
He is so cool. We learned a ton from him. We got to eat with him,
shake his hand, and he even called me and elder lane to be his
examples, he made us teach a principle in front of everyone! And it
went good, he had nothing but good things to say about what we taught
and how we did it! Phew!

Then we came back home, and we opened all the windows, and grabbed our
laundry, then went to coin laundry.... where i then spent over $13
doing laundry! had it not been for that $20 mum sent me i would not of
been able to do so! So thank you! While we were there we were
supposed to be eating dinner with the Bishop in the Simi Valley ward,
we told him of our circumstance so he came over to the coin laundry
place and gave us In'n'out. He is probably my favorite bishop thus
far in the mission. Then while we were waiting, we were really close
to the army surplus store so we decided to go over, and i was looking
at their bags to see if they had the one i wanted, the one like scott
sent me except it has shoulder straps, they had one and i got it. Its
big and i was able to put all my clothes in it.... no more garbage
bags for when we go to wash our bed buig stuff... Also while we were
waiting we met a guy and his daughter, he said that he lived in Sandy
for a while, i think close to where the blockbuster used to be and
albertsons and stuff... Anyways he also said he lived in Lancaster as
well and that it it SUPER dangerous there now, gunshots and cop cars
and barricades and helicopters all over the place, he said they moved
because it was so dangerous! So i'm glad we moved when i was little :)
and then we came home and hung up all our clothes and put our beds
back together..

Friday 1-20-12
We did our weekly planning and then we had an appointment with Chelsea
and then stopped off at Jean Regis (eternagator been investigating for
5 years) we finally found out that he hasnt really understood the book
of mormon this whole time, so we had him download the scriptures in
spanish on his phone and i guess it makes a lot more sense now... haha
who knew he would need to be taught in HIS OWN LANGUAGE!?!?! Then we
went to a referral who's name is Jose, he had a ton of friends there
from the singlse ward, he is a young guy himself, we ended up turning
him over to the ZL's since they cover the young single adults. It was
kind of awkward while we were teaching him because his sister would
walk out and be like "Jose, what are you doing? You know we are Roman
Catholic, get these people out of here" and we were sitting right
there, she said it loud for all to hear... so that was cool.... then
we had brother anderson help us pick up a door for sister starn at
lowes, we took it to her house and installed it for her and she made
us dinner. Her old bedroom door was kicked in by her drug addict son
who kicked her old door down and stole all her things and sold them to
buy more drugs... so this new door is thick! and heavy! and i
installeda door knob that takes a combination to open it... high
security in your own home... thats sad. Her family is a mess. Poor
lady.

Saturday 1-21-12
We went on exchanges, and i was with ELDER HAYNIE!!! YAY! I love that
kid! We are planning a trip to Havasoupie falls for when i get back
home! Its going to be SICK!

But we went to the crazy ladies house and worked in her back yard, her
yard is so bad that we cant get the trash bins we are using around the
sides of her house so we have to use ropes, i made a pully system in
her back yard and we pull them onto her roof and then hand them down
later. Well this time we were doing that and one of the buckets got
blown off the roof and hit her car! haha left a big old dent in it.
Good thing elder Haynie did some car work before, he went right up and
popped it right out!

Then we at lunch and it was just leftover dinners put together... pretty good!

Then we had sports, it was Flag Football this week, i was glad to have
my cleats because i was jukin' everyone! It was a ton of fun, a way
good turn out.

Then we came back and showered and we had dinner with the Guidos.
When we got there, there was a whole bunch of filming going on, Ariana
was doing a spot for disney... jeeze i serve in a super stars ward.
But they also told me that i would have my own IMDB profile soon! Haha
as soon as you make it into a production, they take all the names in
the credits and they get their own IMDB page. Which is Information
Movie DataBase, for those of you who dont know that. Since i will be
in the credits of "The Ben and Ari Show" i will have my own IMDB haha
i'm makin my way up SLOWLY in the movie business :) Anyways dinner
was good, we had a ton of fun.


Sunday 1-22-12
We had Stake Conference, i dont know where that was broadcasted but it
was a broadcast where a few people spoke from the conference center,
Elder Perry Spoke, it was pretty good. Then after that we ate lunch
and just went to see a whole bunch of people. We had dinner with the
Heim Family and they made Breakfast for dinner, it was SO GOOD. Then
he Dropped us off at Barry's house where we were able to spend some
time with his son. There is a girl that lives in the house that barry
lives in and she does nothing but play Red Dead Redemption, all day
everyday, and he was like "i dont understand how she can just keep
playing and playing that game" hahaha well lets just say i've been
there! that game is so dang addicting i dont know why? I tried to get
her to do my bear trick, but it didnt work :( Maybe they fixed it with
a patch.





Anyways that was it. The bed bug bites are slowly decreasing, i still
wake up every night with about 2 or 3 new bites. Before it was worse,
i was waking up with patches of bites! But its being taken care of so
no worries! Its just super itchy. They say they wont transfer either
of us out of this area until we get it fixed... thats how bed bugs
travel, they say they dont just happen, they have to come in from
somewhere so they were asking if i had bought anything from thrift
stores or if members had given me anything... and i said no, but the
only thing i had recieved when they started was that Lava Lava that
Logan sent me haha maybe he sent me some Samoan bug on accident... oh
well. We're taking care of it.


The mission is good, the area is slow at the moment, people here dont
want to progress for some reason, they get so close and then get
stuck... So i kind of do and dont want to go.... Anyways, i love you
all. Thanks for the Letters and Emails! I love it! I hope you are all
doing well and i will talk to you all later!

Love

Elder Crapo