July 11th, Bedbug Scare

July 11, 2016 

Wellllll

This week was pretty good!  All your 4th of July plans seemed almost as fun as mine :)  Jokes, I am jealous of all the camping trips, someone PLEASE take me camping or backpacking when I get home!

After the 4th, our week passed by in a blur. But here is a story to make your hair stand up a bit. 

So, a little background.  Before I came to Michigan I thought the phrase, "Sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite" was a cute, endearing phrase to say to cute little kids as you shut off the lights. I had no idea what bed bugs even were, or that they even existed. When I came to Michigan the first thing I heard about and was warned about was the amount of bed bugs that they had here. Still not really knowing what they were I arrived in my first area only to find out that my first set of ZL's had just been infested with bed bugs and would not be leaving their apartment to greet us. Sounded pretty serious to me. Missionaries not leaving their apartment? Scary!!  So since then I have kinda been a little scared to see or even touch anyone who has bed bugs, and let me tell you, EVERYONE has them here! I am amazed I never saw one in Bay City.  Now, that being said, last week Sister Smith and I went on Trade off's and a sister from Three Rivers came and slept in my bed. She woke up the next morning with bites on her arms and legs. I came home and washed all my sheets, because I thought that was weird (I also had washed my sheets the morning before she came), next morning, I woke up with tiny red bites on my hands and stomach. Washed my sheets again. Then we went on trade offs this week and the sister that stayed in my bed woke up with bites on her legs! This is when I really started to freak out. Sister Smith and I called our mission mom and told her what was going on, full on panicking and she told us it sounded like.... bed bugs.... I freaked.  We started tearing apart our room and mattresses, box springs, sheets, EVERYTHING!  Fun fact about bed bugs, they lay 3-5 eggs every single night. THEY MULTIPLY LIKE CRAZY!  After tearing apart our room and throwing away all my bedding (a bit rash but necessary), we found one black bug and one weird looking earwig that we thought could potentially be a bed bug and put it in a baggy to take to Zone Conference to show one of our AP's who had a horrible experience with bed bugs at the start of his mission. Sister Jacobsen told us he would know for sure. A couple of days later at ZC, Elder Smith took the baggy and looked at the bugs and said, "This just looks like a bunch of janky beetles sisters... you're fine". All that work for nothing, but you better believe I am still paranoid and scared to death. Sister Smith and I still haven't put our room back together and we sleep on the couch every single night together. I am not taking ANY more chances.

Sooooo I guess I can tell you some spiritual stuff now. :)  Bryan blessed the sacrament yesterday at church and he did such a great job! He also joined us at the family history center on Wednesday and is finding family names to take to the temple this Saturday!  Sister Smith and I are so pumped to go with him!  We also have two less actives that we reactivated that will be joining us in the trip as well!

Our Zone Conference was amazing on Friday. I learned so much from the AP's and from President Jacobsen.  The leaders in the church are seriously men called of God.  This week I learned how grateful I am for the priesthood and the blessings it brings into my life.

I hope everyone has a great week!!! LOVE YOU

Sister Viehweg