Week 17-18 Stinky Washer and More Quarantine

 HELLO EVERYBODY!

Short Version: Well it's me again. Still chilling in quarantine learning Lithuanian, contacting people through Facebook. We found out once we cross the borders we'll be quarantining for another 10 days which I can't wait for (<-sarcasm). I got an X Ray for tuberculosis and traveled to Preili to start the paperwork for my Temporary Residency Permit (TRP). Once I get my TRP, I'll be able to cross the borders legally. There's a game called Nine Man Morris that we play every day during free time or before bed. It requires the strategy of chess but the rules are as simple as checkers. 

Long Version: Last week we almost thought one of the four of my companions got Covid so that would have been super bad. He was sick with chills and fever and stuffy nose, the classic symptoms. If he tested positive it would have been a complete nightmare for the mission. The housing coordinator just contracted a bunch of new apartments for all the new missionaries who arrived, but if he would have been positive, everyone in Riga would have had to get tested and quarantine for a lot longer. Luckily he tested negative. The rest of us were sick as well but it passed and it's not Covid so all is well.

     The language is eh. We have a lot of time in the apartment and most of it is filled with language studies but I max out my brain. Most days I hit a point where I can't learn more things or I'll explode. It's sometimes frustrating to want to learn more but not feel like you have the brain power for it. Good thing I have 2 years though, right?

     I just asked my companion what we did this week: "nothing." While that's not true that's what it feels like every once in a while hahaha. All the days are mushing together in my brain. 

     Our washing machine has started acting up. We noticed that sometimes our clothes will smell like rotten milk garnished with moldy fruit. When they go in the washing machine they smell decent. They've been worn for a day so its got some BO smell a little from sweat, maybe stain or two. When we take the laundry out, it smells disgusting. We think that the sink and the washing machine drain are somehow connected so when the laundry isn't removed immediately from the washer after its finished washing, the air from the sink and everything that gets washed down into the sink, drafts in through the drain pipe and makes the clothes smelly. We think that's the problem. It hasn't been a consistent problem, so it's hard to tell. Luckily we'll be moving out soon.

     Here is a short story from a conference talk back in the day. It was 2006 and I was only 5, too young to appreciate it.

 "Years ago, when my brothers and I were boys, our mother had radical cancer surgery. She came very close to death. Much of the tissue in her neck and shoulder had to be removed, and for a long time it was very painful for her to use her right arm.

One morning about a year after the surgery, my father took Mother to an appliance store and asked the manager to show her how to use a machine he had for ironing clothes. The machine was called an Ironrite. It was operated from a chair by pressing pedals with one’s knees to lower a padded roller against a heated metal surface and turn the roller, feeding in shirts, pants, dresses, and other articles. You can see that this would make ironing (of which there was a great deal in our family of five boys) much easier, especially for a woman with limited use of her arm. Mother was shocked when Dad told the manager they would buy the machine and then paid cash for it. Despite my father’s good income as a veterinarian, Mother’s surgery and medications had left them in a difficult financial situation.

On the way home, my mother was upset: 'How can we afford it? Where did the money come from? How will we get along now?' Finally Dad told her that he had gone without lunches for nearly a year to save enough money. 'Now when you iron,' he said, 'you won’t have to stop and go into the bedroom and cry until the pain in your arm stops.' She didn’t know he knew about that. I was not aware of my father’s sacrifice and act of love for my mother at the time, but now that I know, I say to myself, 'There is a man.' " 

Happy Mothers Day to all! Give my mom an extra big hug for me since I can't be there in person.

~Vyresnysis Smitas