BE with God

We got another referral for the young missionaries! Another sister missionary and I went out to dinner and the waitress asked about our nametags. We asked if she wanted to come to church and she said yes. That threw us off guard a little. Then I asked for her phone number so missionaries who speak Spanish could call her and SHE SAID YES! That one REALLY surprised me! Usually they say, "Just give me the address to the church and I'll come sometime." This is my fourth find on my mission. Woot! Woot! That ONLY happens with God's help. He puts people in our way and all we have to do is open our mouths.

In general conference, a phrase that Bishop L. Todd Budge shared, screamed at me: "...when praying, what if we were to spend less time talking and more time just being with God?" I've spent the whole week pondering what it means to "just BE" with God. The more I learn about it, the more it seems to be a higher form of worship. When I'm "with" a person, what does that mean? I think it means I'm being present, attentive, focused on them and not distracted, as well as other things that I haven't discovered yet.

I felt SOOOO spoiled on my birthday! This sweet, sweet lady whom I've never met before in my life, was commissioned by one of my African sons to bring me flowers for my birthday. She joyfully made a difficult drive at night to bring me this BEAUTIFUL bouquet. I was VERY surprised, VERY touched, and VERY grateful!!

I also got to spend my birthday with young missionaries. . .couldn't have wished for a better gift! Zone conference had to be moved up a week so that it landed on my birthday! Can you say "tender mercy"?!? The entire zone sang to me and I was very touched by their love.

Our darling, HILARIOUS APs . . .

And here's a bonus selfie you ALWAYS get when you hand your phone to an elder to help you take a photo. I love these funny young men. They make my mission a joyful place!

Though I had many thoughtful gifts and birthday wishes, my very favorite was having these three together. I love these 3 young men and the one who couldn't join us. It was an absolute joy seeing them interacting with each other after such a long hiatus. It made my heart burst!!!

A very kind and generous couple treated us to "yam chah", a traditional Chinese brunch with lots of small dishes. It was SO nostalgic for the sister in the black jacket and me because we used to go to these kinds of meals with members on our mission in Hong Kong when we were young missionaries.

I squeezed in a quick drive to the countryside Saturday afternoon.

Oh, I almost forgot, I captured some documents too.   

Here's my new project. . . 151 boxes. I've never tried conquering something this big! And this one has some unique challenges that will make capturing difficult. Here we go! I'm up for it!!

Running total of captures: 426,964

Running total of docs prepped: 12,859

I Love Missionaries!

This is one of our security guards. He's from Senegal and I stop by to chat with him every day. He's practicing English with me and I'm practicing French with him.

I'm so glad I remembered to get this photo a week ago before transfers. I was afraid some of my Mandarin elders would be leaving...and they did. Two of them are gone now. But I'm really excited about the two who have been transferred BACK to the Mandarin branch!

We got TWENTY-EIGHT new missionaries this past week! That's a HUGE incoming group! It takes a lot of work to process that many. And poor Sister Sorensen was cooking for this small army for a few days.

I love being with the new missionaries on transfer day! I also love being there to say goodbye to our departing missionaries. One of the departing missionaries is from Star Valley and he knows I want to move there when I go home so his last words to me were, "See you in Star Valley!" He's such a good young man. He finished his mission as an AP.

And we discovered on the very last day of his mission that this missionary's grandparents lived in my ward! How did it take us THAT long to figure that out?!?

At the lunch on transfer day, one of our APs, Elder Jones, was introducing the senior missionaries. When he introduced me, he said, "Sister Jones loves missionaries!" I'm glad he knows that because it's true! I feel such a strong love for these amazing young people that I get to work with during this season of my life. I feel like they are the cream of the crop of all the young people in the world.

THIS! This is why Salt Lake says we're a "complicated mission." One of the senior misisonaries made this graphic.

OK, this will seem strange to many, but I find it fascinating. One day the edge of a paper sliced across my finger. I quickly looked at it to see if the paper cut was going to bleed. NO PAPER CUT! Then I started thinking that with the hundreds of thousands of papers that I've touched, how is it possible that I haven't had a single paper cut? When I was a teacher I got paper cuts all the time. I asked the other archive missionarie and they said they haven't had any either.

We googled it and found that because we are living in a humid climate, we're less likely to get paper cuts. Our hands aren't as dry. Dry hands get paper cuts easier. And the paper is more supple because of the humidity. On really humid days, I can feel the difference in the paper. Hence, no paper cuts for archive missionaries in Montreal!

I noticed this loose piece of skin on my thumb the other day and figured that must be the Montreal version of a paper cut. No pain. No blood. Just a hanging piece of skin.

There you go. A useless piece of information about paper cuts for you!

Running total of captures: 421,740

Running total of docs prepped: 12,859