I HATE INSOMNIA!!!

I've had a lot of insomnia the past two weeks. It goes something like this: go to bed at 10, wake up at midnight, back to sleep around 3 with usually very light sleep after that, either wake up around 6-7 and then have to go back to sleep about 8:00 for a few hours OR not wake up until about 10 am. One day I didn't even wake up until 2 pm! It feels rather ridiculous to me. I wish I had some way to control it. It affects the amount of time that I can spend on my mission assignment which is really frustrating to me.

I ran across this verse in Mosiah 4:27 "And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent" It was comforting to me because I hear the Lord saying that I should get sleep so that I'm not exhausted, even if it's during my clicking time, but I should also be diligent in the hours that I am awake. So I just do the best that I can. It's humbling to not be able to keep the hours that I'd like to at the archives. I've been arriving at the archives between noon and 1:00 so I stay until they kick me out because they're locking up the building at 7 pm. And that's the best that I can do right now.

I've actually had quite a bit of insomnia throughout my mission. In the beginning, I fought through it and just got up at 6 am whether I'd slept or not. Then I'd fall asleep in my chair while clicking or put my head down on the desk and sleep for a while. Sometimes I'd even lay down on the hardwood floors and take a nap. But you can only do that for about three days. At some point, your body demands sleep. So I started turning off my alarm clock and letting my body wake up at whatever hour it wants to after it's had enough sleep.

I know, way too much information about insomnia! But it's dominating my life right now.

These four taught Sunday School last Sunday. . .in CHINESE! They are amazing!

Some senior missionaries and I were laughing the other day because we were excited there were temperatures in the 20s in the forecast. We were saying how "warm" that was. It's been pretty cold here with highs in the teens and single digits. One day the high for the day was 0 F! Then add 15 mph wind onto that. BRRRR!

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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!

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