New Year
In the office, we are supposed to keep all of our records for 3 years.  So it's a new year and we needed to shred all of 2015's paperwork, and then replace them with 2018 files.  Somehow I got the job so I've been shredding my little heart out.  I was afraid I was going to get shredder's lung disease, if there is such a thing.  But I think I'm ok.  I made a huge mess that we tracked all over the office.  Then Chris vacuumed it all up and got his files moved around and we are ready for 2019.

Out to Lunch
New record!  We only went out to lunch ONCE this week!  AND I cooked!

This is what we've come to
This tomato is our new office project.  We keep it in the window and watch to see what it will do.  None of us has ever seen a tomato do this.  But apparently, it's not uncommon.  Too much time on our hands?

What?!
This is a picture of a missionary's nephew.  His expression is priceless considering what he's reading.

Godly Sorrow
I believe there's different meanings for godly sorrow, but this week I think I saw one form of it.  Our mission president was having a hard time this week.  When he met with us in the office on Tuesday, I could tell he was discouraged.  He is so sad when the missionaries are disobedient.  He spends lots of time praying for help in how to assist them in understanding that obedience brings happiness.  I know he doesn't want to spend his time policing cars, phones, Facebook, etc.  But he has to.  It's part of  his job.  It really humbled me to see how sad he was.  He wants so bad for the missionaries to be successful, safe, and happy.  Obedience is the answer.  I guess that's how God feels sometimes about me.  I'm going to try harder to be an obedient disciple so he doesn't have to be sad because of me.

Sisters get to wear pants
It's kind of fun to see how things work.  We got the announcement from Salt Lake that Sister missionaries can now wear dress slacks.  Our mission president's wife says she's never heard that word.  What are slacks?  Anyway, the announcement said that each sister missionary in the field would receive money to help her buy some pants.  It said the mission president's wife would decide what the proper amount should be.  So in our mission, the president assigned two sister missionaries to do some research and then discuss it with his wife.  He said if he decided, he'd give them too much.  If she decided, she wouldn't give them enough.  Funny, right?  Anyway, the sisters researched, and had a pow wow with Sister Strong.  Then the financial secretary, Elder Johnson, put that amount of money on each sister's card.  For our mission they decided on $120. Not for me, though.  I had to buy my own.

I have more Faith than I used to
We are getting ready for transfers next week.  Friday morning I got a text from the president saying he had tons of changes and things I needed to work on, so get ready to dance.  Yikes!  Because of some unforeseen circumstances, he had to change the transfer board a lot.   I met with the president in the late afternoon Friday.  He gave me a list of things to do that were literally impossible.  One of which was to find, secure, and furnish an apartment in 4 days.  Two months ago I would have freaked out.  I wouldn't have slept all night.  That's what I used to do.  On Friday, I just reminded myself that with God, nothing is impossible.  I've seen so many little things that he's guided and I know he's right there with us, lighting the way.  I was calm and I slept till 9:00 the next morning.  Then I got up and started working.  All day long, I could see His hand in all that was accomplished.  It took me all day, but doors were opened. For one, I found a perfect apartment, I'll sign the lease Monday morning, and thanks to Amazon there should be furnishings arriving in a couple of days.   I still have lots to do but I know it will all work out.  I think all of the missionaries will have a bed to sleep in on Thursday when we have transfers.  They will have dishes and pans and utensils. They may have to wait a few days for the rest.   God loves them and he cares about them and he cares about me! And he cares about you! Life is so much easier if we have faith in that.  Elder Johnson and I will be busy this week following up!

God bless the missionaries
One thing I had to do yesterday is call 2 sister missionaries and tell them we needed to put a third sister in their apartment.  I know they have a small apartment, but at the last minute president found out he was getting one less sister.  We had somewhere for 2 sisters to go, but now we need a temporary place for 1.  They reminded me how small their apartment is.  They were dumbfounded. There's nowhere to put her or her clothes.  I asked them to try.  Not very long afterward I got a text from them.  "We are getting really excited to try to figure out how to make this work.  We called the Bishop and he's loaning us an air mattress.  We've got this!"