Week 43 - Dreams Come True!

Sup Everyone!

I have officially survived my first week in the mission office! It has officially confirmed that an office job is, indeed, my dream job. I know, that sounds pretty dang crazy and depressing to most of you, but you can ask my family, for years I have just wanted a desk, a rolly chair, and a little thing on my desk with my name on it. The name plaque hasn't happened yet, but I have my own little cubicle! Complete with an office home with my own extension code. It is AWESOME. One of the elders who's in the office with me is also my kind of person. He's probably heading back to his original mission here relatively soon, so we're in the process of switching his responsibilities over to me. Well, during one of the times that he was showing me something to do, he said the sentence, "I love spreadsheets." I HAVE FOUND MY PEOPLE. The tech missionary in the mission is also going home in a week, and rumor has it that I might end up taking over as tech missionary.... yikes. So yeah, mainly I just type away on 4 or 5 different spreadsheets every day from 9 to 5. It's amazing. 

My beautiful companions have been absolutely WONDERFUL! I love them so much. We have a good time together! They are also believers in Christmas music starting on November 1st, which is a relief because otherwise they'd probably hate me haha. They are also just as busy as I am with their own special assignments! Who knew? Turns out that Sister Cutler is the mission music coordinator, and Sister Baird helps edit all the audio tracks and videos for a ton of things. Well, right now they're working on a Christmas number with the virtual choir, a Christmas number with 3 pianos and a handful of violins, and virtual caroling for the senior care centers in the mission, all of which needs to be done pronto! Poor Sister Baird has been banging her head against her laptop all week. In fact, we're all so dang busy this week, that Sister Baird and Sister Cutler are going to come join me in the office every day this week so we can get it all done. It's going to be great! And crazy. But great!

Serving in Bismarck is SO different from Dickinson. The city is flippin huge for one thing, and people here live very different lives. there's just a different feel, you know? It's like going from Nephi, UT to Orem. It's so weird, I never thought I'd think of Bismarck as BIG, because when I first got here, I was used to Salt Lake City and such and thought it was small! Weird how 10 months will change your perspective. It was super cool, on Friday this girl named Lorrene called us from our church's listing on Google Maps asking for money, and my comps explained that we couldn't help her out with that (I was at the office), but offered to share an uplifting message sometime. On Saturday, we shared an awesome message from 3 Nephi 13:31-34 about the Lord taking care of us, and then she came to church yesterday and wants to come again! She is so dang funny, I love her.

Getting to go to church was so unbelievably nice. I haven't been since October 4, and it was SUCH a spiritual recharge to take the sacrament and worship with the ward. I also got to give a talk about unity, which I whipped up last minute after getting a call the night before haha. We also got to go to the young women's, and one of the young women taught the lesson and did SO good. I was blown away at the strength of those girls. The future is in GOOD hands. Another awesome thing that happened at church yesterday was we got to use these super cool digital pass-along cards that some missionaries in our mission made. They have QR codes on them, so instead of handing someone a card, they just scan the code and it takes them right to whatever the card is for! Not only is it environmentally friendly and COVID no-contact friendly, but they're also just ridiculously awesome. I was blown away! We have ones that take you straight to our instagram page, facebook page, comeuntochrist.org, or the light the world campaign site, then some other ones that do fancy stuff. One creates a contact for the missionaries on their phone, other ones will friend us on facebook, and it's just crazy. What's super cool about it is that the church, like church headquarters, had us pitch these cards to them and might start using them. BRO. 

So yeah, all is good here! Have a great week, y'all.

Sister Balls