Week 57 - Transfers and Such!

Hello for real this time!

Tada! My pdays are now back on Mondays! I'm actually incredibly happy about this fact, because I have been starved of almost all social interactions. But now I can go to district and zone pdays, hang out with the other sisters, etc! The only downside was that it made this week the longest week of my life. Going 9 days without a pday is NOT something I would recommend for ANY missionary, but hey, I made it!

Valentine's Day happened, which is cool I guess. I just treated it like a day to celebrate the two great commandments! We got invited to a Lunar New Year party with the people we're teaching and a bunch of members; it was incredible! I have now officially had an authentic dumpling. I can confirm that they are very good! They had two chairs set up away from all the others for Sister Kropf and I so we could be 6 ft apart, but it looked like "guests of honor" places hahaha. We also got together with all the other Sisters in the zone, had dinner together, talked, had a good time, and then Sister Kropf cut Sister Finch's hair so she now has bangs. Thankfully they turned out well!!

This week has been certifiably insane, largely due to transfers. This is single-handedly, without a doubt, the largest transfer to ever take place in the NDBM. Even the "normal" transfers out here are crazy simply due to the sheer size and scope of our mission, so when you get twenty-seven new missionaries arriving and have eleven missionaries going home in one week, chaos reigns. Then add on the fact that every single flight that had to go through Texas (of which there were many) got cancelled or rerouted, so we had to figure out ways to get the 27 newbies out here on new flights. This resulted in some flying in on Monday, lots on Tuesday, some on Wednesday, and even some on Thursday. 

All of these scattered arrivals messed things up quite a bit, and led to two spontaneous road trips. Monday night we were sent to Dickinson to fetch one new Sister, and her flight didn't come in until 9:00 our time, then we had to drop off some things to other missionaries in Dickinson, and we therefore got into bed around 11:30. On Saturday, my new companion, Sister Call, and I had our day all planned out when we get a call asking if we can go to the mission home for a two hour emergency social media meeting. That threw us off, but we were sure it was going to be fine. WELL. While at the mission home, the APs then ask if immediately following the meeting we could drive another one of the new sisters into Jamestown to meet her new companions who would take her the rest of the way to Fargo. Boom, our entire day from 2:00 on was gone.

Finally all missionaries were all where they needed to be. Sister Call and I ignorantly thought that would be the end to the entropy, but President Howell had one last grenade up his sleeve and asked us to come update his transfer board on Sunday. What that involves is taking down each missionary's little card that has their face on it, writing down the date, their new area, position, and companions on the back, then putting them back up on the board in their correct areas. It doesn't sound too bad, and it isn't, but with 230 cards to do and the largest transfer on record, it took us 5 hours. Boom. Our whole day from 3:30 to 9:00 was gone. 

Between the mayhem listed above, and getting a new comp and sending off Sister Kropf, can you guess how many lessons and things got taught? Not very many! New people found to be taught? A big zero. But hey! We're on our way now! Sister Call is going to be heading all family history for the mission, and I've been tasked with revamping the data collection and interpretation methods for the social media aspects. We shall both be extremely busy! I'm not going to lie, it can be difficult working so hard every day and not getting to see the fruits of your efforts, but I have to stop and remind myself that what I'm doing is, in fact, helping other missionaries, so by extension, I am doing missionary work.

Yeah, I don't even know, but there's a bunch of stuff that you probably barely understood! Thanks for reading anyway if you did! If you didn't, I don't blame you. Here's some pictures! You made it!

Sister Balls