This week hasn't felt too productive for good. I suppose we are still preparing and learning to do some good. This is the bottom of the Church History Library where we spent Monday training to be hosts. This day was spent setting up computers for each of us and then going through tutorials for "On Boarding". I barely spoke to Kristi as we wore headsets all day.
I don't want to discourage anyone contemplating a mission, but basic computer skills are a must in the world we live in. If you do not have them, someone will teach you and it is a good thing to keep your mind clicking as we get older.
We ran into another old friend that was our neighbor for almost 38 years in Clayton, CA.
Pat Nieman is serving a mission again in the Family Search Library here in SLC. Pat has always loved mysteries and loves reading them too. She has turned that love into quite a skill as she sleuths out family connections not only with the new records that show up at the Library but she is a DNA expert. I was intrigued to find out how DNA in our generation can help point the way to more clues about our families in the past. Pat does a lot of good. (She also brought by dinner and cookies one evening)
Tuesday morning we woke to an email from the Albania Mission that we hope to be a part of. Pres. Auras said he was trying to get us to the mission and since we didn't have visas yet he is trying to get us visas to Kosovo. Kosovo was always part of our assignment but they wanted us to live in North Macedonia. Visas for Kosovo require a few different documents. We needed to send notarized copies of our college degrees and a current notarized police report from our home city of Washington, Utah.
I called our daughter-in-law Kim to see if it was OK to take her car south for the day.
What could she say? I am sure she is missing her car, but we sure appreciate having one available.
Our daughter Rebecca met us there and we left about 20 lbs of books and clothes that we considered to be not needed for the next 18 months.
The highlight of the trip for Kristi was being able to hug Abby, the cat.
Abby has a story all her own but after 14 years you will have to check with Kristi for details. I do get a little jealous.
We said goodbye to our home one more time.
We were to get more training in Provo, Wednesday. It turned out that our mentors in Provo were ill so we just chatted with the Griggs until past midnight and then hung out until almost noon the next day. We retell the same stories but they are great folks to emulate doing good.
It was a nice break for us and we got to say goodbye again to my Sister Diane
and goodbye again to Kristi's sister and husband, Marjolyn and Fred Nielsen.
Finally, at the Church travel office I turned in our new papers for the visas. The church was preparing the medical and financial and other docs we needed to complete the package. As of now we are going to live in Kosovo until we get N. Macedonia visas.
They had just returned from N. Macedonia and we were scheduled to cross paths with them before they returned to Provo. They are very kind trying to teach us what projects were still open and helping us to start another one as training. They kindly turned off the firehose late in the afternoon as my eyes were starting to cross.
The Stringhams waited 10 months for their visas. They spent that time helping at the Provo Mission and then in Frankfurt working on projects remotely until the visas arrived.
Saturday it started to snow. As former Californians we got pretty excited.
But then we remember why we moved to SOUTHERN Utah.
So not much good was done this week. But just having it in my mind is changing my thinking, little by little, and any progress in the right direction says there is hope for me.
Sunday evening we went for a walk up through Memory Grove.
Sometimes I am just the receiver of good.
