The title of this week's post comes from a very sweet meeting Tuesday morning. We meet monthly with Mental Health Advisor counterparts in the church's Asia, Asia North, Philippines, and Pacific Areas. This month two of them are completing their missions and were called upon to share their wisdom. They did a wonderful job, making us laugh, cry, reflect, and recommit to this great work that we are doing.
This week those long days have included some very intense situations. These have ranged from in-person counseling and multiple doctor visits right here in Singapore to remote work with missionaries in crisis in Pakistan, India, and Thailand. Vivian has been on calls both early morning and late at night. It's challenging work and sometimes very sad, but that sadness is overshadowed by the beauty of progress and development that we see in these missionaries.
Beyond the mental health work, many great things are also happening. We had a special experience Sunday. Our mission president asked us to host two guests from San Francisco during their trip to Singapore: Veronica Shepard and her husband Theophilus. Veronica is a director in the San Francisco Department of Public Health while Theophilus is a designer and tailor. (He was very well dressed and shared that he had personally designed and made everything he was wearing!) Veronica is also with the 3rd Baptist Church of San Francisco and Reverend Amos Brown, who has become a friend of our prophet, President Russell Nelson. Veronica has been involved in many great projects working with our church and the NAACP.
We had a delightful time accompanying them to the Newton Ward Fast and Testimony meeting. It was our first time attending a "family ward" while on our mission, and we felt a great spirit there as we do in our Young Single Adult ward. I also met a man with whom I had been on a video lesson earlier in the week. Janganesh had so many insightful questions in our video meeting and it was tender to meet him in person.
And so we keep running, not sure sometimes if it's a sprint or a marathon. Many other things happened this week, including:
I was called, sustained, and set apart by our Stake President to teach Institute this upcoming term starting May 8th! The class has about 20 young adults and will be covering the New Testament beginning with Acts.
In that same meeting with the Stake President Vivian was asked to do a round of the Self Reliance class with the young adults of the stake. The course is going very well with the missionaries and we are excited to get to know the YSA even better.
I had my first 1km swim - I'm losing my biking legs but building up my swimming skills instead.
The mission announced transfers on Tuesday and travel will be Friday. It always very emotional to see missionaries leave after getting to know them well. After this transfer there will only be one missionary left in Singapore that was here when we arrived.
We love you all and appreciate you notes, prayers, and thoughts!
Photos
1 - Our dear neighbors for the last several years have a son and his family in Singapore. We had a wonderful chance this week to connect and have lunch together!
2 - Veronica, Theophilus, President Butel and us following church on Sunday.
3 - With President Butel, our dear French (now Singaporean) stake president who gave us a lot of work to do this week! :)
4 - One of those new assignments: Vivian facilitating an emotional resilience self-reliance course for the YSA
5 - Our date night expedition this week was...Ikea! We had the salmon and meatballs, survived the death march through the entire store, and picked up some helpful household items. Just an hour bus ride each way from our apartment.
6 - Beautiful flowers from our sister missionary house guests really brightened up the place
7 - Simple pleasures: dumplings! You can get a bag like this for four Singapore Dollars (about $3 US) that are ready to serve after five minutes in boiling water. Delightful!
You’ll never know all the ways you are serving there and here. ❤️