Year of the Snake

The second day of our second Chinese New Year in Singapore is winding down, and it has been a great week. My sister and brother-in-law visited with us for a few days and we had a super enjoyable time together. Here are a couple photos...but look forward to what promises to be a great guest blog post and photo dump from Kathy in coming weeks.

One of many train stations

Singapore Temple Site

Night Safari

In addition to great times with Duffins, we have been staying very busy. We have written before about some of the many hats the two of us wear. As we cross the milestone of three months to go, and work to "leave everything better than we found it", I have been working to document the things we do. In this post I will break down three interesting roles that I haven't covered as much or in awhile.

1. Apartment Inspections. Every six weeks for the past year I have made the grand tour of Singapore to visit all eight junior missionary apartments. I usually go to the six Elders' apartments solo and then Vivian connects with me at the end for the two sisters' apartments. I must say that our missionaries do a pretty nice job keeping things nice, but there are always a few things. Here are some I see often:

   1. Bathrooms needing a little more cleaning (are you surprised?)

   2. Kitchen items broken or missing

   3. Aircons needing service (the most important appliance in Singapore!)

   4. Mailboxes needing to be checked (this sure wasn't an issue when I was a young missionary!)

   5. Bunk beds needing railings

      
      

2. Multi Area AMHA Council. Monthly the Mental Health Advisors from the Asia, Asia North, Philippines, and Pacific Areas gather for a support group of sorts. It is always a wonderful meeting and chance to visit with peers that are going through many of the same things that we are. We swap stories, get ideas from leadership and our consulting psychiatrist. With the nature of missions we are also often saying 'hello' and 'goodbye' to people.

   
   

   This month there was a great discussion on supporting people in working from their strengths instead of constantly focusing on improving their weaknesses. We all have plenty of both, and it is so easy to really obsess on where we are weak, when using where we are strong can accomplish so much more. It was a fascinating flash back for me as the Kansas City Fed was a huge proponent of this using a program called StrengthsFinders. I found it very valuable there and though I am embarrased to say I had not yet applied it to mission life, I can immediately see how valuable it is.

   
   

3. Missionary lunch day. Weekly we have the chance to host one or two companionships of missionaries for lunch in our office. We love seeing their bright faces and sharing an hour of our day with them. We get to learn more about them and the work they are doing and share ourselves with them in turn. This past week they extended the invitation to us to read the Patriarchal Blessing of one of our ancestors and draw strength from it in a current challenge. It really worked! I read that of my dear grandfather Mike Foley, and was really touched and strengthened by some of the blessings he received when he was the age of my oldest son.

   
   

4. 

   Grandpa and I at the airport as I returned from my mission to France.

   
   
   
   

That's it for now. Here are some other pictures for your enjoyment!

Photos:

1-3 Chinese New Year

4 So far our family has not been big durian fans

5 Getting ready to get pounced on by a dragon at Gardens by the Bay

6 It was so nice getting this late Christmas card from Emily and Whitney!

7 Brainstorming by our Temple Preparation class we just started

8 Institute is back baby!

9-21 Gardens by the Bay Photo Dump