3 July 2017

Last week was June 25-July 1. 

Sunday the 25th:

I went to a brunch at Eve's (relief society leader) house and I met some other sisters in the ward.

There is a new convert in our ward and he was confirmed on Sunday the 25th!

I went to the ward choir kick-off dinner at Brother Wetsel's home. I'm so excited to be singing with such a talented ward. It reminds me of being back in Keller. 

So many of these young single adults play instruments or sing for fun, and this was apparent to me back in May when I went to Chanel and Skeet's open-mic night birthday party. 

Monday the 26th:

After FHE, I went to a Poetry Slam after being recommended to it by Lea from my ward. Since I was a first-timer to a Slam, I was considered unbiased, and I was picked to be a judge with other first-timers. The atmosphere was really fun, but there was some swearing and I felt weird about that.

Tuesday the 27th:

I went to my piano lesson Tuesday night. I'm finally playing intervals and harmonic intervals! Multiple notes are sounding at once! My fingers feel so awkward. I feel like I'm just now discovering how to work my fingers. Afterwards, I went to find this international market that Sister Aversa told me to go to. It is all Central and South American food. It's called La Pequenita, and the cashier was a Spanish-speaker (as expected), but I felt embarrassed with how bad my Spanish conversation speech and comprehension is. I have not had as many opportunities to speak Spanish daily, even though I can read and write emails in Spanish.

Anyway I got some guaraná as instructed by Sister Aversa.

Wednesday the 28th:

I went to my Self-Reliance class that the YSA stake (certain people are picked for the first wave of the course and I happened to be one!). I really like the people there. I hope I can be friends with some of them after the class is over. This week the chapter was about budgets, and it is kind of difficult for me since I don't have a paycheck and I only really pay for gas and food. I'm just glad to talk about budgets in a spiritual setting, because it makes it so much more meaningful.

As a kid, I was obsessed with saving money. I would count up everything and keep a piece of paper to track the balance. I loved reading about the Great Depression because of the ways that people survived with barely any money. I loved the American Girl, Kit, because she was in the Great Depression. I also read the American Girl book, A Smart Girl's Guide to Money, probably more times than I can remember. I wanted to start a business, but I felt that I lacked skills, but I ended up making crocheted jewelry or other weird jewelry. I think I still have kept this side of me because I save my receipts and I scan them and I read a lot of couponing blog posts. Several times, when I haven't been able to sleep, I am up just reading financial advice from random pinterest or google searches. I think some part of my soul always knew a secret about my upcoming future financial troubles that I have been warned of in prayer and in my patriarchal blessing. I have been preparing for it my whole life without realizing.

Thursday the 29th:

So, sadly, my trainees are not as good at Intake as I am. Our Intake pace for June was low and I spent most of my Thursday and Friday bringing our numbers back up. Gary and I are reorganizing our talents to work more effectively, and I admire Gary's management skills very much. 

Thursday evening, I participated in an international conference call with Gary, my supervisor, and a representative of the Korea office, and a representative of the Japan office. The Asia North Area Offices will be helping with QRS Repair! We have to work on training them for future involvement, which might entail their own Asia North version of QRS's work in Intake and Repair. I am very excited because I often have trouble understanding problems or typos when I do not read Japanese or Korean, and now I can more officially send in problems to these translators without worrying that I'm taking up their time. 

Friday the 30th:

Sister Buchanan and Elder Broderick organized a hang-out at the Gateway Mall and I got to try Virtual Reality games for the first time. It's very very weird, especially when the worker asks you if you need help and you can't see him, but you hear him and you know he's right next to you, but all you see in that direction is a zombie or a brick wall.

Saturday July 1st:

Sister Buchanan invited me to be her "plus one" to the Billings Wedding Reception. Andy and Andi were YCSM's at the COB, and I'm pretty sure this is the first marriage out of our group. 

We helped cut up fruit for the refreshment table and then we took some pictures with all the missionaries. I felt weird because I had never really met some of the people that were there, including the married couple. Sister Buchanan started two weeks after I did, but she was the Wrights' assistant and had to visit all of these missionaries, (while I sat in a cubicle and read emails), so she met people more easily. I honestly was jealous of Buchanan when she started because I felt very lonely and friendless and I wished I had assimilated into friendships as easily as she did. Now she and I are friends and it's all good.

Sunday July 2nd:
Brittany Tennant showed up in my ward! Apparently she will be attending the ward for the next few months before she is married!

We had dinner at John Paul's. My extended family discussed my sad life growing up without fry sauce served everywhere. Nana and Grandpa's car picked up tar from the street and the wheels were shaking or something funny like that. I probably would have noticed if I was driving, but as a passenger, I was lost in thought and didn't notice until they pulled off at an exit to check it out.

Monday July 3rd:

I spent most of my mission service adding in new information into issues and reorganizing them into their proper queues: "intake", "repair", and "improve". Improve is the queue for resolved or unresolved issues that we have closed. Gary takes the data in improve and compares it. 

Anyway, the new information that we have to add is "people impacted" using a calculator. It rounds by the thousand. For example, a minor translation problem in the Spanish Book of Mormon affects way more people than a minor translation problem in the Bulgarian Book of Mormon. Not every problem fits so nicely into one product and so I worry if my numbers are accurate enough, and then I try selecting more products and then my numbers are probably not precise enough. 

Oh yeah, so, I'm having a colonoscopy on Wednesday the 5th, so for July 4th, I will be eating jello and drinking juice and broth. I am apparently so great at planning appointments (sarcasm).