Another Week at the Office

 Dear Family,

First of all, big congratulations to Jak for graduating this week and to all of you for completing another year of school! You all never stop impressing me and Grandpa! So proud of you all this week!

As for our week? Sometimes missionary work is just that-work!  This week was one of those weeks. We put in long days at the office, coming home in time to eat a simple dinner before falling into bed. Grandpa's work continues to be demanding and interesting. The legal issues are complex and all of them feel critical. The big difference I see now as I watch him go to work, as compared to the many years previous to this, is that the work here seems to have much more meaning to him. Before, his legal work was centered around helping people get out of business scrapes, botched contracts, complicated leases, banking regulations etc, and while it mattered it never managed to keep him at the office much past 6:00 and he always took a real lunch break. But here the issues are making sure congregations have a place to meet, working our property regulations on temple properties, helping members with employment contracts, and wrestling legal issues thrown at the church through government regulations. Every question wants an immediate answer and he eats lunch at his desk, works till 7 without batting an eye, and goes on Saturday without complaint if it's necessary. 

Gratefully, I also have work that I love. I'm even learning to love my work with the translations department, although that's been slow in coming. But what a gift it is to spend some time every day helping people get to the temple. (I'll just warn you right now that when we get home I hope we can kick up our family temple experiences a notch!) I'm also so grateful for the chance to work on the Primary training for the Asia Area. After Cambodia it's exciting for me to feel like I can still do something to help the emerging church. I'm sure you'll hear more about all these jobs as the months go by, but I'll just say this at this point. Every department in the Asia Area subscribes to Jenni's belief that there is nothing that can't be solved, figured out, or enhanced by an excel spreadsheet! I am definitely learning the wonders of excel!

Cindy continues to study with us and the missionaries. She is thoughtful and earnest in her exploration of the gospel. She asks searching questions trying to understand who God is and how his plan works Why did he want us to come to earth? Why did he create 3 kingdoms of heaven? How does agency work inside of God's plan? How does He know all of us? Because she has absolutely no Christian back ground or exposure every bit of the good news of the gospel is new to her. And yet she's soaking it up like a sponge. I love to hear her pray because her language is completely conversational as she talks to God. We went early to her church today so we could participate in a lesson before going to our own ward. As she closed the lesson with a prayer she said, "Thank you so much God, sometimes when I pray I feels like you are right beside me, and I like that feeling." After the lesson we took her to the Mandarin Branch and stayed till after the sacrament when we had to leave to our own ward. We heard later that after we left she, on her own, bore her testimony at the fast and testimony meeting. The report is that she said she had never been so happy! We continue to pray for her every day. 

With all the work, we still made time to play table tennis Tuesday and Thursday.

This week our table tennis partner Michael brought us some white asparagus that his mother sent him from mainland China. His mother farms it and it's only available in the spring months. It sells for $30 a pound, so this was no small gift. And it was delicious.


I go walking most mornings and if I time it right I get totally charmed by a street artist.

I don't know why he does it but this gentleman uses what looks like a giant q-tip and paints Chinese characters on the sidewalk with water. You have to walk by at just the right moment because they evaporate so fast, sometimes I only see the disappearing remnants, but one day this week I got to see them complete. He paints in all the black tiles so it takes up the whole promenade and people just walk right over it.

I have no idea what it says, but I just think it is so beautiful. 


And Saturday we actually took the whole day off, cleaning our apartment, as good missionaries should do, doing laundry, fixing some food for next week and then we got to go to the market! I love street markets and the absence of them in America is one of America's greatest flaws!






We love you, every single one of you and hope you have a good week!

Love Grandma and Grandpa

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