We hope you all enjoyed the tour of our home. Now you have a little bit of a visual for where we are spending our time when we're home. Thanks to each of you for helping it to feel like our home, filled with smiles of those we love.
A huge chunk of our waking hours are spent at the "bureau" or office. The office is about a 5 minute walk from our home, so we walk there, home for lunch and back again. We've spent lots of hours trying to pick the brain of Sœur (Sister) Hunter before she leaves us. Sœur Hunter is an amazing woman who is very fun and funny. She loves people and working and being distracted and getting lots done. She has had a career as an accountant and has spent many years doing accounting in church positions professionally. Sœur Hunter did a one-year mission as the financial secretary at the mission office here, and then just kept doing it for two more years because she could and there was no one else available to do it. Her husband, Frère (Brother) Hunter, has been the Patriarch in their stake for several years and is a sweet and humble man. He has helped her for the last couple of years, because she wears many hats and he's retired and can lend a hand.
About a year ago, they were approached and asked if they would help fill a critical need in the New Caledonia mission office. They agreed and have been waiting to have it all become official. They received their call eventually and were asked to report to the MTC in New Zealand on July 18th. Just as we were feeling glad that we'd have them around for a couple more weeks, they received a call saying that the person they are replacing needs emergency knee surgery, so they are skipping the MTC all together and heading to New Caledonia this coming Saturday!
That news took the air out of Grandma for awhile, since she is only now accepting the fact that we are doing FINANCES (and medical, and flights between islands for transfers and zone conferences, and emails, and mission orders, and helping with housing and bikes and cars and misc anything and everything) all in french, typing on a funky french keyboard where several key letters are placed in slightly different places, and did I mention that it's ALL IN FRENCH?????
Really, working with them has been very sweet, she speaks enough english to help me out and Grandpa is getting LOTS of exercise with his french. It has definitely been a head and heart adjustment to figure out that what I had in mind and what I was trained for at the MTC is NOT what we are doing! Many tears and prayers and just facing and doing... God is helping it come together.
We love you all - God answers prayers, He knows our needs and He hears us always.
Grandma
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