At this age, things are supposed to settle down and be more predictable. Yea, right!
When I awoke this morning, it took a minute to realize that I was in our apartment in International Falls, MN. Yesterday we attended church in the U.S., then drove across the bridge to Canada and attended church there as well.
A week ago, we were in Winnipeg, Canada, four hours from here, where we attended church with two different congregations in the same building.
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We have started publishing faith stories in the native tongue of a wide variety of Church members. This has us both in a mind flip since we speak none of the languages, yet need to use AI to translate the raw language into English. Then we prayerfully determine what the words mean so it makes sense in English. It’s a very humbling challenge.
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We recorded the faith testimony of a woman who speaks Swahili. The next day we captured the story of a man from the Philipines who speaks Tagalog. The day after that, we drove two hours and recorded another story in Shona, the language spoken in Zimbabwe. That was a 12-hour day and we ended back here in the U.S. late at night.
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It’s small wonder our brains are constantly flipping this way and that.
- What country are we in?
- What currency do we use?
- Is distance measured in miles or kilometers?
- What can we not take across the border?
- When will we shift to Winnipeg for a week, then back to the U.S.?
- How can we best help local members?
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For those who like predictability and comfort, this would not be the mission for you. But for those who want to stretch their brain and continue to learn new things even at this age, this would be just the ticket. We might prefer being somewhere in between.
We attend church with a wonderful mix of races.
We hosted a new missionary couple, fresh from the Missionary Training Center in Provo Utah.
As we hoped, we are indeed meeting people from around the world who have come to central Canada for a better life.