Tech Squad / Zombies

4/13/2020

Last Monday night we got an extra calling to be Technology Specialists. I'm trying to get President to rename it the Tech Squad but I'm not sure that will change but that's all right. :) 

Basically our new Facebook initiative is that we will have local church pages covering a few cities or areas and will post spiritual thoughts, events coming up in the area such as service activities and pinewood derby events and all the fun things that no one is allowed to do right now, and other such fun things. It will be so awesome! Anyway we have 3 sets of missionaries who were called to the tech squad and we are in charge of four areas, which we split into six. (the set of Elders in our squad is in charge of the other half of the mission and the other sisters are in charge of all the Spanish pages). They should be up and fully running by next week, it's gonna be AWESOME. 

We are also in charge of sending out guidelines on how to use Facebook (i.e., suggesting videos be 30 - 90 seconds, three minutes max, instead of hour long videos). It's been kinda fun because I have dabbled in advertising ish stuff before so the guidelines they reviewed on how to be more effective, I already knew most of them. So I felt smart this week. Yay! 

Sister Evans is so fun, she is just so great. She also likes Christmas. 

Anyway this week has been crazy. We have had 8 meetings in one week, for various parts of both our callings. We are also trying to get to know all the members in both wards without being able to go to church and see them all. We also had to create our 6 pages and schedule posts for them for the next few days. Also there was a day when the wifi was down at our church building so that was complicated. 

Honestly I can't even remember what I've told you in the past. It has been such a crazy week, I love having so much work to do! It just kinda all blends. 

Well, life is great. During this isolation thing, don't forget that now is the perfect time to draw closer to Christ. Study the scriptures, the Bible and the Book of Mormon, to learn more of Him so you can better follow him. ComeUntoChrist.org has some great videos to watch about Christ. 

Also here's a weird picture of us in masks. 

********************************* 4/20/2020

This week was awesome! I feel like I say that a lot. BUT IT'S SO TRUE. 

We have so much awesome stuff to do! We have lots of members to work with and share messages with (over video call), we have some great people we are teaching, and we have our Facebook thing. Our calling for that is Technology specialists but that sounds boring so we renamed it Tech Squad. 

Sister Evans is great at writing so last transfer she wrote a story of how Corona escalated to have people's brains degenerate before death, aka turning into zombies. And then wrote a story about how a team of missionaries ran around trying to avoid zombies. 

Our ward members here are so amazing, and so willing to help. They have been helping us out a lot by having video lessons with us, giving us food, helping us find people to teach and share messages of hope with, etc. 

We spent like 15 hours this week working on Facebook and getting in contact with missionaries so we can have fun content on our pages. 

We also met this cool lady named Penny (really weird teaching someone with that name) and we did a Bible study with her! She was prepping for a Bible class with some questions that she was supposed to answer before going so we helped her with that. We thought she was studying Joshua 1 and she was studying like 20 chapters of Joshua plus a few things from Genesis. So we came prepared, but since it was more than we thought, most of it we were quickly scanning through the chapters for the details she had questions about. 

We did a lot of driving, we dropped some stuff off to our sisters that we are over and that was fun. Road trip! 

We had a virtual church meeting for 50 minutes with the missionaries in our district and we went on a tangent about Star Wars (which I mean is valid, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, etc. all have a lot of connections to gospel concepts and teachings, it is just a weird topic for a church meeting). 

We also had virtual exchanges! We did a companion study with sisters in one of the areas we are over and it was fun. Very weird and different, but fun. Normally exchanges you switch companions for 24 hours (exchanges are done with big shots, so regular missionaries dont go on exchanges with regular missionaries, everyone just goes with someone who is a bigger bigshot than them), which is a fun way to see how other people teach and get new ideas. 

We also got to drop off stuff at some apartments so that was a great driving adventure. We stayed 6 ft apart when dropping stuff off. 

We also dropped off our car in Forest Grove, 1 hour away, to get our car fixed because the missionaries before us got it dented. We got to pick it up on Wednesday and it was so nice to have a car again. 

Also we did Family History Friday again this week! If you haven't seen them go check them out on my Facebook page. We totally spaced 2 weeks ago about doing it, but we will remember this week!  Check out my beautiful pictures with my face and Sister Evan's inserted.

Ya'll are fantastic people.  Keep up the good work.

Also if you are interested, a lot of missionaries are sharing short messages of hope during this time. It can just be 20 - 30 minutes, and they can share a short message of hope with you! We have doing these and sharing scriptures from Bible or Book of Mormon and how they bring hope. Let me know if you are interested and I can connect you with the missionaries in your area!  

Sister Lake

1200 Country Club Rd, Apt 109

Woodburn OR 97071

penelope.lake@missionary.org