Last Devotional Talk (kind of), New Computer, and Navigation in Protest Territory

I guess it must be the season again. It seems whenever General Conference comes closer, the world just wants to have a fit. I don't get to read a lot of news. But, even just by being in proximity to Headquarters we see a lot of the effects.

With the Coronavirus picking up outside of China, we as church workforce are placed under the same rules the CDC recommends, with a bit more added on. No more shaking hands until further notice (mission president changed that from just minimizing it), two meters of proximity between coughing and sneezing people, etc.

On another note, there was also a protest yesterday. For the afternoon part, we just had a nice time sitting back and working in the library. By the time we left they were busy parading around. Getting to night zone though, that was tricky. Church History- Special Projects is a bit of a versatile zone. They can set up shop almost anywhere. However, in order to have and undisturbed and suitable location, we work in the mission office in the Joseph Smith building.  After dinner, they having made their way back to the COB as well as in the middle of headquarters campus, we had to tread a bit carefully. The funny thing, is as we're about to cross north temple by the administration block security pulls up next to us to cross as well. We crossed the street, and before getting to the JSMB we turned right towards the front of the COB, having to pass two protesting groups on the way, and entered the back entrance. By the time we got to the building, security had told those in the center to get lost. Overall an interesting time.

Now that I've told you all the gloomier stuff, things have been going well for us up here. The work still moves along and we're doing what we can to chip in. Honestly, things have still been on the slower side this past week. I honestly feel like there's going to be a swarm one of these days. We're still getting a lot of South American histories, with a few from the states. Translation tools have been my friend lately. The Oral Histories part of the project I work on for night zone, hasn't had much to assign lately. It's nearing completion and we'll see what happens after that. For the most part, night zone has been spent improving the computers in our work area. A lot of them are quite out of date. But, getting  better.

On Monday I spoke in our mission Monday morning devotional. They usually have all departing young Elders talk about what has helped them grow spiritually while on the mission. 34 young Elders go home on June 30. So, they're having to get our group in early. Four of our group spoke and nailed the time expectation almost too well. If it wasn't for our mission president we would of been able to leave early. I think it was a bit under scheduled for how long they asked us to go for.

I've also had my workstation replaced, with an older one by about a year. However, it has a lot more functionality installed. So I'm not disappointed.

That's pretty much it for the week!

-Elder Hall