Moments to remember...

It's no secret that I love my job. I love just about everything about it, except perhaps that it takes me 45 to 60 minutes each way to work here. Aside from that the last 4 years and 3 months have been a total life changing experience for me. I have met some of the most amazing people and work with people I call friends everyday. As I was sitting at my desk, I began to recall some of my favorite moments of working at Free Wheelchair Mission that I never want to forget, so here's a few to remember.

* The day I was going through a cabinet in my office and found a book entitled; God Loves You My Muslim Friend. Laughter ensued between my office mate and I, only at Free Wheelchair Mission would you find a book like that.

* The day that I was told by a co-worker, in the most polite way ever, I might add, that I am going to go to hell for my beliefs, of which I responded, I am certainly glad I don't believe that, and offered up a Book of Mormon, this person did not accept it, but we hugged it out.

* The day everyone in the office put on a fake mustache to suprise our President, who has an iconic mustache with a birthday cake.

* The day a well respected pastor and Christian from Sri Lanka asked me all about Mormons, as they do not have any in Sri Lanka and he wanted to know all there was to know.

* The time we painted the walls in the office without the landlords approval, only for him to be royally pissed off and make us paint it back to white.

*The day I was supervising our office move and had hired Starving Students Moving Company to move some of the more expensive items, we didn't want to move ourselves, only to watch them drop the donated glass conference table (Valued at a couple thousand dollars)and have it shatter to pieces. (Never hire Starving Students to do a move)

* The number of times I've been addressed as Mr. Whitney Blaesser (people in the developing wold have a hard time understanding how a woman could have a title like International Operations Manager)

* The number of times I've mistakenly used improper gender identify as well... I mean c'mon, would you know if Shenaaz El-Halabi from Botswana was a male or female if they had just sent you an email?

*The days we get mail with stamps on them from foreign countries, we have a bulletin board collection going.

* The IT guy that leave trails of animal crackers around the office.

* The opportunities I've had to read talks from church authorities as a staff devotional and then have staff members ask me to send them the link to the talks afterwards.

*The fact that whenever there is a phone call into the office from someone with a heavy accent it is transferred to me to decipher.

*The time when I had a broken leg, and my wonderful co-workers all took such good care of me, from getting me to work, to bringing me my lunch, and everything in between.

*The time we had to work at the Huntington Beach Marathon in the pouring rain, and we did it all with a smile. Here's picture proof, my co-worker Tony and I setting up tables, it's dark because it's 5 am.


* The office pot lucks and the fact that if you ever bring in a plate of goodies it's gone by 11 am.

* The fact that everyday when I get to work, the first thing I do is read a story from one of our parnters in the field, about someone who's life was changed forever.

There are so many more moments, I hope to remember forever, but what I've come to realize is that having a job is the best thing in the world, as long as you love what you do and are actively engaged and work with others that are too. It makes coming home from vacation easy, and Sunday nights, not so hard. It makes all the difference in the world really.

Lastly, I'll never forget the first time I saw this video in 2007... seriously it's remained one of my favorites to this day, and we have a lot of videos. We didn't even create this one, but one of the partners I work with did! Happy day. Enjoy!