Technical Difficulties

What does technology do for the world? Lots of things. It's the information age for a reason. We can quickly look up knowledge at the click of a button, or get to know someone the same way, contact someone on the other side of the world instantly, and even know what each other are doing every minute of every day if we so choose. But, you want to know what else it does after empowering us? It cripples us if it malfunctions. That is what I want to talk about. The crippling effects of technology.

We went to Bucuresti this week for a surprise mission conference. Everyone was there. We were also having a transfer day. This was a stupendous opportunity to see everyone and rejoice in success and support each other in trial. However, for the missionaries from Chisinau, this means our phones do not work in Romania. This wasn't too big of a problem but we forgot to call the Young Women's president before we crossed the border, oops. That, too, wasn't so bad, we would do it the next day when we came back. That night, while we were all waiting for our train and train tickets (20 minutes before the train left) we were told to buy our own! We couldn't. There was no time. It was not possible! We had 10 people needing to buy tickets. We also had all the luggage from the new missionaries and supplies from the office. Instead, we stayed the night and the next day in order to catch the next train. There is only 1 train a day that goes to Chisinau. It was fun and we definitely learned a lot, but the whole thing happened because of technology. We have only one phone that works in Romania (it belongs to the DL) and it was forgotten in Moldova. So, we couldn't be told that we needed to buy tickets, nor could we call anyone to find out if we needed to.

Once we got back to Moldova, we had to do some damage repair and figure out what was going on. It was like things were starting to fall apart and we had to fix some of our retaining walls. The lesson learned: technology cripples us from learning to act and plan without being able to contact each other 24/7. It's a double edged sword. I'm just annoyed that we don't just talk about our plans with each other in person. It's always seems to be, "I'll call you and we'll set it up." Why can't we just come to a consensus right there in person!