A new job for me! Executive Assistant to Elder Boom, the new Europe North Area President

For my own records, here's the story how I got my new job as Executive Assistant to Elder Boom, the Area President for the brand new Europe North Area Church Headquarter: 

Before we moved to England, I wasn’t so sure what job I was going to get. I thought it would be great to have a paid or a volunteer job that has something to do with refugees. Several interesting things happened when we arrived that let to a surprising job for me:

We arrived on Saturday, Aug. 6^th. On Sunday we went to church and when we got out of our car, the very first person we met in the UK was Elder Whiting from the Area presidency.  He told us in the parking lot that he just arrived here from Frankfurt and that there is going to be a new Europe North area and asked us if any of us are looking for a new job. I said, I guess I could look for a job. Later I found out that 10 years ago there was a church HQ in Surrey, and that the church owned those offices till about 2 years ago but now sold them. Since then there was just a HQ in Frankfurt and then later a HQ in Russia. The church decided the end of March after Ukraine war basically shut down the Europe East area to move the Europe East Area president Elder Boom and his counselor Elder Whiting from Russia, temporally to Latvia and then created the Europe North Area near London with Elder Boom as president and Elder Whiting as 1^st counselor and Elder Phillips (from the UK) as 2^nd counselor. They picked High Wycombe as the location because of its proximity to London but still outside of the very busy M25 (Motorway). This new area presidency started functioning in June from abroad, while they were waiting for their visas. Elder Whiting received his visa first beginning of August and Elder Boom followed a few weeks later. So by “coincidence” we arrived at the same time Elder Whiting arrived.

I gave my resume to the DTA (Director of Temporal Affairs). Soon thereafter I received an email to interview for the position as executive assistant to the area presidency. I told HR before that I was interested in working for refugees, so maybe welfare dept. or something related with family resources and use my degree. So, I was a bit surprised by that position that was proposed. However, I figured I’ll go for it. It took 4 interviews before I received a job offer. There were many applicants to sort through and between each interview about 1 month passed. The 4^th interview was with the Welfare dept. After that it took about 1 week from HR to call me and say that the church wants to offer me a job, not in the welfare dept., but they felt strongly that I needed to be working directly with the area presidency. So, this is how I became the executive assistant to the area presidency. I started being trained on Nov. 14^th in the temporary office in the High Wycombe chapel. (That was also the day I hurried and bought a car for me, since taking the bus would take 1 hour - if the bus shows up!) After one week the DTA met with Lesley, the other executive assistant to the area presidency and Michela, the DTA’s executive assistant and he told us that he wants me to be the executive assistant for the President, Elder Boom and Lesley the exec. Ass. for Elder Whiting and Elder Phillips.

Here's the temporary office at the High Wycombe Chapel: Lesley and I were there from Nov. 14th to Dec. 2nd

Finally, on Dec. 6th we got to move to the new office building in Wooburn Green, just 7 minutes east of the Chapel. The heater did not work, so I was dressed with everything I had on that first day. (It also snowed that day, and my car's battery was dead, so I had to get a ride from Josh). The toilets on the main floor did not flush, so there's quite a bit of work to be done in these new offices! Also, the second floor needs lots of renovation, so at first, people will be working on the main floor. 

Christmas dinner at the Cliveden manor with the area presidency and some other core people of the Area presidency staff. (The Cliveden manor btw is famous because Megan Markle spent the night there before her wedding.) 

My coworkers: Lesley, Michela and I. 

3.5 hour most fancy meal I've ever had. 

Jan. 29th, 2023

Working for Elder Boom has been amazing. I feel like I hit the General Authority jackpot. He is so easygoing, friendly and great to work with. Currently I am helping him plan 5 upcoming trips that are all in planning stages. Amazing how much stamina these General Authorities have! It's also exciting to help set up the new area office, from anything as simple as buying paper clips, to figuring what software to use to manage all the upcoming projects, etc. etc. 

Today in church our ward basically doubled from just a month ago. So many new employees have moved into our ward. It's great and challenging at the same time. Our experience moving here has been invaluable with all the new move ins. The timing is truly amazing, coming here 4-5 months before all of these new employees arrived and are still coming from all over the world and having gone through everything they are going through now.