Pandemic COVID

Little prepared were we for the COVID-19 pandemic when it hit this year.  It literally turned our lives up-side-down and inside-out.  Almost every public social event was canceled, including the Montgomery Branch's Chinese New Year celebration and the Parkland's neighborhood Chinese New Year celebration, which we were helping to organize.  But even more taxing an influence was the every day impact it would have on us for a while to come.  Starting March 15, all physical church meetings were canceled for a while.  Beginning March 16, at NIST we were ordered to start teleworking every day. In Maryland, the Stay at Home order was issued on March 30, prohibiting all gatherings of more than 10 people.

On March 18, we spontaneously decided to drive to Utah during a snowstorm in order to take Li-Fang's parents to Utah (after staying with us for 6 months) and to take Megan home from BYU.  Of course, we took a longer circuitous route through Oklahoma and New Mexico to avoid the snowstorm in Colorado.  In doing so, we drove through some very heavy winds and rain along the way.  Needless to say, our short trip was made in a period of 5 days.  We drove for 2.5 days there, rested an hour by eating lunch with Joshua, and we immediately turned around and drove back in 2.5 days.  We left Maryland on Wednesday morning and returning late Sunday after midnight at 2:30am.  Then it was our blessing to have Megan with us for the next 8 months.

Our lives since then has been online.  In a very short period of time, I had to learn how to conduct online classes on Zoom.  Zoom became part of our every day lives.  In addition, our children started using House Party, which became another integral part of our lives.  In a way, the pandemic forced us to start interacting with our families and friends virtually.  It gave us time to think about what was most important to us individually and as families.  It has been an immense blessing in disguise, a silver lining in our lives.