Hi All! My name is Linnea Vu, my family and I have been attending Calvary for about 9 months and are so grateful for the community of believers we have found and are starting to get plugged in with here! My husband Josh and I are blessed to be celebrating our 6th wedding Anniversary on June 2nd and we have 2 beautiful girls named Nora (3) and Gracie (8 months).
We have been Rochester area residents for over a decade now and we were both drawn here independently for nursing jobs at Mayo where we both still work. Josh as a nurse manager in the Pediatric ICU and I as a staff nurse in the Neonatal ICU at Eisenberg. We met through the small group ministry of our previous church and later found out we worked just down the hall from each other as we were both pediatric staff nurses at the time. I never thought that I would want to marry a nurse but the Lord’s plans are always better than ours and now I cannot picture life any other way!
What is your favorite bible verse?
Psalm 139- This psalm has been precious to me the past few years. It is so sweet to know that I have a heavenly father that loves and cares about me so much that he searches me and knows me. He hems me in behind and before- nothing in my life is a surprise to him. And yet he is so high and above our comprehension and his thoughts are unsearchable. I just love reading this passage!
What is something that makes a welcoming home?
I have been trying to nail this one down! I think the answer is a mix of service, warmth, food, great conversation and just treating everyone like family! I love it when people feel free to just make themselves at home at our house truly my house is your house get whatever you need. It is weirdly a blessing to my heart to see people feel comfortable enough to help themselves to things around my house. There also seems to be something about allowing others to see that you actually live in your home as opposed to having it immaculate every time people come over. When others see that you are only human it allows them to relax and be human too.
If you had no limitations, what would you do with your life?
Given more time I am sure I could come up with a more out of the box dream. However one that keeps coming up for me is a vision of running a business/ministry situation that joins my nursing profession and my love for hospitality. I picture having a larger plot of peaceful land with 10-15 fully handicap accessible cabins that people could rent who are going through some sort of treatment or recovering from a surgery away from home. It would be a place of hope and healing where Jesus’ presence would be everywhere. I picture gardens where people could sit and be with God and central meeting areas where they could be encouraged by others walking through trials. Josh and I could also serve by doing basic nursing type stuff if our guests needed it- wound care, medication help, education things like that. Just sounds like a lot of great things wrapped into 1!
What is your favorite time of day and why?
I am an evening gal! I love when Josh is home from work and our family is together. I am also much more of a night owl than I am a morning person. The evening and into the night time hours is when I am most productive and get things done! Although when morning rolls around I often wonder why I stayed up so late!
What is your favorite local restaurant and the meal you enjoy eating most when there?
I love Thai Pop! By FAR my favorite restaurant in Rochester! My husband and I have been loving the food there since it was a pop-up restaurant and they would do seasonal tasting events. They would do 8-10 course tasting menus and everything that I tried was delicious- I just love the bold flavors! You really can’t go wrong with anything, but my favorite thing to order is the house curry with rice. I usually ask for the spice to be toned down a bit though because its not just Minnesota spicy it is real spicy!
What is the best dessert you’ve ever had?
I am a big key lime pie fan. One time on vacation my husband and I went out on a date night but we didn’t really want to spend the money on a whole meal so we just went for dessert. We ordered a deconstructed key lime pie that had a lime foam on top- it was DELICIOUS! We should have gone back a second time. That was at least 7 years ago and I still think of it on occasion.
What is one thing (modern convenience) you could not live without?
A: It is hard to narrow it down to just one- however without GPS I probably would be off wandering somewhere unable to find my house filled with my other modern treasures because I am hopelessly directionally challenged. I have tried on many occasions to understand cardinal directions and if I scrunch my forehead and think really hard I could maybe find North on the second try. There are probably no circumstances without GPS in which you would like to choose me as your navigational guide. I follow google maps to the ends of the earth!