Dear Family,
Today we are celebrating our 43rd wedding anniversary. In some ways it seems like a long time to be married because it is hard to remember not having my sweetheart around, but time has seemed to fly and I don’t know where all of that time has gone. I wonder what I have accomplished and if I am any better than I was back then. Now I need to make some plans so that there will be more growth for the future.
This has been a good week—maybe that is because we had a little more discretionary time. Sometimes it seems that we get up in the morning and go into the office before it gets too light and come home after dark in the evening with not a lot of energy to much after we get home. There is still WES stuff for us (mostly Dad) to take care of, but we are grateful that we are on the east coast giving us 3 hours to be able to communicate with those back at WES. Heavenly Father was aware of what our needs would be and arranged for a way to take care of them even if we had not planned on having those needs.
This week was the week where I pay all of the apartment rents. That runs over $170,000 and creates over 90 checks to be printed. I can’t imagine coming up with that amount of money on a monthly basis just to pay the rent. But I don’t have to. I just have to write the checks and mail them. That’s one nice thing about doing the bookkeeping for the mission—no money worries. We like to do the rent a little early in the month because of the poor mail service here, but I am not supposed to send them before the 17th of the month. The 17th was a Saturday this month so I couldn’t send them until Monday. That put them a little later in the month than usual especially because one set of 15 checks didn’t print. I called Salt Lake to see if there was a way for me to get the checks printed with a second try, but after talking with several 1st and 2nd tier helpers the result was that I had to shred blank checks, cancel the vouchers and start over on those checks getting another mission President’s approval and everything. That wouldn’t have been so bad except that his family was here for the Thanksgiving holiday and he was a little slower getting the approval done so that I could print the checks. I wasn’t too happy that I had to shred 15 perfectly good checks, but at the same time was grateful that it was only 15. I guess that there was a reason that the previous secretaries didn’t do the whole batch at once. There are so many steps in the printing process and my computer is a bit slow that it is a real temptation to do more at once.
Tuesday was a quiet day for us at the office because the other two senior couples were off at the Return and Report meeting. They do that luncheon for the missionaries. I seem to get more done when there are fewer people there. And with the utility bills coming in both through the mail and through email and with trying to get the 15 rent checks done, I needed to get lots done.
We left work a little early—just a little after 5—and went to what we thought was an Air Force band concert with volunteers from the audience singing along with one of the songs. We knew it was a video taping for their annual video and were looking forward to seeing The National Cathedral and hearing the band/vocals. We got to see a little more of Washington, D.C. than we had planned on because of the lack of road signs or late directions from our GPS, but arrived in plenty of time. The Cathedral was beautiful and huge. We would have taken pictures of the outside of it, but we couldn’t get far enough away to get the top and the bottom of the building in the picture. When we got there we discovered that it wasn’t a concert, but just the video taping of the volunteers and the band doing the one section of the song. It was very interesting and fun to be directed in where we were to stand and move and when to sing. There were around 200 people and it was fun to get to know some of them. The song is One Voice. The director of the band explained that with all of the divisiveness in the world they wanted to do something that would talk about the unity of the human race. Anyway, it will view December 1st—I think on YouTube. During one of the takes, they had the members of the chorus come and mingle with the volunteers and one of them stood right by me. Boy, did he have a nice voice! I asked how hard it was to get into the band and he said he didn’t really know, but when he auditioned there were 70 applicants for one opening. I also asked if they were permanently assigned to Washington, D.C. and he said that the enlisted people were, but the officers got rotated in and out. Fun evening.
Wednesday seemed like a Friday and a holiday too. It was a little hard to keep focused. One of the couples left about 2:30 and we left early too at 4:30. It was fun to look ahead to a nice long week end. We had to do a little grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and groceries for us and were surprised with the lack of people.
Thursday we had a slow start to our morning and enjoyed being able to get up and do our reading in the morning. By 11:30 we were ready for a nice walk. The weather was a bit chilly even by my standards. The temperatures were in the low 30’s with a stiff breeze—that’s what made it cold. We went on a walk through the woods that begin about 30 yards from our apartment. As we walked down into the valley, the wind was gone and the temperature was great. We met a neighbor coming back along the path and he explained that there are toys hidden around. We had seen a turkey perched on the top of a stump, but didn’t know that it was part of the objects left by people. The object was to find them and then hide them in another place. I think that people are just too bored doing their exercising and need something to entertain them. But we did start looking for the items as we walked along. We went until we came to the creek that had to be crossed on concrete pillars that were about 18 inches above the water. I thought it might be too cold if I by chance ended up in the creek on my way across. We will have to try the crossing on a warmer day.
We came home and fixed our green salad and got ready to go to our Thanksgiving dinner with two other senior missionary couples. Since none of us have kitchens big enough to cook in together, we opted to order our dinner from Cracker Barrel. It was okay, but certainly not as good as what we remember from home. Maybe that had something to do with not being with family. After dinner we played games and had a good time. Another senior couple joined us for games and pie. Again, it is good to be here with such good people.
Friday, I finally got notification that the President had approved my rent checks and I wanted to get them in the mail as quickly as I could. Dad and I went into the office so I could print and mail the checks and he could work on letters he is rewriting for the President. I also saw a notice on my IMOS home page telling me that I had 3 days before they did the base pay for the missionaries. I hadn’t seen that notice before I left on Wednesday and realized that I had only three days to get it ready!! I could see that I had something in the afternoon to do. While we were there the other two office couples came in to do a few things that they needed to do. We got the mail for one of the zones and delivered it to the zone leaders. We went on another walk in the forest, but went left at the bridge instead of right to see what there was to see. The path to the right is much more scenic. We went back to the office for the third time to get some passwords that I couldn’t get to work at home. I couldn’t get them to work at the office either. Augh, what was I going to do? I tried to get all of the information in as much order as I could with the information that I had so that maybe I could get into the office on Monday before they ran the deposits. Just before going to bed, I decided to try one more time to get into the system and was able to reset the pass word and get the report that I needed! I at least had an hour or so tonight to work on it and some time on Saturday. I, as always, need to get the President’s approval before any money is spent, so I need to get in touch with him before the week end is over.
Saturday we had rain and it made it seem like a good idea to stay in doors. We did little things around the apartment and put up the Christmas decorations that had been left by the previous missionaries. There were two stockings, a self-lighted 4-foot tree, and little nativity. Not a lot, but one good thing is that it didn’t take long to put the things up, nor will it take very long to put away.
Today we had a good set of meetings. We enjoy our ward here a lot. There are lots of good people who are very welcoming and talented. Good examples for us. Well that about does it for the week. We love you lots and think of you often. You are also in our prayers always.
Love you lots,
Mom
Today we are celebrating our 43rd wedding anniversary. In some ways it seems like a long time to be married because it is hard to remember not having my sweetheart around, but time has seemed to fly and I don’t know where all of that time has gone. I wonder what I have accomplished and if I am any better than I was back then. Now I need to make some plans so that there will be more growth for the future.
This has been a good week—maybe that is because we had a little more discretionary time. Sometimes it seems that we get up in the morning and go into the office before it gets too light and come home after dark in the evening with not a lot of energy to much after we get home. There is still WES stuff for us (mostly Dad) to take care of, but we are grateful that we are on the east coast giving us 3 hours to be able to communicate with those back at WES. Heavenly Father was aware of what our needs would be and arranged for a way to take care of them even if we had not planned on having those needs.
This week was the week where I pay all of the apartment rents. That runs over $170,000 and creates over 90 checks to be printed. I can’t imagine coming up with that amount of money on a monthly basis just to pay the rent. But I don’t have to. I just have to write the checks and mail them. That’s one nice thing about doing the bookkeeping for the mission—no money worries. We like to do the rent a little early in the month because of the poor mail service here, but I am not supposed to send them before the 17th of the month. The 17th was a Saturday this month so I couldn’t send them until Monday. That put them a little later in the month than usual especially because one set of 15 checks didn’t print. I called Salt Lake to see if there was a way for me to get the checks printed with a second try, but after talking with several 1st and 2nd tier helpers the result was that I had to shred blank checks, cancel the vouchers and start over on those checks getting another mission President’s approval and everything. That wouldn’t have been so bad except that his family was here for the Thanksgiving holiday and he was a little slower getting the approval done so that I could print the checks. I wasn’t too happy that I had to shred 15 perfectly good checks, but at the same time was grateful that it was only 15. I guess that there was a reason that the previous secretaries didn’t do the whole batch at once. There are so many steps in the printing process and my computer is a bit slow that it is a real temptation to do more at once.
Tuesday was a quiet day for us at the office because the other two senior couples were off at the Return and Report meeting. They do that luncheon for the missionaries. I seem to get more done when there are fewer people there. And with the utility bills coming in both through the mail and through email and with trying to get the 15 rent checks done, I needed to get lots done.
We left work a little early—just a little after 5—and went to what we thought was an Air Force band concert with volunteers from the audience singing along with one of the songs. We knew it was a video taping for their annual video and were looking forward to seeing The National Cathedral and hearing the band/vocals. We got to see a little more of Washington, D.C. than we had planned on because of the lack of road signs or late directions from our GPS, but arrived in plenty of time. The Cathedral was beautiful and huge. We would have taken pictures of the outside of it, but we couldn’t get far enough away to get the top and the bottom of the building in the picture. When we got there we discovered that it wasn’t a concert, but just the video taping of the volunteers and the band doing the one section of the song. It was very interesting and fun to be directed in where we were to stand and move and when to sing. There were around 200 people and it was fun to get to know some of them. The song is One Voice. The director of the band explained that with all of the divisiveness in the world they wanted to do something that would talk about the unity of the human race. Anyway, it will view December 1st—I think on YouTube. During one of the takes, they had the members of the chorus come and mingle with the volunteers and one of them stood right by me. Boy, did he have a nice voice! I asked how hard it was to get into the band and he said he didn’t really know, but when he auditioned there were 70 applicants for one opening. I also asked if they were permanently assigned to Washington, D.C. and he said that the enlisted people were, but the officers got rotated in and out. Fun evening.
Wednesday seemed like a Friday and a holiday too. It was a little hard to keep focused. One of the couples left about 2:30 and we left early too at 4:30. It was fun to look ahead to a nice long week end. We had to do a little grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and groceries for us and were surprised with the lack of people.
Thursday we had a slow start to our morning and enjoyed being able to get up and do our reading in the morning. By 11:30 we were ready for a nice walk. The weather was a bit chilly even by my standards. The temperatures were in the low 30’s with a stiff breeze—that’s what made it cold. We went on a walk through the woods that begin about 30 yards from our apartment. As we walked down into the valley, the wind was gone and the temperature was great. We met a neighbor coming back along the path and he explained that there are toys hidden around. We had seen a turkey perched on the top of a stump, but didn’t know that it was part of the objects left by people. The object was to find them and then hide them in another place. I think that people are just too bored doing their exercising and need something to entertain them. But we did start looking for the items as we walked along. We went until we came to the creek that had to be crossed on concrete pillars that were about 18 inches above the water. I thought it might be too cold if I by chance ended up in the creek on my way across. We will have to try the crossing on a warmer day.
We came home and fixed our green salad and got ready to go to our Thanksgiving dinner with two other senior missionary couples. Since none of us have kitchens big enough to cook in together, we opted to order our dinner from Cracker Barrel. It was okay, but certainly not as good as what we remember from home. Maybe that had something to do with not being with family. After dinner we played games and had a good time. Another senior couple joined us for games and pie. Again, it is good to be here with such good people.
Friday, I finally got notification that the President had approved my rent checks and I wanted to get them in the mail as quickly as I could. Dad and I went into the office so I could print and mail the checks and he could work on letters he is rewriting for the President. I also saw a notice on my IMOS home page telling me that I had 3 days before they did the base pay for the missionaries. I hadn’t seen that notice before I left on Wednesday and realized that I had only three days to get it ready!! I could see that I had something in the afternoon to do. While we were there the other two office couples came in to do a few things that they needed to do. We got the mail for one of the zones and delivered it to the zone leaders. We went on another walk in the forest, but went left at the bridge instead of right to see what there was to see. The path to the right is much more scenic. We went back to the office for the third time to get some passwords that I couldn’t get to work at home. I couldn’t get them to work at the office either. Augh, what was I going to do? I tried to get all of the information in as much order as I could with the information that I had so that maybe I could get into the office on Monday before they ran the deposits. Just before going to bed, I decided to try one more time to get into the system and was able to reset the pass word and get the report that I needed! I at least had an hour or so tonight to work on it and some time on Saturday. I, as always, need to get the President’s approval before any money is spent, so I need to get in touch with him before the week end is over.
Saturday we had rain and it made it seem like a good idea to stay in doors. We did little things around the apartment and put up the Christmas decorations that had been left by the previous missionaries. There were two stockings, a self-lighted 4-foot tree, and little nativity. Not a lot, but one good thing is that it didn’t take long to put the things up, nor will it take very long to put away.
Today we had a good set of meetings. We enjoy our ward here a lot. There are lots of good people who are very welcoming and talented. Good examples for us. Well that about does it for the week. We love you lots and think of you often. You are also in our prayers always.
Love you lots,
Mom
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| Chapel - The National Cathedral |
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| Choir Loft - National Cathedral |
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| Main Chapel - National Cathedral |
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| Garn with mail. |
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| The rest of the mail. |
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| Our Christmas tree |
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| Bridge - Our Forest |
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| Gnome at base of tree. |
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