Dear Family,
Here I am writing you from a wet and cloudy state. We are kind of glad to have the rain come and melt some of the snow so that with all of the new missionaries coming in on Monday and “finished” missionaries leaving on Wednesday we can do all of the traveling and transferring a little easier.
Monday started out with even more snow on our car and more snow on the roads because it had snowed during the night. Dad went out to clean off the car while I finished getting ready to find that someone had already cleaned the care off and cleared an area around the car so we could get in without getting our feet too snowy. How kind was that?! When we went out to the care to leave a neighbor was out cleaning some of the cars and we asked if he had done it and he said no, but that our neighbor who lives just in front of us had done it. What a nice act of service that was! And what a nice way to start the day!
It has been a little more hectic and unsettled at the office this week. The housing/nurse couple are training the new couple that was transferred to the office and that makes their leaving a little more real. We knew the vehicle/reference secretary couple would be leaving the first of March and have been gearing up to training their replacements that will be coming the middle of February so we feel that change coming in the near future. With this new change (that we had mentally geared ourselves for at the end of July) has really made us feel a little less secure. We will soon be the senior couple in the office and we don’t really know all of the ropes yet. Wow! It’s good that it’s the Lord’s church so that he can make up the difference. Sometimes when I get to feeling like I have everything all figured out, something gets thrown into the mix and I realize that I hadn’t better get too proud. One good thing was that I got all 96 checks printed correctly this month. Sometimes, I get interrupted and have to hunt really hard to find the cover letters for the checks in the system. This system isn’t very forgiving if steps are skipped because of interruptions. It was nice to have a couple of hours this morning of uninterrupted time to get the check printing done.
We met with all of the senior couples in the mission along with President and Sister Caplin to have a dinner and game night. There are enough of us that we met in a central church and had a nice dinner and then played Pictionary again by request. We had a good time, but it wasn’t quite as much fun as it was when we played it on New Year’s Day. It was probably too soon to play it again. Oh, well, we still had a good time and then had a chance to share of memories of the Bloomfields and the things that we enjoyed about them. Nice evening.
Tuesday along with doing the regular things at work, I had to get in touch with a local stake president to arrange for an auditor to come and audit the mission. I have never been a great fan of audits when we were at WES, but I am hoping that this audit won’t be like those at WES. I think they are just coming to audit our practices of how we do things to make sure that the tithing money of the Church is being taken good care of. I hope that I will be able to explain everything all right since I wasn’t there for the majority of the audit period.
The housing secretary was out moving an apartment, so the office was really quiet today. It will be interesting to see if the new housing secretary is as noisy as the old one has been. He tends to talk to himself to work through his solutions. I’m never really sure if he is talking to me or not, but have to tune him out in order to get my work done. Hopefully he hasn’t been offended by my lack of responses.
Wednesday, the new housing secretary and his wife came into the office to begin their training. Now that is what I call distracting. Dad has been attending several of the district council meetings and has really been enjoying himself. He is such a people person that he comes back so revitalized after being with the young missionaries and witnessing their goodness and abilities. It is fun to see him so happy, but I will admit I get a little envious after sitting at the desk all day trying to make sure all of the bills and missionaries get paid.
It seems a little strange to have the other office couples coming in so early. Lately it has been 10 or 10:30 before the others arrived, but with the training of the new housing people, everyone is getting there around 9. We only have an hour by ourselves in the morning now. Since the mail back here is so inconsistent in getting the mail to where it belongs, we have to mail our rent checks out by the 16th on the month in hopes of it getting there before the 1stof the month. There are some places that the mailman just can’t seem to find. When I have driven the check to the leasing office and asked them if the check is addressed correctly, they say yes. They only thing that I can think of is to FedEx the letter and then it gets there—using the same address. It is a bit pricy, but it saves late payments and gas money and time to drive the check to them.
Friday came and I was really ready for it. We are getting geared up for transfers that will take place next week, so all of us are a little busier. One of the things we look forward to is going to the mission home and taking the pictures of the incoming missionaries. We get to meet them in a smaller setting and hopefully will be able to remember one or two of their names.
We got our grocery shopping done this evening in hopes of having a little more time on Saturday to do some things that we would like to do. We had to hurry because we had mail at the apartment for the elders and sisters who live in our apartment complex. We have really enjoyed having them close by and being able to bring their mail to them as soon as it gets to the office.
Saturday we slept in until 7 am. I will admit it felt good. I was really awake for our scripture reading and we were able to spend a little longer reading because we didn’t have to race off to the office. We had to spend some time shopping for the “Train the Trainer” luncheon that happens when the trainers and their brand new companions are matched up. By the time we got that done, it was time to go to the baptism of the husband in the conversion story of Sister Stukki. Before Sister Stukki went home last transfer, she was able to teach a woman and be here when she was baptized. The husband was baptized today and it was a wonderful baptism.
Sunday was a good day. It seems so short a time to be in church. I can’t decided if I like the new format for Sunday School. I love the reading and preparing at home for the lesson, but for us we seem to get stuck in the discussion part of the class on how to study and what works best for each person. I thought the discussion time was meant for people to share what they had learned or insights they had gained as they studied. We seem to have so little time to discuss the subject matter of the lesson. Hopefully, things will evolve and we will get the hang of how the new lesson time is to be used. Again, I really do like the study time at home.
We had a little time to visit with family before heading out to the fireside that is held the Sunday before transfers. This is the fireside where a couple of the new converts since last transfer share their conversion story. There is usually someone who tells of their return story. It is an excellent meeting and reaffirms the power of the Holy Ghost in testifying of the truth of the Gospel. One thing that one of the new converts said that seemed really powerful to me was when he told the missionaries how important what they were doing was. He told them that “you are changing the world one life at a time. You have truly changed my life and the life of my family.” He told them to remember that when they were out there knocking on doors and not getting a positive response that the work is still really important and happens one person at a time. It seems profound to remember that the Lord works one person at a time. The Atonement is for individuals with individual needs. Again, we love going to this fireside. Life is good and full of tender mercies.
Know that our prayers are with you individually and love each one of you,
Mom
Here I am writing you from a wet and cloudy state. We are kind of glad to have the rain come and melt some of the snow so that with all of the new missionaries coming in on Monday and “finished” missionaries leaving on Wednesday we can do all of the traveling and transferring a little easier.
Monday started out with even more snow on our car and more snow on the roads because it had snowed during the night. Dad went out to clean off the car while I finished getting ready to find that someone had already cleaned the care off and cleared an area around the car so we could get in without getting our feet too snowy. How kind was that?! When we went out to the care to leave a neighbor was out cleaning some of the cars and we asked if he had done it and he said no, but that our neighbor who lives just in front of us had done it. What a nice act of service that was! And what a nice way to start the day!
It has been a little more hectic and unsettled at the office this week. The housing/nurse couple are training the new couple that was transferred to the office and that makes their leaving a little more real. We knew the vehicle/reference secretary couple would be leaving the first of March and have been gearing up to training their replacements that will be coming the middle of February so we feel that change coming in the near future. With this new change (that we had mentally geared ourselves for at the end of July) has really made us feel a little less secure. We will soon be the senior couple in the office and we don’t really know all of the ropes yet. Wow! It’s good that it’s the Lord’s church so that he can make up the difference. Sometimes when I get to feeling like I have everything all figured out, something gets thrown into the mix and I realize that I hadn’t better get too proud. One good thing was that I got all 96 checks printed correctly this month. Sometimes, I get interrupted and have to hunt really hard to find the cover letters for the checks in the system. This system isn’t very forgiving if steps are skipped because of interruptions. It was nice to have a couple of hours this morning of uninterrupted time to get the check printing done.
We met with all of the senior couples in the mission along with President and Sister Caplin to have a dinner and game night. There are enough of us that we met in a central church and had a nice dinner and then played Pictionary again by request. We had a good time, but it wasn’t quite as much fun as it was when we played it on New Year’s Day. It was probably too soon to play it again. Oh, well, we still had a good time and then had a chance to share of memories of the Bloomfields and the things that we enjoyed about them. Nice evening.
Tuesday along with doing the regular things at work, I had to get in touch with a local stake president to arrange for an auditor to come and audit the mission. I have never been a great fan of audits when we were at WES, but I am hoping that this audit won’t be like those at WES. I think they are just coming to audit our practices of how we do things to make sure that the tithing money of the Church is being taken good care of. I hope that I will be able to explain everything all right since I wasn’t there for the majority of the audit period.
The housing secretary was out moving an apartment, so the office was really quiet today. It will be interesting to see if the new housing secretary is as noisy as the old one has been. He tends to talk to himself to work through his solutions. I’m never really sure if he is talking to me or not, but have to tune him out in order to get my work done. Hopefully he hasn’t been offended by my lack of responses.
Wednesday, the new housing secretary and his wife came into the office to begin their training. Now that is what I call distracting. Dad has been attending several of the district council meetings and has really been enjoying himself. He is such a people person that he comes back so revitalized after being with the young missionaries and witnessing their goodness and abilities. It is fun to see him so happy, but I will admit I get a little envious after sitting at the desk all day trying to make sure all of the bills and missionaries get paid.
It seems a little strange to have the other office couples coming in so early. Lately it has been 10 or 10:30 before the others arrived, but with the training of the new housing people, everyone is getting there around 9. We only have an hour by ourselves in the morning now. Since the mail back here is so inconsistent in getting the mail to where it belongs, we have to mail our rent checks out by the 16th on the month in hopes of it getting there before the 1stof the month. There are some places that the mailman just can’t seem to find. When I have driven the check to the leasing office and asked them if the check is addressed correctly, they say yes. They only thing that I can think of is to FedEx the letter and then it gets there—using the same address. It is a bit pricy, but it saves late payments and gas money and time to drive the check to them.
Friday came and I was really ready for it. We are getting geared up for transfers that will take place next week, so all of us are a little busier. One of the things we look forward to is going to the mission home and taking the pictures of the incoming missionaries. We get to meet them in a smaller setting and hopefully will be able to remember one or two of their names.
We got our grocery shopping done this evening in hopes of having a little more time on Saturday to do some things that we would like to do. We had to hurry because we had mail at the apartment for the elders and sisters who live in our apartment complex. We have really enjoyed having them close by and being able to bring their mail to them as soon as it gets to the office.
Saturday we slept in until 7 am. I will admit it felt good. I was really awake for our scripture reading and we were able to spend a little longer reading because we didn’t have to race off to the office. We had to spend some time shopping for the “Train the Trainer” luncheon that happens when the trainers and their brand new companions are matched up. By the time we got that done, it was time to go to the baptism of the husband in the conversion story of Sister Stukki. Before Sister Stukki went home last transfer, she was able to teach a woman and be here when she was baptized. The husband was baptized today and it was a wonderful baptism.
Sunday was a good day. It seems so short a time to be in church. I can’t decided if I like the new format for Sunday School. I love the reading and preparing at home for the lesson, but for us we seem to get stuck in the discussion part of the class on how to study and what works best for each person. I thought the discussion time was meant for people to share what they had learned or insights they had gained as they studied. We seem to have so little time to discuss the subject matter of the lesson. Hopefully, things will evolve and we will get the hang of how the new lesson time is to be used. Again, I really do like the study time at home.
We had a little time to visit with family before heading out to the fireside that is held the Sunday before transfers. This is the fireside where a couple of the new converts since last transfer share their conversion story. There is usually someone who tells of their return story. It is an excellent meeting and reaffirms the power of the Holy Ghost in testifying of the truth of the Gospel. One thing that one of the new converts said that seemed really powerful to me was when he told the missionaries how important what they were doing was. He told them that “you are changing the world one life at a time. You have truly changed my life and the life of my family.” He told them to remember that when they were out there knocking on doors and not getting a positive response that the work is still really important and happens one person at a time. It seems profound to remember that the Lord works one person at a time. The Atonement is for individuals with individual needs. Again, we love going to this fireside. Life is good and full of tender mercies.
Know that our prayers are with you individually and love each one of you,
Mom
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