We made it through another glorious week. It was very busy, but well worth it.
Monday was a regular day at the office. I was busy trying to get onto the portals so that I can monitor when our rent arrives (or doesn’t) and see any charges added to our account that they don’t inform us of. I called one customer service company that we had a surprise (to me) charge that had been put on the account last May. Because no one knew about it, it had been accruing late charges for this last year. The people I worked with last week were helpful, but each time I called, the charges went up. Even after sending a FedEx payment last week, we got another notice on the apartment door of the missionaries saying there was another charge. I had sent the utility bill for that month on Saturday, but wanted to make sure that was the reason for the extra charge and that we were all taken care of. When I finally got in touch with them I found that they wouldn’t talk with me because we were a corporate account and my name was not on the accepted callers. I told them I was just trying to pay any unpaid amount and all he could tell me was I needed to send an email putting me on the approved caller list. I explained that I would be happy to send an email (sent by me) to put my name on the list. My real concern was that we had been given 5 days to get the account taken care of before they send it to legal—I was up against a deadline. He promised he would look for the email and for me to call back at noon. I could do that. This gave me real impetus to get these portals available to see. I called back at noon and talked with someone else and they said that he couldn’t give me any information, and what they had told me before was not correct. By this time I was having a really hard time understanding why they were making it so hard to pay the bill. I knew that they had received the rent and late fees, but don’t know about the utility payment. When I got off the phone I called the apartment complex to see if I could get someone to answer the phone and see if they could help. Luckily, I did get an answer and she was willing to give me the information that I needed. She could see that the large check had arrived (I knew that because FedEx showed it as having arrived), but she assured me that the smaller amount even if it didn’t arrive for a few more days would not cause the account to be sent to legal.
I was able to get onto two apartments portals and can see our account on one of them. One of the portals just shows the current bill with no history of payments received—at least I can see the bill because apartments are getting into the mode of not sending paper bills or electronic bills. They want you to go check your account on their website.
Tuesday was another day of making last minute preparations for the mission tour. We had missionaries going home, others to be taken to their new areas, and general authority wife needing to be picked up. President Caplin delegates the logistics of that to Dad. He asked him to spread some of these opportunities around to the senior couples that are not in the office and don’t get to do this as often. So he made up a chart with the days, times and people that needed help. There were also a couple of opportunities (?) to watch the office so that we could go to the conference and fulfill our duties there. One of the couples was leaving the office early so he handed them the chart, but before he could explain that we needed to spread the fun around, the sister jumped at the chance to take one of the visa waiter sisters missionaries to the airport. Dad told her she couldn’t take her because we had to spread the fun around and she was a little upset because she had a special relationship with the missionary (she has been here less than a transfer) and said she would talk to Sister Caplin about it. He probably should have let the non office missionaries have first choice before offering it to the office couples, but he wanted to let everyone know as soon as possible. So Dad immediately put together an email for all of the senior couples and asked them to get back with him asap. One couple got back immediately and want to pick up Sister Haynie from the airport and be the drivers for the excursion for the leaving missionaries at the upcoming transfer. Another couple said they would watch the office during transfers for us as well as transport a missionary to the airport. Everyone was getting a turn and seemed to be happy to get to help in this manner. Later in the evening, we visited with President Caplin and explained what had been done and he confirmed his desire to spread the opportunities out. He also said that this one sister has more opportunities than anyone else to get to be with the missionaries and that she needs to share. I know her heart is in the right place and she just wants to be helpful, but there are others of us who would like that opportunity too. We were concerned that she might have gotten her feelings hurt because she was told she couldn’t take this one sister to the airport and if it would have offered the opportunities to the others first, this situation might have been avoided. While doing a little grocery shopping, I picked up a potted plant to take to her to say we were sorry about how things turned out. Dad was able to work things around so that she could take this one sister to the airport after all.
Wednesday was the day that things got moving. All of us in the office were trying to get our regular jobs taken care of since we would be out of the office for the next two days. Dad and I made a trip to pick two elders to bring them to the office—one of them was going home, the other was meeting up with another elder to go back to their area. President Caplin came to the office to pick up the elder going home to take him to the airport where he would drop off the missionary and pick Elder Haynie. Another senior couple picked up an elder to bring to the office to meet up with the one we had at the office. Talk about playing musical chairs.
I spent the rest of the afternoon getting rent ready to enter into the system so it would be ready to get in the mail. Dad wanted to get home by 5 so he could work on the buy out agreement, so I packed up all of my stuff and took it home so that I could enter rent and pay utility bills.
Thursday started the mission tour for everyone. We got to the church by 8:30 to get the luncheon set up and put all of the mail out. We were feeding 110 people today. We hurried and were able to get things ready by about 10:30 so we could go and listen to the conference. Elder Haynie did a marvelous job. He talked about many of the things that have been taught to the missionaries in other mission tours, but Elder Haynie has a good sense of humor and had the ability of making those of us listening want to go out and find people to teach—“gather scattered Israel”. Instead of feeling weighed down with more to do and more expected of them, the missionaries (including us seniors) came away feeling how much we wanted to be a part of this last grand wrap up of gathering Israel.
We had PLENTY of food. Those who bought the meat balls misread the servings per container and thought it said there were 31 meatballs in the bag instead of 31 servings. Guess you can tell already that we will be having this menu again really soon. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meatball subs, so hopefully it won’t be too bad for them to have this lunch for the new missionaries coming into the mission the end of May. By the time we got everything cleaned up it was late enough that we all decided to go back to the office and do a few things. President had approved the rent checks, so I printed out all of those checks, got all of the envelopes and took them home to stuff them. I have to be careful to keep the ones that we have consistent trouble getting them there with the post office to get a FedEx envelope ready for them. There are a couple of apartments that are having their payments go to a customer service location instead of the apartment complex and the change hasn’t shown up in IMOS yet. Anyway, I got all that done on Thursday evening so that I could take them into the office and get them into the mail. We then went to the church to take the mail and help get the tables ready and then went to Costco where we picked up the croissant sandwiches for the luncheon. While we were gone doing that the others got everything set on the tables. We got back and put the sandwiches on the serving tables and then were able to go in and listen.
It was wonderful to listen to this group of missionaries being taught how to better find and teach those who are searching for the truth. One take away that I had was I need to study Preach My Gospel closer—especially Chapter 3. This chapter organizes in a logical order what is to be taught and kind of in what order. As always, teaching has to be done with the Spirit, but there needs to be an order to that teaching. Also, we were counseled to memorize more scriptures and their references because we are more confident in our teaching because we know the doctrine better. We won’t have to fumble around trying to remember an appropriate scripture to use much less be able to find it. I will have to get on the stick.
Dad went back to the office to do some work, so that the lady who had volunteered to watch the office could take another missionary to the airport. He felt like he was able to get a lot done because the office was so quiet. He got back in time for our senior’s dinner. Originally, Elder Haynie had wanted to have a dinner with the senior missionaries, but after all of the planning and buying had taken place he was told that he needed to be at another meeting between the afternoon meeting with the missionaries and the meeting with all of the ward/stake leadership that held at 7:00. We senior did our duty and ate the dinner even without Elder and Sister Haynie.
The evening meeting was wonderful. They (Elder Haynie-general authority 70, Elder Whitney Clayton-Senior President of the presidency of the 70, and Elder Calderwood – Area Authority 70) spent the time talking with the leadership about doing natural and normal things to help gather scattered Israel. Elder Haynie has a strong belief that “Scattered Israel hang around Gathered Israel”. With this premise in mind he said that those we associate with are those that are searching for the truth and we need to be doing natural and normal things with our associates so that they will want to “come and see”. We got home about 9:30 and were more than ready to drop into bed.
Saturday we just stayed close to home and took care of chores that needed to be done here. It felt good to get our laundry done, our bathrooms cleaned, garbage taken out, and some dusting done. About 1:30 we left for a baptism. When we got there at 2, we found that there was only one car in the parking lot—no baptism here. We got gas and went to the other side of the mission to go to a 3 o’clock baptism. Luckily, there was a baptism taking place here. It is always nice to be there and feel of the Spirit at these ordinances.
We went back to the office so that Dad could get a couple of things done and I ran to the grocery store to get supplies for a fruit/spinach salad we needed to make for a dinner invitation on Sunday. I got back in time to sort through the mail and get all of the bills for me to take home. We didn’t stay too long because it was warm and muggy and we didn’t want the food to spoil. After dinner and bill paying, we decided to sit on the couch and watch an old “Murder She Wrote”. We were just too tired to do much more than that.
Today was a wonderful day at church. We learned at church today that the sister who ministers to me got her mission call to Montreal Canada as an office specialist. She had wanted to stay in northern America and with her MBA from Wharton she will be more than qualified to work in the office. She will be leaving in September. I am happy for her, but I will miss her.
Well, that about does it for another week. Life is good and we are grateful for the gospel and are feeling more and more of our responsibility to share that message with our eternal siblings who don’t know about it yet. We are going to try harder to do normal and natural things that will invite others to “come and see”.
We love you all and keep you in our prayers,
Mom
These are the senior ladies in the mission (minus one who had another meeting she was to give a presentation in).
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| Sister Larsen (office) Sister Cook (MLS) Sister Meyers (MLS-YSA and Chinese Branch) Sister Chesborough (part time office support) Sister Gowans (Military Support) Me, Sister Caplin , Sister Downs (Nurse) |
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