Two Days Worth

Monday, 29 de junio

Monday was a busy day at the office because tomorrow is transfer day.  This is our first one totally on our own without Elder Clegg.  Elder Nelson has caught on to his job really well, much better than I did after three weeks. Could it be our age?  Of course, he is a natural on the computer, so it didn't take him long to step right into Elder Clegg's shoes.  

I have so many lose ends on my desk to take care of, that if I focus on it too long, I become overwhelmed. The amount of baptisms that I have had to enter these past couple of weeks has been a priority because at the end of the month it is important to get all of them registered that happened during the given month. I started out today collecting from the fax machine all those that happened last week. I counted about 30 so far that I need to get entered today and tomorrow.  Oh my!

Then there is a form that was sent to each companionship to record some information that the Area Office wants. It is to be filled out and faxed to us starting today, and I have until July 6 to get them sent up to the Area Offices. So between the baptism registers and these forms coming in today, the fax machine was about sending us crazy. It was pretty hectic all morning long around the office. 

Elder Nelson was making the final adjustments to the transfers today.  One sister missionary is being detained for some time due to visa problems and the swine flu epidemic as she is from Mexico, so that threw off the whole transfer board. President Argyle had to redo some zones and switch things around at the last minute. If anyone can handle pressure and upset schedules, it is the President.  He is confident and capable, and from what we see he doesn't get his feathers ruffled too much of the time. The CEO in him comes out, and what is pending gets done right now.  

We had leftover Sunday dinner for our meal tonight and then decided we would watch the movie we downloaded on the computer. We hooked up the cables we purchased over the weekend so we could watch it on the TV and it worked fine. The movie was a Peter Sellers one which was really quite good, but really quite slow. I can't remember the name, but I decided I could work on our "Far and Wide" entry and still have one ear tuned to the movie.  Well, it wasn't hard at all.  We were glad when we saw that Melissa had logged on Skype, so we took a break and called for a nice chat with her and Nate.  Love that Skype!!

Tuesday, 30 de junio  - Transfer Day

We still can't believe how fast transfers come around, but we are feeling more comfortable with what our responsibilities are as it relates to this day. All of my contributions are done ahead of time in preparing the materials for both the incoming and outgoing missionaries.  So I just stay in the office and answer the phone, sign for packages if they come, and do my work on the computer.  I really don't mind being by myself.  I like being able to concentrate on my work and think things through if needed.  HA - that wasn't to be today. 

The Assistants to the Pres, Elder Kroff, and Elder Valente go to the Mission Home when the missionaries arrive from the airport. They are involved in training the new ones.  So the companions of the Assistants stay at our office with Elder Nelson since his companion is at the Mission Home and, of course, he can't be alone with a female. So the three of them chatted and exchanged stories for most of the morning.  Elder Nelson really needed to keep working on things that needed to be done in order for me to continue on with some of my work.  But, he would get involved in the conversation and forget what he was suppose to be doing.  Oh well, I can't fault him for enjoying himself with these elders. It would have been hard to ignore them. So my quiet morning to myself didn't turn out that way.

But, I did get to see Elder Clegg.  He is going to be a companion/trainer to one of the new elders that came today. The elder is from Italy and Argentina -- one parent from each country. So he has lived in both places.  He knows Italian better than Castellano.  Elder Clegg is really excited to be a trainer and to have this young elder as his companion. When I saw him it made me realize how much I missed him being in the office with us.  

Rich spent the whole day at the Mission Home. He left at 10:30 and got back around 5:30. He gets to eat empanadas and fruit salad with them on the day he trains. He said the interpreting he did today was much easier because since there were only two Latins in the group, President and Sister Argyle spoke in English, and Rich interpreted from English to Spanish for the two Spanish speakers.  He thought it was much easier than going from Spanish to English. 

When Elder Kroff and the Assistants got back to the office, missionaries were still coming and going, so we didn't get to leave until 7:00. We were starved and ready to go home. We just had hot dogs and chips for dinner. Not fancy, but it filled the void.  A load of wash was done, and white shirts were ironed.   That was our day.