Fun Mail - Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

Last night it cooled off to 81 degrees. Unbelievable!! Both of us woke up several times throughout the night because we were so hot. We have a fan that we used in the bedroom when we first came, but it is in our cage in the basement. It is definitely time to bring it out of storage.

The temperature didn't change -- it remain 80 degrees throughout the day with a little cloud cover. So it was a little more tolerable than yesterday. The chance of rain is suppose to increase as the evening goes on. Right now as I am typing this entry, a cool breeze is blowing in from our balcony door. I hope it is coming through our bedroom window as well.

My focus at the office today was to get the flights ordered for the 10 missionaries going home in March. When I spoke to Sara in Salt Lake this week trying to work on the President's request to get earlier flights than 11:30 p.m., she mentioned that there were some missions that already had their March flights ordered. Four and one half months prior to the release date is about right, so I was relieved to get that off my "to do" list. I have one sister returning to Peru and I will think about getting her flight in December. I have several notations in various places to remind me.

All of the faxed copies of the October baptisms came through, so every one is accounted for and entered. That's a good feeling. But, we only had 49 for the whole month. That is disappointing to the elders, for sure. We've had 53 in one week before. We hope this is just a result of the slump that came after doubling the baptisms. Onward and upward mísioneros!!

Elder Nelson was on pins and needles waiting to see where he was going to be serving come next Tuesday when transfers happen. Normally he wouldn't know until Monday night when he would have received a telephone call, but since he is in the office and is still training Elder Coria, he would be privy to the information ahead of time. And he was!! I guessed wrong as to where I thought he would go. He has been assigned to an area up in the Capital. We are familiar with it as it takes in much of the area we saw when we toured around with Paul and Denise.

Today, on the eve of Halloween, we received these adorable cards from Urban. Couldn't have been better timing!! He and his mommy thought they would be cute decorations for our apartment. Elder Paz thought they were so cute and took a picture of them. Thanks, Urban. We love them. They may be up until Christmas.

We really haven't noticed a lot of Halloween things in the stores. We did see one young boy yesterday that had a vampire type cape on. But that is the extent of our observations. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Elder Paz is in charge of getting a pillow and blanket bagged up and ready for the new missionaries coming on Tuesday. He made a cute welcome sign to attach to each bag. He has caught on to his responsibilities really well. He handles the problem calls and deals with the landlords in a professional way. It could be because he is an older elder and is more mature. He is about 25 or 26 years old. He's a cutie -- and studies English every spare moment.

Since this is Elder Nelson's last weekend with us, we decided to all have breakfast together tomorrow morning. Of course, it will be at our place and Rich is fixing skinny pancakes. Should be a good time. It always is for the elders if there is food involved.

It is suppose to be a rainy day all day tomorrow, so we took our pull along shopping cart to Disco after work and picked up a few items that we needed, plus a few things to add to breakfast tomorrow. We didn't think we bought very much, but it filled the cart to the brim. Glad we had it. Then we stopped off at McDonald's for our Friday night meal. No kiddie birthday party tonight, thankgoodness!