Mucho Trabajo - Mon & Tue, Dec. 21 & 22, 2009

What a busy, somewhat stressful month this has been. The last couple of days have made me weary. Mucho trabajo!! (much work) The zone conferences are in full swing and because of how the schedule was altered during the last transfer, it made these conferences come right on the heels of the last ones. It seems like I have been filling supply orders and dealing with Christmas mail non stop for weeks. But, as the saying goes, "this too will pass." Tomorrow, our runner will bring 19 more Christmas packages from customs. It's never ending.

Yesterday, I worked in my supply room most of the day sorting and packing and being careful that I didn't forget anything that was requested by the missionaries. Entering baptisms has been put on hold for a couple days.

Elder Kroff and Elder Coria spent the whole day trying to find out if the Christmas calls on Friday were going to be successful. President Argyle thought it would be easier on the missionaries if their parents could call them on their cell phones rather than having them find a member with a land line that they could use. The numbers involved in making the call from the states to Argentina were emailed to parents last week by the missionaries. But trial runs were proving that no one could get through. The numbers were check, rechecked, changed, added to and still nothing was working. Rich made several calls to the U.S., mostly to his own family members, to have them try various combinations of numbers. No success, always a failure!! What is plan B?

Today they scratched the cell phone idea and went back to the system they have previously used where the missionary finds a member with a land line. Then, they tell the parents the number and set up a time to call. When President Argyle stopped by the office today after the zone conference, he okayed the change and will give the missionaries permission to email their parents on Thursday and tell them the revised plan. Wow, what an ordeal this has been! But, it is important that those Christmas calls are successful.

More of the same for me today in getting the supplies together. However, Rich and I took an hour off this afternoon to go to the grocery store. We couldn't go after work because of Elder Davis being with us, so we took some time at 2:00 to go to Disco. We took our pull cart and it was loaded. We stopped by home and put the groceries away and returned to work. It only took us an hour. We were fast.

Normally, we could have waited until the weekend to shop, but if we were to have a Christmas dinner, we needed some things now. We have invited our office elders to dinner and they are excited to have a turkey dinner. It won't be with all the trimmings I am used to cooking, but hopefully it will be tasty. I invited the assistants and their companions as well, because they live close to us, but their phones calls from home conflict with the dinner hour. They each have an invitation from members to dinner anyway. So that is nice, they aren't forgotten. Christmas day is everyone's "P" day, but at 6:00 p.m. they all have to resume their proselyting duties as usual.

Elder Davis is sitting at the President's desk typing some things for Elder Coria. We are finding him light duty things to do. He is feeling better each day. He walked home with us - slowly, and we had pork chops, potatoes, and green beans for dinner yesterday. Tonight we had Sloppy Joes.