Busy Day - Friday, Jan. 15, 2010

We blink and it is Friday again!! We don't know how it gets here so fast. Really!! This month is already half over and it seems like we were just up on the roof top watching the New Years fireworks.

I was anxious to get to the office so I could start immediately on my two projects for the day. I needed to get my Book of Mormon order done and my order of supplies from the Distribution Center compiled and sent off.

Each month the form I submit on the Book of Mormon order tells me how many our mission is allowed to have. There is no charge for ordering that amount. If we go over that number, then I think there is a charge assessed. I make sure I never go over that amount, but I always order the maximum I can get. This month we were allowed 1127. I have to send some down South to those zones, and the Distribution Center sends them directly there. The rest come here to our office, and the number we will receive this time is 960. That is 24 boxes of books with 40 books in each. Then, on the request sheet from each zone, the companionships that are in need of a box of books indicate it and it is delivered to them at their zone conference.

As we approached the office today, it looked cluttered and messy with leaves strewn all over outside our fence. Last fall, Elder Kroff took it upon himself to sweep the front sidewalk to make it look more presentable. Today, we knew that President Argyle was coming, so he started by sweeping all the leaves within our gated area too.

Since we have a guy that comes around and cleans up the leaves and garbage from the gutters, he swept them right out our gate and into the road. He says we need to keep up our image.

I had just finished the Book of Mormon order when President and Sister Argyle came. We didn't know she was coming, so were pleasantly surprised. She had to drop something off and was on her way to do some errands. While the President went straight to his office to take care of some business on the telephone, she sat down and talked to us for the good part of an hour. We always have fun talking to her. She is bubbly, bright, interesting, and sociable.

We had learned from her father when her parents were here that she is an architect. Wow! We had never heard that piece of information. She said that ever since she was in grade school, she has had an interest in houses and house plans. Her teacher in 4th grade had them draw a house plan on graph paper, and every since that assignment she was hooked. She would spend every summer cutting out pictures of homes in the paper or magazines where the house plans were given and draw them on graph paper. She just loved creating plans. So, she decided to pursue it at the U of U. She worked for an architectural firm in Salt Lake before getting married and also designed their home in South Jordan. I am excited to see it sometime after we return home. She also served a mission in Italy. Quite a lady.

She invited us for dinner on Sunday and to see all the pictures of their trip down South -- and the penguins. Looking forward to it.

It was hard to stay focused on getting my order for supplies completed because I was interrupted several times with medical calls. Two of our missionaries went to see Dr. Petersen today. The elder had an ingrown toe nail cut out, and the sister had him evaluate her painful foot. He sent her to the hospital for an xray as she has all the symptoms of a stress fracture. Then, another elder with chronic stomach problems is seeing a Gastroenterologist. Each time someone needs to go to the hospital, I have to fax authorizations from the mission allowing them to be treated. It sounds easy to just fax something to a hospital, but it is my most least favorite thing to do. They seldom go through without a problem.

If there is an extension to the main number we are given, then we have to use the phone connected to the machine to get them on the other end to enable the fax. Both Rich and I hate to fax anything without Elder Coria there because he can understand them on the other end and can usually get it to work. It is such a pain. It would be good if there were just one central place to fax all authorizations, but there are so many clinics in the hospital, and we have to know the fax number of where a particular missionary is going.

After I got things settled down with the health issues, I resumed work on my order and did get it sent off. I'm glad to have both of these projects completed and behind me today.

If it is Friday, it must be McDonalds, so we had our usual, and then headed over to Disco with our cart to pick up some needed groceries.

A hair cut for Rich was on our agenda, so after I got that done and we had two skype calls from brothers Bob and Paul, it was time to start this journal entry. It is now 12:30 a.m.

Good Night!