A Treat from Mom - Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010

The sun comes up after 6:15 a.m. now instead of around 5:00 like it did a few months ago, so our room is still darkish when we wake up. Gratefully, the last few nights have been reasonably cooler, but we still have the fan on medium to make sure the room temperature doesn't rise too much.

After scriptures, we enjoy listening to The Undaunted. Rich downloaded the audio version so he could relax and listen to it too. He felt he wasn't doing justice to it with his reading. I thought he was doing great, but it is more enjoyable for him not to be worried about the English accent when it pops up in the story. We are to the part where the calls have been made and the people are preparing for the journey to the four corners area. Sometimes in the evenings if we have a few minutes, we listen to more. We are hooked.

Today I sent welcome letters to the families of missionaries that have received their call to serve. In our next transfer which will be in March, we have sixteen new elders coming. Then after that it drops off considerably. We only have four coming in April, no transfer in May, and so far about four on the list for June. We thought it was Europe that was decreasing their missionary force, not us!!!

I entered about eight baptisms today, the total from last week only reaching fifteen. That is discouraging from what we know can be done, so we are sure the President is hoping that after these conferences things will pick up with more committed missionaries working harder. We have come to understand the importance of the planning time that missionaries are required to do. Their missionary agendas should reflect a backup plan if someone is not home or an appointment falls through. When plan A fails, that isn't the time to then try to think of what to do or where to go next, plan B should already be on paper. Some missionaries plan correctly and have successful days with several appointments, and some still struggle. Lovingly, President Argyle teaches, trains, encourages, and works with all the missionaries to help them have success and reap the rewards of their labors. Mission Presidents are wonderful!

Elder Hales received a wonderful package from home which contained homemade chocolates. His mother makes them every Christmas, and his box of the spendid treat came in fine shape. He is going to leave them at the office to share with us. The one I had today was yummy!

Someone in his home ward in North Carolina knows us. His mother has a blog and on it she wrote about her son working in the mission office with the Kroffs from Tooele, Utah. Anna Molgard called his mom and told her she knew us and that her husband, Max, has a sister who is married to my son-in-law's brother. Yes, we know Anna and Max, but we know both of their parents better. How fun was that to hear that news today!!

Elder Hales is really going to be good at what he is doing with the apartments and landlords. He is catching on quickly for so little training. Elder Kroff is delighted to have someone who can speak English this time as they are straightening out and organizing some things that got dropped through the cracks because of miscommunication in months past. He is pleasant and so far hasn't had any problems with the dueños (landlords).

We walked home by way of our lavadero where we take our sheets and towels to be laundered. Usually we forget about them until the end of the week. Today, we remembered!

I fixed some dinner, then Rich left to go back to the church to teach his English class. He had about five in attendance tonight. The missionaries from the Virreyes branch got it started, but more come from the San Fernando ward than the branch. Both Virreyes and San Fernando meet in the same building for church meetings. San Fernando is big with strong active members and families, and Virreyes struggles. But, I guess they would because if they had more active members, they would become a ward.

Tomorrow night and Thursday night we are staying at the Argyles with their children while they go down south for the conferences with Elder and Sister Aidukaitis. So tonight I cleaned out the fridge of things that would spoil, and plan to iron some white shirts and pack up a few things to take over tomorrow, when I get this entry done.

We need to be on time tomorrow in going to the office because the President and Elder Aidukaitis are meeting with the office staff and the assistants at 9:00 in our office. We have already had a brief interview with him, but this should be a good time too. Then, they are meeting with all the Zone leaders afterwards over in the church.