New Developments - Sunday, April 25, 2010

Morning comes early after a full day of fun and getting to bed late. We were feeling the effects of a lot of walking when we retired last night, and hoped for a fast recovery with the few hours of sleep we would get.

But, blessings do come and we hopped out of bed like any other day. We are just grateful for our hot morning showers that perk us up.

Going to church now is just like going to the office -- same route, same building. I wear flat shoes to walk and then take my dress up Sunday shoes, usually heels, and change in our office. Then I change back to flats to walk home. It will be convenient when winter comes, as we will have a place to park our coats while we go to church. There are no coat racks in any of the churches here.

With Relief Society first on the agenda, and since we are early or on time, I was the first one in the room. They started with about three there, but soon the room filled up. The teacher was a cute older woman. She would throw an English word in her lesson every once in a while so I would feel comfortable, I guess. But, I understood the Spanish ones okay.

We went to the Gospel Principles class today, but next week we start the Temple Preparation class. They don't have a manual for Elder Kroff yet, so he thought he could just get the lesson off the internet. Yes he can, but found out today that there isn't one in Spanish, only English. He's thinking about that one. . . he really needs it in Spanish.

A few weeks ago when the President was at our office working, he came out and pulled up a chair and said, "We need to talk about your future." That comment got our attention right away as we weren't sure where the conversation was headed. He is always planning and thinking ahead as mission presidents have to do. He is acutely aware of the overwhelming feeling that President Gulbrandsen will have on July 1st when the keys to the house and car, the cell phone, and the responsibility to shepherd 160 missionaries is turned over to him. He is stream lining several things he does and we do as an office staff to make this transition as easy as possible and with low impact.

He told us that there isn't another senior couple lined up to replace us. This mission is number 12 on the list to receive a couple with Spanish abilities. The economy has played a major part in the number of retired senior couples who are putting their papers in to serve missions, and then on top of that there are few Spanish speakers. There are so many missions in Central and South America that require someone who already knows the language, that the list is longer than those that have applied. He said they might be able to send just English speakers sooner, but we agreed that in our office there needs to be one of the pair that speaks Spanish.

So, with that in mind, he said that we would be training elders to take our place. We feel really bad about that because the elder that is selected to be the financial secretary could end up being in the office a long time. It is hard to learn the involved processes dealing with finances, and then be moved out six months later. The elder that trained Elder Kroff was in that position for one year. So we can see why President Argyle was estactic to have a senior couple come for 18 months.

The next dilemma the President had was the timing issue of when to put the elders in the office to get them trained by our release date of September 2. He would have to select who would be our replacements and felt that decision should be left up to the new president. However, President Gulbrandsen would need time to meet all of the missionaries during the first month he is here in order to make his selection. So over phone converations between Presidents, we have been asked to extend our mission for at least one transfer so we can train the elders once they have been assigned to the office.

Then, once the elders have been on there own without us in the office, it is preferred that we be in telephone contact with them for a while should they have questions. That will work out nicely because our daughters are coming to Argentina at the end of our mission to see the sights and get a feel for what we have been doing for 18 months. We can have our cell phones with us and troubleshoot any problems over the phone, or if we have to go into the office, we would be close by to do that.

We can see the benefit of extending for a couple of months and are willing to do whatever is asked of us. It will also give us more time to get to know the Gulbrandsens better and help them get acquainted with Buenos Aires and the Argentine customs.

Yesterday we were dwarfed by some tall high rise apartment buildings that we saw. We look up at these tall skinny towers and wonder why the wind doesn't knock them over. We hate to think of what it would be like if an earthquake hit.

Our Sunday was quiet and calm with me having to post two days worth of entries. We both napped and Rich found things to read and do to occupy his time.