Pillows, and More Pillows - Monday, April 19, 2010

A new day and a new week! Our Monday started out great with reading about the Jaredites in the Book of Mormon, following our story in Fire of the Covenant, and prayer prior to leaving for the office.

We had a new experience with the humidity today. It was at 100% and was more noticeable than yesterday because the temperature was higher - in the low 70's. But the unusual thing was that tonight when we walked outside we could actually see the moisture in the air as we looked toward the street lights. It was like a film or mist floating around. Weird!

Knowing we were having a meeting at 11:00 with President and Sister Argyle and the Assistants, all of us in the office hustled with things that had to be done and out of the way. I had my supplies from Distribution to put on the shelves, and Elders Coria and Peterson updated the transfer changes that were sent to them by President Argyle. Elder Hales needed to go to WalMart to purchase pillows, and since he decided to buy a bunch, he needed Elder Kroff to go too in order to pay for them with the mission credit card. I thought leaving at 10:00 was a bit late and they might not make it back on time for the meeting.

Elder Hales decided he would buy enough to last a few transfers instead of shopping every six weeks for them. So 50 was the number agreed upon.

They had the remise driver wait until they hurried inside WalMart and purchased the pillows, then they stuffed five big bags of 10 pillows each into the trunk and back seat - barely having room for Elder Hales. If they got in a wreck, his airbag would already be in place, I'd say.

The big meeting at 11:00 with the Argyles was to go over the two transfer days with the leaving and coming missionaries. President has stream lined the schedule and is trying to take himself out of everything except for what he is directly responsible for such as training and interviewing. The housekeeping things of telling the missionaries where to put their luggage and "Is the remise on time to pick them up to take them to the airport? etc etc are being delegated to the Assistants and office staff. This is being set in place so that the first couple of transfers will go smoothly for the new president as he won't know where to go, how to get there, who to call, and how it's done. Then when he is adjusted and comfortable, he can change things to his liking if he desires.

The President had us order empanadas for the ten of us to eat for lunch. We ordered four dozen and not a one was left. The favorites ordered were chicken, beef, ham and cheese, and onion and cheese. They were hot and delicious.

During the afternoon, I began entering some of the 44 baptisms that we had last week. About 18 had come over the fax so far today. That's the second week in a row that our numbers were in the 40's. The people are ready here in South America.

At 4:30 Rich was going to help the elders with a lesson they were giving a young lady. However, this is the second time she had stood them up and she didn't come to church yesterday as planned. Well, there are a few not ready in South America, I guess.

A car was left at the office for our use during transfers. So tonight we took it shopping because we had quite a list of things we needed. We decided to go to WalMart as there were a couple of things I needed that could be found there. Monday night is a good time to shop as it was calm and relaxing to walk the isles, and we didn't have to wait in a line to check out. That Saturday a while back keeps haunting us, so we were glad this was a good experience.

While I put the groceries away, Rich worked on the DVD for the four elders that are leaving. Tomorrow, we also say goodbye to Elder Coria.