Training, Day 4 - Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Another day like yesterday was on the agenda. In fact, it only got down to 50 degrees last night. We're having a heat wave!!!

I was awake before 6:00, but waited for the alarm before getting up. I expect Rich to be up by the time I get out of the shower, but lately he is still snuggled in the warm bed waiting for the house to heat up. Sometimes I have to nudge him to wake him up.

Today was day four of the Leadership Training, so we hustled along getting ready so we could leave a few minutes early. We wanted to make sure we had enough time to use the internet for things of importance before it was taken away from us and diverted to the computers set up in the cultural hall for connecting to the leaders in the South. My work didn't require it this morning, but Rich can't get into IMOS without it. And he is always into IMOS.

I was kind of glad that the zone and district leaders were coming in for the training as I had a variety of things I needed to see a variety of missionaries about. So it was convenient to track them down in the church to ask my questions.

When the training began at 10:00 and after all the hub bub settled down of people coming and going from the office, we got serious about getting some work done. Elder Peterson left at 9:00 to take four elders to Immigrations to get their visa work started, and Elder Hales went in to listen to the training at the invitation of the President. He had some work to do at his desk, but what could he say? He did slip in and out to take care of some phone calls that were important to make. So Elder Kroff and I held down the office -- after he got back from Disco where Hermana Gulbrandsen sent him to buy some liters of water for the lunch today. I held things together in his absence.

I completed getting the supplies gathered and into bins for the last two zones to receive them tomorrow during their interviews with the President. It wasn't hard and I wasn't interrupted much so it went quickly. During the lunch break and after the training ended, some elders came requesting items that they forgot to ask for when marking what they wanted on the supply list. I gladly accommodated them.

Lunch was an assortment of empanadas ordered from a member whose business, called Nobels, is just three blocks from the church and who attends the San Fernando ward. It is nice to give him the business. With each missionary getting four empanadas, it amounts to around 200 being ordered. Fruit and cookies were added to the meal -- plus water, and all seemed satisfied.

Sister Jones (Washington) is brand new, so she and her trainer, Sister Tejada (Florida) were the only sister missionaries at the training. Sister Jones was the only sister arriving in the last transfer. It is interesting that these two come from states that probably have the most miles between them being on the opposite ends of the U.S. Sister Tejada spoke fluent Spanish before her mission as her parents are both from Ecuador. She was only in the MTC for about two weeks before they shipped her to Argentina. She is a sweetie and has had great success on her mission.

The afternoon slipped by uneventful in the office, and soon the training was over. Elder Peterson had quite a long day as the computer system went down at Immigrations so they had to sit and wait quite a while for things to get back up and running. He didn't arrive back at the office until around 3:00. Poor guy! He was grateful we saved him some empanadas.

The church and office cleared out, and after visiting with Sister Gulbrandsen while the President talked with some elders in his office, we were all on our way home around 5:00. Rich, however, had to go back to the church at 6:00 to meet with Elisa and Nicolas for the last Temple Prep lesson he has been give him. They are still planning a December wedding.

I completed this entry early, so we decided to watch the movie, Rope, an Alfred Hitchcock movie with James Stewart. I ironed white shirts while watching. It was pretty interesting and fun to watch an oldie with the whole movie taking place in one room, and the painted scenery outside the window.