Keeping Up - Tuesday, August 31, 2010

It was a cloudy, gloomy morning with rain on the way for sure. We were on our way walking when I thought about the umbrellas. Oh good, Rich had them in the bag. In fact, he said that the rest of the week and Saturday was probably going to be wet and cold. Oh well!

The car was gone when we got to the office, and we knew the office elders had already left on the errand to get a contract signed for an apartment. When we went inside, the Assistants were in the President's office doing what they do every morning checking out the datos and making plans to visit a few district meetings today. They would attend some and the President would visit others.

Elder Kroff was surprised when the President called just five minutes away telling him he was coming to accompany him to the bank to resign his name on the signature card. Rich had emailed him last night suggesting that he do this because of the difficulty the tellers have in recognizing his signature. The President said he can duplicate his signature if he signs it the long way, so he would use that one for the checks. He was in a hurry to get to a district meeting, but took a detour to go to the bank with Rich and get it done.

As soon as the office elders got back with the car, there was a whirlwind of hustling and bustling and pretty soon the three Assistants were off in a flash going their way to the district meetings. And then it was silent!! Oh, it sounded sooooo good!! The four of us realize we are the quiet ones -- most of the time.

Now that we were by ourselves, I took the opportunity to finish the haircut Elder Peterson gave himself. He used the clippers to buzz his hair, but he couldn't see to go around his ears or trim up his neck. He asked for help and I was glad to do it. He did a great job on himself.

I had a great morning feeling very accomplished in what I set out to do. All the North Americans have flights home through December and now I will start on the Latinos leaving in November. However, it isn't necessary to schedule them this early.

October's transfer has another 14 missionaries coming, as was the case in September's transfer that just passed. But this time the majority are Latinos, as we only have three from the States. I'll start on those carpetas shortly.

Today was Chino Martes (Chinese Tuesday) so we ordered our favorites. We have skipped a couple weeks so we were all hungry for some. It really tasted good today! Delicious!

Rich worked on the President's request to add a few more pesos to the money the missionaries get weekly. It isn't much of an increase dollar wise, but in pesos it is definitely a help. Food has gone up, and in some areas it requires more travel, so some missionaries struggle at the end of the month.

After the elders were off to their district meeting, we worked about an hour and a half more and then left. It had rained most of the day, but had stopped for our walk home.

Dinner was just soup and bread due to the big lunch we had. Neither of us were that hungry.

Marianne and Mekhi skyped us to report on his first day of kindergarten. He was timid on entering the classroom, but the teacher told Marianne after that he did great. He said he liked his first day but we couldn't get any details from him. Silly kid!