Scheduled Flights - Monday, September 6, 2010

It never ceases to amaze us that we can go from freezing temperatures one day to shorts and tee shirt (not us) weather the next. Today was absolutely beautiful in every way. It was the first time all winter that I needed to unzip my coat for walking to the office this morning. And tonight we have had our balcony door open to let some cooler air in as it was a little warm and stuffy when we got home from work. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Today at the office was a little crazy at times coordinating with the assistants and the four of us in the office who needed to go where and when and with whom. We had two elders from the field who needed to go to doctor appointments and we had to organize who would take them. It ended up that neither went due to unforseen circumstances, so they were in the mix of the confusion today. Also, the President needed to be picked up from the airport at 1:00, the Assistants needed to meet with him as soon as he got home, plus a multitude of other commitments and schedules to keep. I tried to keep up, but pretty soon had to tune it all out. All I knew was what I had to accomplish today, and it didn't involve leaving the office.

Elder Kroff went to the bank to cash a check and said it is a "piece of cake" now that the President has re-signed the signature card. His signature is close enough to the same every time, and the tellers don't look twice. Finally!!!

After lunch, I secluded myself in the supply room to box up all the mail and supplies to be sent to the zones in the South. There were large packages from home for several missionaries -- unusually large ones this time. I had to find boxes to put the boxes in that came in the mail. Now I know why I save the ones that my order from the Distribution Center comes in each month. I needed eleven good size boxes today. Sometimes it is a struggle to receive such large packages for the missionaries and then rebox them to send on to the South.

The afternoon calmed down when the Assistants left and went to the mission home to meet with the President regarding the Leadership Training that starts tomorrow. It is another four days of training, repeating what was done six weeks ago, but involves different leaders. It doesn't require that we attend, but if not busy, we are invited to join the group. We, in the office, are usually troubleshooting anything that was forgotten, or going to pick up the empanadas or pizza that has been ordered for lunch. We don't sit idle at all.

Matias Torre, from the Tigre branch, called today asking Rich and I to join him as speakers in Sacrament Meeting next Sunday. He is the Branch Mission Leader and his father, the Branch President asked him to plan the Sacrament meeting to be on missionary work. So he has asked that the two of us take 20 minutes between us. This is a first for me to be asked to give a talk rather than just bear my testimony. So I will prepare a short talk in English and Rich will translate it for me. I will have to read it and probably won't know all the words I am speaking, so this should be interesting. I hope I can do it.

We got an urgent email at the office this afternoon wanting the flights to be ordered for the return home of the matrimonio Kroffs. The schedule the church has shows our first extension having us going home in October, and yet no flights were ordered yet. I guess the President has not informed Salt Lake, or set it up for us to extend until December. I am the one who orders the return home flights and it has been a little unclear exactly when we would be leaving due to the training of the new couple. But I went out on a limb and scheduled our departure date for December 8th getting us home on December 9th. If that doesn't work out, I guess it can be changed. It seemed so strange filling out the travel request for ourselves. I can't believe it is happening.

Our neighbor right next door to us, Edgardo Giammarini, is moving. He said he has a home about two blocks away from here and he is moving back to it. He moved out a couple years ago because he didn't get along with his son. And also it was his car that was broken into last week and his GPS was stolen. He said that was the last straw. He was fed up with the lack of security around this building. He showed us his apartment and it is much larger than ours. It has a little living room area to the side of the dining area, plus it has two bedrooms. But then, he is paying more than we are too. We have only had going and coming social contact with Edgardo, but it has been nice to have a decent neighbor who is quiet and one whom we trust.