Nov 17....1st zone conference week

Nov 17 2013

1^st zone conferences this past week.  We have 12 zones in the mission, and they did 3 at a time in a combined meeting, so 3 on Tuesday in one location, 3 on Wednesday in another location, 3 on Thursday in another location, and 3 on Friday in another location.  During Zone conferences, both of the Clayton’s and Gary are involved.  I am not, so I man the office.  During the time I am the only one in the office, I keep the doors locked and put a sign up in the door to please knock for deliveries.  On Wednesday, it was in our building, so I could actually hear some of the talks, though most of the time I still was in my office working.  The days the others traveled to zone conferences, they left the office about 7:30 a.m., so the plus for me was that I didn’t have as long a day as they had!  Also, it was a fairly quiet week.  There was only one day that I couldn’t answer a call because I was on another call, and when the others got back, I couldn’t open the door for them because I was on the phone.  The others got back around 2:30 or 3 each afternoon.  Then they were on the computers catching up on some of their work.  I got a lot done this week…..a project I was working on to list the apartment names with the office managers.  We are hoping that this will help both Gary and I.  Sometimes when apartment managers call in, it is hard to understand them when they say where they are from.  Also, all the apartments in the IMOS system are listed by address, not apartment name, so this will help us both too I am hoping, since we aren’t as familiar with them all…..and we have about 100 apartments that we deal with!  During the week, there were always some missionaries that would stop in the office off and on during the day too, so I wasn’t completely alone.

Elder Clayton said that they only will have 1 more zone conference before they are released, and he is glad…..those are hard weeks for them.

Yesterday, Nov. 16^th…..my baby girl turned 29!  Where has the time gone????

We decided to take a day to take a drive and see some more of the mission.  We first went down Hwy 1, along the coast from Santa Cruz to Monterey.  We did a drive through tour of an area called the 17 Mile drive, which takes you around the Pebble Beach area.  Then we headed across the mountains to Greenfield.  This is the southernmost point of the mission.  It is a small town, about 28,000.  Quite different than the big city San Jose!  It took us about 1 hour and 20 minutes to get back to the mission office from there.  We were gone the whole afternoon, getting back after dark.  We didn’t do other things we usually do on a Saturday, our shopping for instance, so that will just wait till Monday evening.

It was nice to have a break from the normal routine though, and see some different areas.  We have learned that the Monterey Bay is a good place to whale watch, so next year we want to go and do that!

Today was a more restful day too.  Face timed with Shelley’s family today.  She had been telling me that the kids wanted to see us.  They were under a tornado warning today.  So far, they have been okay where they live, but I read online that some areas were hit very hard in Illinois.

I took a nap this afternoon.  I think I am so tired all the time not just because of the fast pace we live in here, but because of the  allergy meds and decongestants I take…. those make me drowsy too.   I have been having troubles with my sinuses since we got here…….then I learned that apparently  in this area, people have more sinus problems.  That is what Elder Clayton was told by the doctor.  He also has had problems.  He said he never had allergies before he came here. 

Well, that is it for the week!