December 15, 2013

December 15, 2013

Well, we made it through the 3^rd transfer week here.  I have counted, and we will go through 13 transfer weeks while we are on our 18 month mission.  It was still busy for me, even though the numbers were down.  Not as stressful because of lower numbers, but the computer work and papers printed off are the same.  One thing that made the week a little different…..because it was so close to Christmas, parents wanted to know the new addresses of their children to send packages, so were calling on transfer day to find out that information.    We didn’t have the information even in the computer yet, because I hadn’t received it from the AP’s until a half hour before the transfer meeting began, and at that point I couldn’t even do anything with it, because there were missionaries in the office making purchases or payments.  We had to tell everyone who called to give us a day or so to have the information in the system.  I have to input the information zone by zone, then when it is in the system, I click on finalize, and that takes about an hour for the computer to digest all the information.   Then we can access the information on the computer.  As I am working on inputting the information, I still have phone calls to take, and other tasks I need to get done, so it is a slow process.   I don’t print out the new reports, though, until after Thursday’s meeting, when the new missionaries are placed in their new companionships.  Then those names are put in the computer, click finalize again, and wait again, then I start on printing out all the reports for everyone…..phone lists, companionship rosters, organizational rosters.

My birthday was a great day!  Church with our Vietnamese Branch (we love attending church with these humble people!), then the 1^st Presidency Christmas broadcast, and the outgoing devotional.  There is always a great spirit at that meeting!

We are getting into a good routine here.  I wish we didn’t get so tired, though.  We spent yesterday getting our chores done….laundry, cleaning, shopping.  Working on my Relief Society lesson.  Today after church, we both took a nap.  There are activities every night up at the temple grounds for Christmas, and I wish we could participate and see them, but we are just too tired during the week, and I had thought of going up this evening to some, but I was too tired today to even think too hard about it, and knew we wouldn’t get back home early enough to get a good sleep before work tomorrow.  The Menlo Park Stake has a Crèche exhibit every December, and it was last weekend and finished on Wed.  There was no time for us to make it to that.  Hopefully next year we can, since transfer week won’t be the same time.

Oh, one thing on this transfer week.....our Vietnamese Elders, Elder Hullinger and Elder Bruggeman were made zone leaders this week!
 

Family matters:  learned that Grant had strep throat, and Emilie has RSV…..she is receiving 3 treatments a day, but doesn’t have to be hospitalized.   I sure hope things are better this week!