June 29, 2014
The end of one era of our mission and the beginning of the next. Yesterday, June 28th, was the “changing of the guard”…….old mission president left and new one arrived. We haven’t met him yet, but are guessing it will be tomorrow at the office.
Let’s see, what happened this past week?
Monday, I went with Gary to Redwood City. We are getting 2 apartments there, and they required 2 signatures, so we both needed to go. Usually, most places just require his signature on the papers. I told him Monday was the best day for me to go, since that is the day we have the least number of missionaries in the office. Each apartment required cashiers checks for the first month’s rent….most apartments do….so we had a total of $3600 in cashiers checks that we had to take the funds out of our own account and get reimbursed for. There is no other way to get the cashiers checks than for us to go to our bank and withdraw our funds to get the checks issued, then get reimbursed and put the money back into our account. On Wednesday, Gary was in Livermore getting another apartment, with another cashiers check, this time it was $3198. So we had nearly $7000 out of our bank that week, then put back in when we got the reimbursement checks. I told one department in Salt Lake that when they call people to an office mission, they need to be aware that they will need to have funds they can draw from for things like this, and a bank locally they can deal with. It was a shock to us when we first arrived here and learned that. Luckily for us, we had a credit union here that was a share branch with our local credit union back home. Otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened!
Tuesday and Wednesday, if I remember right, was the end of the interviews. Thursday……quiet! It was so nice to have the office back to normal after the last few weeks of interviews and missionaries constantly in the office. And that isn’t to say we never have missionaries in the office. We do all the time, but with the interviews it was lots of missionaries hanging around bored, waiting for their turns. Which made it hard for all of us to get our work done well.
Gary had some time in the office this week, and he was organizing his supply closet with missionary literature. He found lots of things that were hidden either behind or under other things, so now he knows of several items he does not need to order for awhile!
Friday, President Watkin and Sister Watkins were in the office. President signed papers that needed signing, signed off on the credit cards on the bank website, and they both cleaned out his office. They took the office staff to lunch at Chile’s, including the AP’s and a set of sister missionaries who happened in at the right time. Also, Sister Withers was in the office picking up boxes, so she got invited to lunch too. It was a nice, relaxing lunch time. We had a set of sister missionaries man the phones while we were gone. At 5 as we were getting ready to leave, we went in and said our good-byes to Sister Watkins. President was visiting with the AP’s in another room. We came home, I changed and left right away. I had another Apple class—this time on iPhoto. I absolutely loved this class and the things I learned to do! When I got home from the class, which was from 6-7, we got our grocery list and headed to go grocery shopping. By the time we got home from that and got the groceries put away, we just heated up a can of soup for dinner, and called it a night….it was about 10 by then.
Saturday, we were told that the change took place like this: 10 am both the old and new president met at the office, to spend 1 hour going over things that he needed to know about the office. Then they spent 1 hour at the mission home going over things. You know, basic things like sprinkler systems, how things in the house work, alarms system (both the home and the office one), etc. The things you need to know when you move into a new home. So just 2 hours, then the Watkins were on their way and the Mella’s were settling in.
Saturday morning we got up and cleaned and did laundry like usual. Then we headed to Penney’s….Gary needed a new belt. After that we headed over to the office to wash our car. We had talked of going to a movie, but there wasn’t anything playing we wanted to see. We picked up a bucket of KFC and headed home for dinner, and Gary spent the evening watching ball games on TV or the computer. I finished the laundry. I know it sounds like we have a ton of dirty clothes with all the laundry taking so long, but remember we have an apartment sized washer and dryer…..they are WAY mini!——-so it takes a lot of loads. Both bath towels and the floor towel/mat is one large load! I can’t get the sheets in one load. So, it all takes a long time.
Today Gary taught the 5th Sunday combined Priesthood/Relief Society lesson…..on how to teach! I think the class enjoyed it very much….he is a GREAT teacher! It is very warm today…supposed to be 90. Tomorrow it is supposed to get to 98.
This week the new president will be jumping right into things…..this is the week to plan the transfers which occur next week. We don’t know yet if we work on Friday the 4th or not. We kept thinking we could plan on something for a 3 day weekend if we didn’t, but by the time we know I don’t know if we will go away or not. Plus, we learned that our branch is having a couple baptized next Saturday. We don’t know the time yet on that. So we shall see what will happen. Next Sunday is the outgoing fireside already. We are losing some more of the missionaries that we have gotten attached to. :( It keeps happening all the time now. But then we also gain new missionaries that we don’t know yet, but that we will get attached to as time goes on. That is the way things are around here, always some leaving and new ones coming.
Wishing you all the best this week!
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