Journal October 3, 2008

Hi family, We are watching conference on the internet in the office.... Here is an up date from my journal. Hope you enjoy. I would really like to hear from the kids!! I sure miss them all and of course all of the adults too. Michael send me Rachael´s email.. somehow it was erased from my address book... Love ya all, mom and dad
Sunday (Sept 26), I woke up this morning not feeling good. I am afraid, the cold is winning! Even though I am taking meds to try and prevent it. We made it to church and I was cold in the church. We came home had lunch and rested and then to the office again, to get things ready for Monday morning meetings. The office is our home away from home. I emailed the kids some, but too tired to really write much. Sent out a few pictures. I really don’t feel well...

Friday, October 3, 2008
This past week has been a busy one in the office, We seem to be drowning some days with all there is to do. I think I should have something done in about a half hour and when I look up it has been three or four hours. I know the procedures are becoming more familiar now, but it always seem there is one step in the middle of some process, that I don’t remember and it takes me hours to figure it out. The cold won... I finally Wed. night started taking some antibiotics to try and stop it from getting worse. I am chilled and my ears were hurting. Today, I finally started feeling better. Wed. Dad and the Elders were able to delivery pouch mail, with out getting too lost and they made it good time!!! He was so glad!
Yesterday, the doctor and his wife, the nurse, (the Dixon’s) came and got us and we walked down to a small little place and got a sandwich for lunch. It wasn’t bad. The Dixon’s must be about 20 years apart in age. He is 80 yrs old, and she looks our age. They have been married 36 or so years. He is always pulling jokes and telling jokes. He is so young at heart. And seems to be in good health. We both enjoy them. We usually go home for lunch and rest, but I am glad we went to lunch with them. It was a nice break. Everyone has asked and called to see how I have been feeling. The doctor’s office is next to ours, and he is always checking in on us.
Today in the office was much more relaxed for some reason... Dad and I talked last night, and decided to try and not fuss over things so much, and try not to involve the Elders so much in our work. I feel it is making things harder on us and dad agreed. I think the office Elders try so hard to help, but I think they are getting overwhelmed with everything that everyone is asking them to do, so we thought we would back off. I asked the Elders to order pizza for everyone. They were more than happy to do that. We treated.. I think I have typed into the system about 13 baptisms this week. I think I typed in about that many last week and the week before that. There are still several to be done and I am waiting on more information. Sometimes information is left off the forms, so I have to try and get the Elders to call and get the information. So the mission is doing good, I just hope the people stay active! There is a terrible problem here with activation. They say one out of 5 are members here, but I think about half are active.. Sad....
The Riggs came back from Talagante yesterday, and that was a surprise. They said they were going to be gone until Monday. She seemed so sad yesterday, I was worried about her. Today we found out that there were family problems and they both were hurting inside. They came back to go to the temple and do a few office routines.
I went and got my first hair cut here... Well... I took a chance on this lady that cut dad’s hair.... all I can say... is it is way short. I asked for a half inch and she cut about two off! I finally told her, not to cut the top, or I thought I might end up bald! I had trimmed that part last week, so it was good anyways. It doesn’t look bad, just shorter than I like it, but it will grow. It is hard to describe what you want when you can’t speak the language. With hand motions and a few words, we were able to figure things out... even though it is shorter than I would have liked. Dad is reading now and I am typing and it is 10 pm... It is conference this weekend, so we will listen to it over internet in the office, or else go over to the ward house and listen to it in English.

It is Saturday morning. Dad is sleeping and I am awake so I thought I would write a little about the things that I am responsible for in the office. I type in the baptism information and send the information to Salt Lake and keep track of the Numbers that I receive from the APs. I am responsible for typing into the system and maintaining the information and pictures of all the new missionaries. Sending out the letters to the incoming missionaries. Typing up letters from the president to the families, bishops and stake presidents as needed. I keep a updated list of changes and where all the missionaries are serving and their phone numbers. I keep an updated list of all the incoming and out going missionaries so we know each month who is coming and going. The numbers are constantly changing weekly on the incoming missionaries. I am responsible for all flight information that I receive from Salt Lake for incoming and out going missionaries. I order the tickets through Salt Lake and a local person for the out going missionaries. Registering Americans with the American Embassy. Applying for the missionary’s visa papers and carnet cards. Reminding missionaries to send their weekly report to the president. We make up what we call a “Go homers” book. It has information in it about the individual missionary with the areas (sectors) he or she has served in and missionaries he, or she has served with. It also has a list of all their converts so they can keep in touch with them. I type up some of the information for that, but Sister Riggs is responsible for most of the material and putting the books together. It keeps me busy. Oh and I try and answer phones. You can’t imagine how grateful I am when the person on the other end speaks English!
Dad is responsible for all the bills for the housing for the missionaries, and making sure the missionaries get their allotments each month, and all bills relating to the mission, in other words.. All the financial needs for the mission. Plus trying to keep the missionaries happy when they spend more than they were allotted! And to keep the books balanced. He makes several trips to the banks each week trying to pay bills, and keep enough money on hand. He opens and closes new places for them to live in. He is responsible for their cell phones. Delivering mail on Wednesdays. The list seems short, but the tasks are endless and time consuming. I think he is finally getting a handle on it all and finding new ways to help himself understand the whole process. He went to a training meeting on Thursday with other financial persons from the East, South and North Missions. That was really helpful. We can always learn new tricks to simplifying our work load. One thing is for sure, and that is that this mission does a lot of data entry that we don’t feel is necessary. The secretaries before us were computer programmers and I think they loved building data bases! They do amazing things, but are not always necessary and take time to keep up. We want to accomplish our tasks and simplify things!
Dad and I are still reading the Book of Mormon each night before retiring. We try and read a few chapters each night. We finished the chapters of Mormon.. We went to bed last night feeling sort of sad for all the bloodshed that was split with the killing off of all the Nephites. I can’t imagine what a wicked people they must have been to have the Lord destroy all of them, because the Lamanites were not all that good themselves. Sometimes it is hard to understand all that must have taken place. We are also reading “Preach my Gospel” book in Spanish. We are hoping besides learning the principles of the gospel more, but to understand the language more. Dad is doing good, but I am really struggling with the understanding. That’s all for now!