Now I know what it feels like to work a 12 hour day without a lunch break! It's great if you're on a mission. Any other time--probably not. My main goals today were to get the emails out to new missionary parents giving them their addresses, (That really should've been done yesterday.) send out letters to the parents of new trainers, and get the organizational roster and directory ready to print.
I wish I could say "Mission Accomplished" but I can't. The emails went out long before 8 am, so I thought I was off to a great start, which lasted for about one hour. When it came time to write the parents about their missionaries' new assignments as trainers I could only find the one to parents of sisters. That's just great since there were 5 elders' parents to write. After a futile search I gave up and edited each individual "sister" letter, changing all the she, her, and sister references. "Your daughter, Sister John Smith" just wasn't going to work. There should also be a "trainer again"-type letter which I couldn't find, so those aren't done yet. On to the roster which I couldn't do till the office elders gave me the phone number corrections and Elder Fontenot had the address changes. Of course, by the time I needed those Elder F and Elder L were off to Lafayette and beyond on a housing excursion and to pick up the Plaquette's car that was rear-ended yesterday. They didn't get back until after 4. Marc was driving the wrecked car to take to the place that does most of our auto repairs. But he got caught in some nasty traffic, and vowed when he walked through the door that he was never leaving Cedar City again!
In between trying to get all of the corrections made on the roster it became another crazy phone day-- 1. Questions from a new May incoming missionary
2. A mom who wanted to know how to spell her son's companion's name so she could send a "care package" to the comp (every companion's dream)
3. A mom who wanted her son's new address because all he could tell her in his email on Tuesday was that he was being transferred but didn't know where
4. A neighboring mission who had an investigator in the hospital in our mission and wanted a blessing before a triple by-pass
5. Elders needing a DVD in Spanish because they only have English and they're Spanish elders
6. An attorney from SLC who needed to speak to Pres Wall ASAP and wanted his number, but I'm not really authorized to give it out so had to text the President
7. A Stake Pres who wanted to talk to Pres Wall about a missionary from his stake who's being released early for medical reasons. I hadn't even heard about this one. Just before I got a text off to the President, he called and asked me to change the release date and get the travel arranged. I didn't get very far because my travel lady is out till next week and her back-up had gone home. When the Salt Lake offices are closed you know you should be somewhere besides the mission office. Also, the clearance hadn't come through from our Salt Lake liaison to change the date more than 30 days. That's all we're allowed without his authorization.
Etc Etc. Etc.
By the time I could actually concentrate on the roster it was after 5, so I turned the night key on the phone, closed the front window and went to work. Ah! Peace and quiet is what I needed. I do need to say that I'd tried earlier to get all of the changes made but hadn't done this on my own before. Sister Olsen was still here answering all my questions 6 weeks ago. But today I was going in and out of programs and downloading a variety of stuff that wasn't what I needed. Unable to get into the correct report and ready to dissolve into tears out of frustration, I put my head down and started to pray. No one was in the office and most likely couldn't have answered the questions I had anyway. I only knew one place to turn am so grateful for an immediate answer. Things cleared up in my head, and I was able to go directly to the program I needed and start making corrections. By the time the office was quiet I at least knew what I was doing and could work without interruption. We left the office at 7:30 after printing a rough draft for the office elders to check. They're leaving at 5:15 tomorrow morning and will be far, far away all day, and I need to get this thing printed tomorrow and off my plate.
Today's bright spot included Easter cards, candy and letters. Thank you RML's and Nemeth's! Every missionary loves mail--and we're no different!
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