Interview Time

Now what could possibly be better than having the Assistants and Office Elders in the office at the same time? Twelve Elders! They weren't all here together but in and out to meet with President Wall. Today began Pres Wall's quarterly, and final, interviews with all the mission. He's meeting with the Baton Rouge Zone this week and interviewing in his office here at the mission office. (I know-- department of redundancy department) We first had the Spanish East and the East Spanish Elders who were here for 2 hours. (I didn't name them.) Pres W likes to take 30 minutes with each missionary. While the companion is with President the Assistants are doing some training or motivation or something. Actually I have no idea what they're doing. Maybe I'll ask them. Anyway, Elders McMurray, Billings, Peltzer and Howald are quite often together because they share an apartment and a car.

Next came Elder Andrews and Elder Glauser, the 2 cute clowns with shades. Elder Andrews, on the left, goes home to Mesa AZ after our next transfer on May 28. Elder Glauser just came out last December, so he'll be with us for awhile. He's from San Bernardino! They wanted me to send the pics to their moms so when I asked for their phone numbers and Elder G started with 909 I quickly asked where he was from. Unfortunately we didn't have much time to visit--just long enough to get a picture.

I should have started this post with the beginning of the day but just had to get a word in first on the stream of Elders coming in and out today. And it will continue for a few more days, because there are 36 missionaries in the Baton Rouge Zone. Yay! Twenty-four more will be coming in by Friday.

President Wall walked in this morning and set up doughnuts and orange juice for today's elders. He said Sister Wall had given him directions to "make it look cute!" No comment. Elders don't care about cute anyway:) Then he walked into our office, handed me a July calendar and said, "I have a problem for you." I told him I like problems so he proceeded to turn the entire month of July upside down! The only 3 days unchanged are incoming, transfers and go-homes. Other than that it's all different, but for good reason. President Hansen actually takes over as of Monday, June 30. The 2 presidents talked yesterday and decided that zone conferences would take place the first week that the Hansens are in charge. At each conference Pres & Sister Hansen will introduce themselves, then there will be a testimony meeting. It will give the Hansens a quick opportunity to put names with faces and receive some impressions and inspiration about each of the missionaries. The conferences will only be 3 hours instead of the usual all day including lunch. Then the missionaries can go out to lunch with the $5 extra that Elder L will put on their support cards. So the schedule will be  New Orleans North and South on Monday, Baton Rouge and Denham Springs on Tuesday, Lafayette Wednesday, Alexandria on Thursday, and Preparation Day on Friday, The Fourth of July! Perfect. Maybe all the missionaries will get invitations to family barbecues or boils or frys or whatever they do here on the 4th. Now all I need to do is retype the calendar, reschedule 6 buildings, cancel all the luncheons that the stakes prepare for their zones, and pray that President Wall doesn't make anymore changes. Piece of cake! Thank goodness for email. It's made my life much easier.