3 March 2014
Hi Everyone,
Well, not my
best week. Made a few blunders. First, I made travel arrangements for one of
the couples and it wasn’t exactly where they wanted it. They were polite, but I felt
incompetent. One day, I wondered why I hadn’t received very
many calls the last few days. I checked
my phone and whoops! I had turned off
the volume for Church and forgot to turn it back on. Quite a few calls not answered or returned
including some from the President. Well,
the President actually just called Elder Stringhams phone and asked to talk to
me. I wondered why!! The President puts out a weekly letter to the
missionaries, but I start it for him with comments, etc from the office
staff. I had started it, but forgot to
email it to him so I had to trek over to the office in the frigid weather last
night and send it to him from the office.
I think I will be forwarding them to my home computer from now on. There were a few others but don’t have time
to list them all. I have always known
and worried about my memory issues, but now they are starting to catch up with
me and it causes me a lot of anxiety and confuses others. I think I need a little divine
intervention! Prayers on my behalf
welcomed!
Zone Conferences are over and luckily we did not need to
shut down the mission for weather. Zone
Conferences is where all the missionaries in a zone get together for
instructions, counsel and training. But,
the office couples check all the cars for cleanliness (at least on the inside
for now), proper maintenance, everything working as they should and no dings,
scratches or hanging bumpers, etc. Elder
and Sister Shelley get to do that while Elder Stringham and I get to stay in
the nice warm Mission Office. We had 3
Zone Conferences…..Des Moines area, Iowa City area and Nauvoo, Illinois
area. So for 3 days we manned the
office! It is a little tricky to do a 4
person job with 2 people. The mail is by
far the biggest thing to handle while the Shelleys are gone. All the missionary mail comes through the
office because of frequent transfers!
Heavens….286 missionaries getting their mail forwarded. The most confusing are the packages! Only priority mail gets forwarded…..it is
free. The rest we put on a desk for the
APs to take it by or wait until a Zone Conferences. I think the instructions to the parents and
their new missionaries is to only send their packages priority mail. Some of these missionaries will not be
getting their late Valentine’s packages until after St. Patrick’s Day when we
have another round of Zone Conferences. I
love seeing the letters come through.
Some are decorated all over the letter!
It looks so cute and sweet and then I have to blackened most of the
front of the letter to be able to forward it.
I mess it up terribly!
Being on a mission, you see lots of tender mercies! Especially for the missionaries! With all the snow and icy roads around you
would think we would be having many, many accidents. Mostly we have had just little fender benders
because someone in front of them tried to slow down and swerved into them or
they slipped off the road trying to take a curve. Today, after it snowed last night, it is supposed to get to a high of 1 degree
with the low of -15….not counting the wind chill factor…..and wind is a given
in Iowa. Think of “Little House on the
Prairie” scenes….snow and wind! By the
way, north of us is a place where Laura Ingalls Wilder and family lived for a
short time. I need to get there sometime
this summer.
Missionary work is humbling! Just when you think you have everything down
someone calls and wants to know why they didn’t receive a certain report or
calendar. What? So I have to hunt down where I get the
reports and just which calendars are appropriate for them to have. Our Mission President is fairly new and
when I ask him he just looks confused! Someone called a couple of days ago asking for
a lot of information. I could only find
part of what she needed. Her comment
was, “I’m sure there is still a lot of learning going on when you are so
new!” Yep, she got that right!! On top of that, I have this memory
problem. I have taken to writing
everything down that I need to do and check it off when it is done. So now I have an ongoing ledger of everything
I do! Still seeing how it works
out!
In two weeks the Senior Couples all get to meet in Nauvoo
for a Conference and Temple Session. We
will be having Brother Durrant, Susan Easton Black’s husband, speak to us. I hear he is wonderful and she is an
ordinance worker at the temple so we will see her at the conference, too! I am so excited for this! I have missed my weekly visits to the temple. What a peaceful and glorious place to
be. Just thinking about the first Nauvoo
Temple being burned down because of hatred towards the Mormons makes me so
grateful to those pioneers and all they sacrificed on our behalf. And now there is a new one…..replica of the
first! Can hardly wait! Praying for good weather so it doesn’t get
postponed!
Well, better get to the office! As always, love hearing from you and love you
all!!!
Love,
Elder and Sister Stringham
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