Dear
Family & Friends,
Happy Pioneer Day to y’all!!
Last Sunday night we had Larry over for
dinner as his family is out of town. He
stayed afterwards to play a fun card game called “Lucky Unders” that our
friends the Halversens taught us—it always makes us laugh! After Larry left we went over to the Cahoons
for some delicious watermelon and good visiting. It’s really nice to live close to the other
Senior missionaries in the Office.
Monday we woke up early and drove to
the Memphis Temple, taking Sister Hugentobler with us. While everyone else was in the Endowment
session, Jim and I did baptisms, confirmations, and initiatory for some of Jim’s
family members and some other names that the temple had. I hadn’t done baptisms and confirmations
myself for a long time, even though I worked in the Provo Temple Baptistry for
5 years. There is always such a
wonderful feeling in the temples and we are so glad when we have the
opportunity to go there. Then we left to
drive back to Little Rock to the Mission Home to help with the dinner for the
Departing Missionaries. Twelve great
young people who have worked hard and done much to further the work here in our
mission. We worked from 3:30 until 8:00,
made ham, chicken curry and rice, green bean casserole, tossed salad, lots of
cut-up melon, cookie salad, chips, and dip, and brownies for dessert, and went
home tired and ready to rest!
Tuesday Jim & I worked on the
IMOS Transfer Board moving missionaries all over to their new assignments and
changing the assignments on their photos.
This took about 2 hours. After
lunch I went to Larry’s and took care of Sammie, back to the Office for a
little while, then over to the Rodney Parham chapel to help fix, serve and
cleanup dinner for the new Arriving Missionaries. Since there were 20 of them, plus their
trainers, it was too many to feed at the Mission Home, so were able to do it at
the chapel. The schedule was the same—work
from 3:30 until 8:00 and go home exhausted!!
We served beef stroganoff, baked potatoes, tossed salad, cookie salad, ice
cream bars, etc.
Wednesday we went over to the chapel
for the Training of the new missionaries.
I teach them the Office, Referral, and Recorder stuff, and Jim talks to
them about the Financial and Apartment stuff.
They also get car, iPad, and lots of other training. Went back to the Office to finish up the IMOS
Transfer Board and submit all the changes, then I went in the President’s
office to change the information on the Board cards of each missionary. Thank heavens the Office Elders had already
moved everybody around. I went over to
Larry’s to take care of Sammie again, then back to the Office for an hour, then
back to the chapel to help with dinner again.
This time we served Teriyaki Chicken with rice, two salads, fruit,
rolls, and dessert. We do get to eat all
of the dinners, which are wonderfully delicious, so that helps a lot!! And the missionaries sing to us the Mission
Song as a way of saying “Thank You.” It’s
a fun song and I will try to record it sometime to post on the blog.
Thursday morning we got up early and
drove to the church by 6:30 to help with breakfast. Sister Wakolo does this herself when she has
smaller numbers, but this is just way too many!! So she brought a huge batch of scrambled eggs,
and we cooked up sausage and bacon, plus lots of cut up melon and grapes,
bagels, cream cheese, and cereal. They
ate plenty! Then we said goodbye to them
and they left for their new assignments!!
I spent the day in the Office sending out letters and emails, and
dealing with incoming mail and emails.
Worked until 5:00, went home to do laundry, rest, and watch TV.
Friday I sent out all the photos of the
Departing missionaries to their families and all the photos of the Arriving missionaries
to their families—all by emails. Brother
Cheney takes all the photos and does a really good job. He and Sister Cheney will be leaving in the
middle of September and the Cahoons are leaving the end of September. We really need at least one couple to come
and replace them!! Anyone
interested?!!! I also worked on updating
the Calendar, updating information in the computer, and lots of other
things. We ate dinner at Arby’s, went
shopping for groceries on our way home, cleaned one of the bathrooms, watched
TV or read all evening. One of the sisters’ apartments has bed bugs, which has
been treated once already when the elders lived there, but since they are just
moving in, it needed to be treated again.
So we have had to put them in a motel until that gets done the first of
the week.
Saturday Jim cleaned the kitchen
floor, then we met the Cahoons and Rasmussens (the new couple that came a month
ago to be the Military Relations missionaries) at the church and rode together
to a very interesting place called Heifer Village. This is a wonderful volunteer organization
that helps people in third world countries improve their water, farming,
education, health, etc. If you want to
go online, you can read about Heifer International—it is a great organization!! We met the Cheneys there and all enjoyed
seeing what the organization did. Then
we went to a cute burger joint called “All Aboard” where they deliver your
order on a little train that goes on tracks overhead and puts your order on a
tray that lowers down to your table.
Really fun!! Then we went back to
the church, and Jim & I went to shop at Walmart and went home to finish
cleaning, exercise, and take it easy. |
| Pig in the gift shop--don't know why it wasn't a heifer! |
 |
| They use stair-steppers for pumping the water |
 |
| And they use this plastic water-wheel for carting the water to where they need it. Much better than carrying it!! |
This morning I gave a talk in church
about Seminary and Institute, but I was only given about 5 minutes so pretty
much just bore my testimony about how important they both are. We enjoyed our meetings, met with the
Missionary Correlation meeting for the Ward, then came home, ate, and just got
up from naps. Oh, wonderful Sunday
naps!!
 |
| They have flowering trees all summer in different shades of white, light pink,and dark pink. Three samples are in this photo out front of our Mission Office/chapel |
We love you all,
Elder & Sister Hartzell
 |
| Sure had fun watching the train go around to deliver the meals!! |
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