Dear
Family and Friends,
Last Monday didn’t start out too
good. I woke up feeling sick—no fever
and nothing serious, but I knew I didn’t feel well enough to go to the Office,
so I stayed home and rested all day, eating mostly broth and drinking 7-Up (my
favorite drink when I don’t feel good).
I watched TV, read, took several naps, and just took it easy. When Jim got home, we had a nice visit with
Brent and enjoyed that. Slept good that
night.
Tuesday I felt fine again and went
into the Office. Jim: Yesterday the
phones and internet were down most of the day, but they made up for it today. Monday came on Tuesday this week. I had taken 105 pictures last Friday of the
mission home and yard and needed to send them to Salt Lake. It took quite a while to learn how to do that
as a Zip file and using a special program the Church uses for large file
transfers. We cannot use third party
software, like Dropbox for transferring files. Pat: I
had a lot of catch-up to do, mostly taking care of emails, and also sending out
letters to the stake presidents of the missionaries going home the end of
November. It’s great printing up their Certificates
of Completion to put in the envelopes that their stake presidents will present
to them after they get home. President
and Sister Wakolo came in for a couple of hours and it was nice to visit with
them. The Greens were in the Office on
Monday and Tuesday, getting stuff done.
And Sister Hugentobler is feeling better all the time.
Wednesday Jim was busy with Brother
Stewart from the Missionary Department in Salt Lake City. His assignment is to visit all the missions
in a certain area and see how things are going with the Finance, Housing,
Vehicle Inspection areas, and meet with the mission president. They visit each mission once during each
Mission Presidents tour. Jim: I have
been doing most things correctly, but had a few that I need to improve on. Pat:
I worked on answering the phone and taking media orders that Sister H was busy
filling. There were missionaries coming
and going all afternoon, bringing in old 4 mission cars and getting 4 new ones
to drive away. The Office Elders were
there taking care of stuff (I got to see the shed by our chapel that they have
organizing—it looks terrific!!), and the Assistants were there setting up the
interview schedule for President Wakolo.
He will be interviewing every Transfer now, instead of just once a
quarter. We went to Sam’s Club after to
pick up food for Thursday, came home and did laundry.
Thursday was MLC—Mission Leadership
Conference—where the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders meet and talk
about what the missionaries need to be doing and what the focus of the mission
should be. Jim and I went and picked up
Chick-fil-A chicken strips and served them lunch with salad, chips, grapes, and
cookies and cupcakes. We also had a new
Senior couple arrive—the Harrises. This
is their 4th mission—one to a YSA ward, one to Italy, one in their
local mission office for a year, and now hear.
They will do MLS. They are real
excited to be here and ready to go to work!
Worked on a beta-testing for IMOS using a new set-up for their correspondence
module. So far I have found quite a few
bugs, but hope in the end I will be able to do all my letters through their
mail merge instead of what I am doing now—typing in the correct information in
the correct place. We stayed until after
6 pm so Jim could try and get somewhat caught up after yesterday’s visit. Came home, ate dinner, and I did another batch
of laundry while Jim ironed shirts.
Friday we cleaned for a couple of
hours, worked on the IMOS testing, went to the bread store, worked on some of
the missionaries medical bills (either faxing copies to Mission Medical or
talking to Mission Medical about what else needs to be done.) We stayed until 6:15, then drove to the Otter
Creek building where the Little Rock Ward meets and went to their Fall
Social. We had Nachos and all the
trimmings for dinner, then a fun costume parade for the kids, and lots of games
for them to play. Went home and
relaxed!!
Saturday Gary and Bram had their
last two soccer games, and we went to the first of each (Gary’s team lost
theirs 3-1, and Bram’s won theirs 1-0), then to the grocery store, got gas,
headed home to clean our bathrooms and the kitchen floor, then took naps, I
went to get a haircut, then exercised, I cut Jim’s hair, ate dinner, watched TV,
and had a good night’s sleep.
Today we are
fasting for one of my nephew’s grandchildren who has heart surgery this coming
week. We pray that all will go well and
it will be successful. We took Michelle
and Caleb to church and had good meetings.
Jim challenged Caleb, who just turned 9, to think about preparing
himself for baptism by sitting in on the lessons his grandma has with the
sister missionaries (he is not a member nor is his mother, just his grandma). He loves church and Primary and is a real
good kid! Jim: In sacrament meeting at
the conclusion of one of the talks, Bishop Houston shared the following quote
from Jerry Rice, the football player: “Today I will do what
others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't”. I think this
goes along well with Elder Oaks’ talk a few years ago about Good, Better,
Best. If we want the best results, then
we are going to have to do what it takes to receive those best results, putting
forth our best effort. Came
home, read, and napped, and look forward to visiting with Christi and Shelley
this evening.
A
quote from one of the letters to the mission president that he shared in his
Monday email: "'True discipleship
happens more outside of our callings than inside our callings, meaning that as
a member of the church you minister to others by being a good member rather than
ministering because you have a particular calling.’”
Love to you all,
Elder & Sister Hartzell
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| Gary and Grandad |
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| Bram with Grandma & Grandad |
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