Sunday, October 16, 2016

October Transfer Week

Dear Family and Friends,
            Last Sunday was perfect weather—no humidity, temps in the 70’s, clear skies!!  What a great start to the week.  We attended Larry and Holly’s ward to hear our grandson Gary give his first Sacrament meeting talk.  He did well, looked at people, didn’t mumble, showed confidence and bore a sweet testimony.  And a bonus was being able to listen to Bram’s talk in Primary, plus the Primary children sang “The Army of Helaman” to us!!  What a great day!!  Took good naps in the afternoon, cooked my first Pulled Pork and it turned out delicious!!  We had the Office Elders, Elder Boggess and Elder Lindstrom, and Sister Hugentobler over for dinner.  It was such a nice time!! 
            Monday we had missionaries around the building all day for P-day, while the missionaries who are going home Tuesday and the missionaries with birthdays in October went to the temple in Memphis, 2 ½ hours away.  I worked on the 2017 calendar, took care of emails, helped with a few problems, and went over various stuff.  We left for the Mission Home at 4:30 to help get dinner on the table, ate a delicious dinner, and then stayed to clean up.  Sister Wakolo has decided to use the women who clean and care for the Mission Home to also cook for the big dinners this week, so we only helped Monday evening. 
            Tuesday Jim and I spent the first 1 ½ hours in his office doing the input of all the Transfers.  The Office Elders changed the Transfer Board around in President’s Office, and the mailboxes for Sister Hugentobler.  They also had to put together the new bikes that came for the new missionaries.  I worked on emails, faxed in medical bills to SLC, went to Sam’s Club with Sister Green, worked on the Calendar some more, etc. Jim had 22 bills to pay today, and lots of housing issues all week.
            Wednesday we drove straight to the Rodney Parham for the Training of the new missionaries.  I talked to them about how to handle paperwork, referrals, baptism records,and collected passports to be stored in Jim’s Office.  There were no more changes so we submitted the Transfers to IMOS and the changes took effect within the hour.  We had 12 missionaries leave and 15 come in.  We brought the camera to the Office and I downloaded the photos into the computer, reviewed and eliminated any bad ones, labeled the ones I kept, and started emailing them home to the families of the new missionaries.  That took the rest of my day!  The local stake president’s wife brought in sandwiches and fruit for us to eat for lunch.  It was delicious and much appreciated!!  Jim and I did our grocery shopping on the way home and rested in the evening.
            Thursday I processed the two new missionary recommendations I had received on Tuesday, then printed up and sent out a number of different reports.  Then emailed out the photos of the departing missionaries, made a few changes in IMOS, worked on various Office stuff.  Went home and exercised, then TV and bed.
            Friday was much cooler, and rained Thursday night and Friday morning.  I brought my desk calendar up to date, went through the paperwork of the new missionaries—there were several different kinds of things they had to fill out and I had to distribute them to the correct desk.  President and Sister Wakolo came in for 2 hours and got some work and some visiting done.  It’s always nice to have them around.  Then I had to input new email addresses for the missionaries and their parents, and delete the ones of those who just went home.  That is always hard to do! Jim took advantage of having President there and went over the 2017 budget and some other apartment issues. He uses a spreadsheet to keep track of all the details of setting up or closing apartments.  Ate dinner out, came home and changed into warmer clothes, watched TV including the 1st half of the BYU-Mississippi State game (which we ended up winning—Hooray!!), and went to bed.
            Saturday went to watch Gary’s soccer game but Bram’s team didn’t play.  Came home and cleaned, worked on a project on the computer, took naps, exercised, cleaned up, ate leftovers for dinner, and went to see the movie, “Deepwater Horizon.”  It is a disaster flic, very well done and intense.  We really enjoyed it!
            Gradually the cooler weather is coming and going, but not staying yet.  I need to get out some of my warmer fall clothing. 
            From Jim: I found a great quote in the Institute manual referencing Mosiah 27: 22-24, from Theodore M. Burton, a Seventy, who was asked “’Isn’t it depressing to have to review the sins and transgressions of people involved in such difficulties?’ It would be if I were looking for sins and transgressions. But I am working with people who are repenting. These are sons and daughter of God who have made mistakes, some of them very serious. But they are not sinners. They were sinners in the past but have learned through bitter experience the heartbreak that results from disobedience to God’s laws. Now they are no longer sinners. They are God’s repentant children who want to come back to Him and are striving to do so.“  That is the way God looked at Alma the younger, and it gives me a lot of hope that if I will repent of all the mistakes I make, that He will look at me that way too, one who wants to repent and be better and am still in the process of trying.”
            Hope you are all doing well.  Our love to you—

            Elder and Sister Hartzell

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