Transitions and Training

June 19, 2014

The one thing that is constant in a mission is CHANGE!  We now have two senior sisters who will be assuming most of the functions performed by the current office elders.  The office elders will be spending more time being missionaries and less time in the office.  Everybody in the office is trying to learn as much as possible because we will be getting a new office couple in two weeks.  The office is "buzz-ing" trying to get things organized and ready for change.  All the missionaries in the various zones are anxiously awaiting the phone call they know they will get Saturday morning telling them if they are staying or going someplace new this transfer.  It's time for CHANGE!

It's one of THOSE days!

May 14, 2014

 

It's one of THOSE days.  We were getting ready to go to the airport to pick up the new missionaries arriving from Provo.  However, we got a message from  Salt Lake just as we were ready to leave saying their flight had been rescheduled and they won't be arriving until Friday--two days from now.  We'll work around that.  In the meantime, transfers take place tomorrow and we are expecting the largest transfer we have had in the past ten months.  Now we are rearranging schedules and shuffling things around so we will have companions to travel with the new missionaries to their area of service.  We don't want to just put someone on a train in a foreign country and say "good luck, we hope you make it".  To complicate matters, we have flights booked to Sardegna for a zone conference there and we leave early Saturday morning and won't be here to ensure everything runs smoothly.  Thank goodness for competent missionaries and senior couples who can come to the rescue.  (What?  I thought we were supposed to be rescuing people who have fallen away from the church and now we find ourselves being rescued from a difficult situation of a different nature.  I have to admit that members of the LDS church are pretty talented.)

Eventually everything will work out and everyone will reach their destinations.  There's usually more than one way to get to Point A from Point B.  We have a navigator up above who watches over us very closely.  We're grateful for Him!

Transfer Day Puzzle

January 9, 2014

The final two missionaries are on their way to the airport to fly to Sicily.  It's time to settle down and take a deep breath.  We thought we finally had transfer day under control.  We were wrong.  This has been a very unusual, challenging transfer.  The metro workers were on strike today.  That means nobody could get to the bus or train station if they were supposed to get there by metro.  It meant extra people making extra trips to the train and bus stations, but it eventually worked.  We had one sister whose backpack was stolen while she was waiting for the train.  It contained her passport and other important items.  The police recovered everything except the euros she had in it and her camera.  Euros can be replaced and a camera can be replaced, but the pictures are gone forever.  We are in the process of changing out old cars for new cars in a couple of areas.  For the first time we had two missionaries who are being transferred to Sardegna drive a car to the ferry and take the car by ferry to Sardegna.  That meant they had to travel overnight and spend 15 hours on the ferry.  They seemed pretty excited about doing it.  They were excited until the ferry broke down in the middle of the ocean and they had to wait until new parts could be taken to them to repair the ferry.  It only took an extra 10 hours.  That wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't forgotten to take the phone # of the missionaries who were meeting them at the ferry so it took a long time to connect with them.  (We have to keep reminding ourselves that these missionaries are still kids.)  We had two more missionaries who were driving a car to the eastern part of Italy from Rome.  It's a long drive, but they were excited to stop in Napoli and get a pizza en route.  We have missionaries who are being transferred to a new location for the first time since they got here on their missions.  Some of them are really excited and some are apprehensive.  We have two sisters going to a city that has never had sisters before.  Three cities will see an increase in the number of missionaries serving there.  Some of our missionaries are being transferred to their final location prior to being released next transfer.  We have one office elder who is being transferred back into the field and a new one coming in to take his place.  He has a lot to learn and the remaining elder has a lot to teach.  One of the assistants is also being transferred back into the field and a new one just arrived to take his place.  The old saying that "the only thing constant is change" is certainly true in the mission field.  It's like a big jigsaw puzzle.  Tonight the puzzle is complete, but by morning someone will have knocked it on the floor and we'll start all over again.  Hopefully next time the puzzle will only have 100 pieces instead of 500.

Extra Mouths

November 27, 2013

We never know how many extra mouths we will have to feed during transfers.  Trains, planes, and buses are sometimes delayed.  This time we had so much snow in one of the towns that the missionaries had difficulty getting out.  Some of the travel times are long and tedious.  A missionary can be on a train for 10 hours.  This time we had a group of missionaries show up at the villa at 10:30 at night.  They were hungry and cold.  They are used to waking up at 6:30 am and being in bed asleep at 10:30 pm so late arrivals and early departures throw their schedules off.  We do the best we can to help ease the stress of transfers.  Life is always better when your stomach is full.