August 27, 2023

I haven't reported on how things are going in the office for a while. This week has been a little frustrating because we have encountered our first problem in the office that we can't solve ourselves! Grrrr! Such a minor little problem but a nusance just the same. The main printer in the office is down and this really leaves Sister Larson in a bind. I have my own little black and white printer but hers is the main office one that prints in color, etc. We have tried everything we could think of, including prayer, to fix it on our own and have failed so far. It has been a great learning experience to discover that the printer actually belongs to the FM group (i.e. the church) and not the mission. We are waiting for the repair man so we are learning to have patience. And before you ask if we have a maintenance agreement on the printer the answer is no. Apparently the church doesn't do maintenance agreements. If something gets old enough for repeated repairs we just get new ones!

Elder Rowan is in the process of rolling out the new cars program called CARS 2! Just like the movie :). It went live on August 15th. When all the kinks are out and everyone knows how to use it, it will be fantastic. It means the missionaries no longer have to track their daily mileage manually and mail in gas receipts at the end of the month. Instead they record it all in an APP on their phone and it will upload to our system so we can reconcile. It has been a rough beginning but hopefully by Sept 1st it will be up and running great for all the missionaries.

The missionaries all have MSF cards (Missionary Support Funds) that are debit cards through Bank of America. The church has decided to switch over to a bank in Hong Kong so I have a week to distribute all new cards to the missionaries and teach them how to use them. When I was first notified of this switch I thought it was bogus. A bank in Hong Kong? Sounds like fraud to me. But I was wrong and they are the real deal. We are a worldwide church after all! I am sure I will be getting lots of phone calls for a while. My old boss always encouraged us to work better, faster, cheaper and the church seems to have this same philosphy. They are always changing things and trying to make them better! Here is a picture of the office staff sorting and alphabetizing the new cards by zone so I can distribute. It was a team effort and I am grateful for all the support we give one another in the office.

Not to leave Housing out, yesterday we toured some missionaries apartment while out on a field trip. It is always interesting to go into these apartments and see what condition they are in. During our tour Elder Rowan and Sister Larson decided to give us a little improptu concert. This apartment had no shortage of musical instruments!

Another responsibility we have in the office is to take missionaries to the airport when they depart. We also take them when they have to go to a consulate in another state to get a Visa for a foreign country. And then sometimes we have to take them when they are leaving earlier than planned. This week we had two sisters leave because it was decided that a Service Mission would be a better fit for them. Sister Larson and I decided that we should take them ourselves so that we could offer them love and support. It was scary to drive in to the Portland airport on my own but I did it! It was a great experience because these two sweet sisters had the best attitude and were so excited to still be able to serve, just in a little different way.

We were able to visit the temple this week and that is always a joy. We also heard from our neice that our brother-in-law Roger was able to visit the temple after being away from it for many years. Roger is not doing well and is currently on hospice. He wanted to make sure he was "recommended to the Lord." What a blessing it was that he felt well enough to go and to actually achieve this goal. We love him and wish we could have been there!

Yesterday we took a field trip out to the coast with the Larsons. Elder Larson had never been to Lincoln City so we went that direction. We visited Lincoln City, Depot Bay, and Newport. It was an overcast day but still warm enough to enjoy and there was no wind! We had a great time! We walked on the beach, we played on the rocks, we saw fantastic overlooks, lighthouses, and the Devils Punchbowl. We even saw a number of whales swimming in the cove. One was named Marrissa and they said she had been visiting the cove for 11 years. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of that but it was an added bonus!

Finally, I wanted to share something that Elder Rowan said this week to our missionaries during District Council. He told them that when we are in the office the office lights are just normal and we can go about doing our work. But when they come in the office it was like the "Brights" go on and everything is just so much better and wonderful! That pretty much sums up how we feel about our mission!