We have had about 5-6 days with some snow and some very strong winds ranging from 17-44 mph to none. One day walking from the office across the street to the Gathering Room it took Sister Ward and I a bit to get across because we were at a standstill. At least we weren’t going backwards. The temperature can be 16 degrees with the high for the day up to 24. On the positive note the next day (today) we got up to the 50’s and had some sun and no wind. Until 5 pm and then it starts to rain and the wind comes back. But it is all good.
Here is a picture of the snow coming into my porch in front of the door to my house. This was the windy 16 degree weather day.
During the week I walked by and noticed this small pile and I knew I had to take a picture. Last year Elder Sigmon thought I had way too many shoes. So after I took the picture I asked him if this was all of his shoes. His response was “yes this is all my shoes!” The sad thing is that it really is pretty true. He may have a pair of slippers, sandals and water shoes but this truly is most all of his shoes. So here’s all his shoes and those are all my coats. (I did bring fewer shoes. Only because I found some not to be functional or comfortable.) Good thing we aren’t in a competition.
Some of my other duties are to do the weekly scheduling and trek scheduling. The weekly scheduling is the assignments of what each missionary does every day for the week. It is a huge jig saw type of puzzle and one thing affects another so Sister Ward is the main person in charge and I am her second set of eyes to just double check we haven’t double booked someone or left someone off. Right now is a lot easier because ½ of the duties aren’t being done right now. It will get a little crazier when we start trekking season and people need to cover all the duties associated with that. We use a big magnet board to try and look at everything visually. Just so you know Elder Sigmon and Elder Taylor did not get Preparation day all week. They have been working hard. You can always count on someone teasing you or trying to be funny. It is what makes working and being here enjoyable. I don’t know when they snuck in and filled it out but it is not going to work!
We did have a little excitement this week. The missionaries have been working all winter trying to simplify the registration process for treks. After getting all the schedules figured out, simplified and the OK from Salt Lake for 2019. The IT guys started to get them set up. The 2019 registration begins for the people who are within 325 driving miles on the 1st of April. Our first hiccup was for some reason people were unable to get into the site to register. The good news is it isn’t one of the heavy registration periods so that was good. No need to panic and things were up and running in a few days. And no it wasn't an April Fool's Joke.
What we didn’t know was there was a ripple effect of things. While they were setting up the 2019 schedules and simplifying it by just have A-L instead of A1, A2, etc they didn’t know it was inadvertently affecting the 2018 scheduled treks. Treks were being cancelled and deposits were refunded. As you can imagine people were a little panicked but the good news was everyone’s treks were not cancelled and we still have them all scheduled. It was going to take a few days to get everything all sorted out so we just needed to let everyone know not to panic and “All is well.”
The funny thing is Sister Bowden had given me a pair glasses and written on it was “Rose Colored glasses for scheduling.” This was before we knew what was in store. So I decided when I walked in to help straighten out things I would bring them with me.
Okay I have my “Rose Colored Glasses” we can do this! Together Sister Pace, Sister Bowden and I were able to get a lot of phone calls made and instructions on how to proceed from here all done and taken care of. I love working with these women!
There was one thing we did forget to bring but was a little too bulky to have packed and shipped and that was our sign to put in front of our trailer. Elder Taylor was very kind and made us another one. That’s about it for now. I’m not sure I will be posting every week. It will depend on what is going on around here and if there is anything different or noteworthy to mention which you don’t already know. We love you all and appreciate your love and support while we are here serving in this wonderful place. There is a lot of joy in doing those things you know you should be doing and hope we in some small way can make a difference in someone else’s life.
