Sunday,
March 20th gave us the opportunity to take Elder Howard and Elder
Livingston, missionaries serving in the Pagedale Branch boundaries, to meet Sis
Annie Stewart. We taught her from
D&C 25 and showed her a video on Emma Smith that Sis Hatfield had
downloaded to her tablet. The missionaries
helped me administer the sacrament, and we sang I Am a Child of God, which Annie
remarked was beautiful. I’m sure she
meant the melody, not the singing. It
was a good addition to our visit to have the young missionaries with us. Later that evening, 12 of our missionaries
gave their departing testimonies by video to the entire mission. This is one improvement that I am sure we
will not roll back. Having everyone
benefit from these powerful messages is wonderful. We certainly enjoyed the intimacy we formerly
had of the small group of departing missionaries testifying to themselves in
the mission home. But this is
better. Thanks, COVID! This is a group of young people that we have
served with for over a year now, so we have come to know and appreciate almost
every one of them. But preparing for
Elder Riley Scheurman to go is especially emotional, because of our close
association with him as a housing assistant during the particularly challenging
times of the onset of the Pandemic. Sis
Hatfield recorded parts of Elder Scheurman’s and Elder McNeil’s testimony to
share with their mothers. They will be
proud.
Monday,
March 15th started early with a panicky phone call from the
assistants to the President. They were
at the airport struggling to get Elder Atwood on a flight to SLC. The Delta agent had told them it was really a
Southwest flight, and Southwest said no, it was Delta flight. They didn’t have time to go back and forth
anymore, and so called Sis Hatfield for advice.
She gave some instructions and Elder Atwood was off to his gate. The day would be an adventure. He was going for an interview at the Mexican
consulate in support of his visa application to return to Mexico as a
missionary. As we reflected for a few
moments that morning, we realized that we had not prepared Elder Atwood as
carefully as we wanted. He had very
little time between the his landing in SLC and the interview time. Would he know how to catch a taxi from the
airport to downtown? Did he have
sufficient funds? These questions and
more were covered in some paragraphs of
instructions from the travel department that Sis Hatfield had sent to him, but
had he read them? And did he
understand? We wished we had gone over
things. Sis Hatfield sent him some texts
with simplified instructions, and asked for him to call with questions or text
an acknowledgement. He never did. Later that night, the APs went to the airport
to retrieve Elder Atwood from his most excellent adventure. They understood his plane would be three
hours late so would go back later that night.
Taking the trust but verify approach, Sis Hatfield looked online and
learned that the plane had landed on time and so told the APs they ought to get
back to the airport. The longer we do
this, the more we are of the opinion that young, travel inexperienced
missionaries shouldn’t be asked to take people to and from their flights. There are too many details that are easily
missed by the infrequent flyers. The
assistants suggested to Sis Hatfield that one reason why Elder Atwood had been
successful was because he was able to connect to WIFI at the airport. Well, that isn’t supposed to be possible,
from a technical standpoint, with the restrictive software the church puts on
missionary phones. So she called Elder
Atwood, and sure enough, he has a second phone from home that isn’t handcuffed
with missionary software. That is a
violation of missionary rules on several levels, but knowing Elder Atwood, not
terribly surprising. He is a young man
from a wealthy family that doesn’t take orders from others. And Elder Atwood is a terrific tease. I never know if he is telling me the truth or
pulling my leg through his thick east Texas drawl. He did fess up to the improper phone, which
Sis Hatfield will help him straighten out.
Meanwhile, Elder Atwood told Sis Hatfield an amazing tale. When he arrived in SLC, he walked out, and
had no idea where to catch a cab, but did have the presence of mind to ask a
bus driver how he could get downtown.
The bus driver said he couldn’t take him, but he offered to call his buddy. The buddy showed up minutes later and
personally escorted Elder Atwood to the consulate. He then awaited Elder Atwood’s call when he
was done and took him on a little tour and back to the airport for his return
flight. The buddy was supposed to be
golfing that day, but had the feeling that he shouldn’t. As Sis Hatfield said, apparently the Lord
wants Elder Atwood back in Mexico.
I
worked on insurance certificates for the new policy year until 10:45 pm. Many sophisticated landlords require renters
to show evidence of liability insurance as a lease obligation. The church maintains a policy that is
available for many purposes, including renter’s liability for missionary
apartments. The policy expires on March 31
of each year, and a new policy goes into force on April 1st. The policy term is not in synch with any
leases, so in general, applications for certificates must be done twice a year
in order to capture the full year of the lease with two pieces of the policy
year for any property where insurance is a lease requirement. After April 1st, it isn’t so
bad. But on March 31, every outstanding
certificate expires and so there is a mad rush to get new certificates
issued. It takes me days to organize the
effort and then hours to put in all the online certificate applications to the
church risk management. I can’t imagine
the chaos for those folks this time each year receiving and responding to what
must be many thousands of certificate renewals.
On Tuesday,
March 16th, Sis Hatfield walked about five miles (no, really)
shopping for the mission office refresh.
They looked at tables, chairs, paint, and other finishes. They started about lunch time but didn’t
finish until about 6:30 pm. They did
good work, but I must admit, I was most interested in the lemonade/ice cream
freeze treat they had at Chic-Fil-A. I’m
going to need to try that. I was taking
a tour of the Columbia zone. The housing
assistants and I headed out pretty early to clean the Bear Creek North
apartment that we are turning back to the landlord later in the week. I had asked the sisters who moved out to take
a run at cleaning it. I must confess, I
was holding my breath a bit, given how it looked when we moved the furniture. But I was pleasantly surprised. They had rolled up their sleeves and cleaned
quite well. After thanking and praising
the sisters, I sent them on their way, and the elders and I cleaned the
cupboards, appliances, and floors with a little more depth than the sisters had
gotten to. And we retrieved the lights
from around the high ceilings, replaced some lights, and brought home a broken built
in drawer for some careful repair. Then
we went to pick up all the extra stuff the sisters were wanting to give up
after sorting through two sets of kitchenware, and a few other odds and ends,
like a sewing machine. We stopped in the
STL’s apartment in Smithton Ridge and took measurements for a broken
blind. We headed out for Macon and
delivered a kitchen table to take the place of the small plastic one they have
been using for months. We also fixed the
kitchen faucet and left them a present on the side of the tub: Comet.
On our ride home we marveled at the power of the revelations of the
early Restoration and what an intellectual testimony they are. The echoes of so many scriptural passages
from the Bible with nuanced but profound clarifications worthy of deep study
and research a century and a half after being penned are beyond the pale for a
scholar, much less an unschooled young man.
It must be the week before transfers, because after a long day out of
the office, RaDene and I continue our work in the office until 10:30 pm.
Wednesday,
March 17th is St Patrick’s Day.
Thankfully, I had a little green in my face mask. It was accidental, because so far as I know,
I don’t have any Irish roots. Sis
Hatfield, on the other hand, came to work properly dressed in a green top and
skirt. Green does look good with red
hair. The sisters in Bellevue, Illinois
have complained that the slats in their bedroom blinds are broken. I have the measurements, so we pick up a pair
at Walmart and head on over. Carefully
moving desks set in front of the windows, which display some beautiful
paintings the sisters are working on, we take down the old blinds and hand the
new ones. Elder Nielson commented that
he felt confident he had acquired some housing skills and that he could hand
blinds in his own home someday. He mused
that he wanted a power drill for his birthday.
Yep, I’m rubbing off on these young men.
On our way out, we noticed the furnace filter is beyond dirty, so we
change it and leave a couple of replacements.
I’m thinking we need to call some sister housing assistants to broaden
my influence in the rising generation.
On our way back to St Louis, we stop at an apartment we will be turning
back to the landlord next month. I
wanted to size up the task in front of us to get it ready. I was disappointed to find all manner of open
and perishable food left in a dirty kitchen and arms full of all manner of
clutter. I need to add a second day to
our turn over preparations—there is much cleaning out before we can clean
up. I told Sis Hatfield about my
reaction and she is strongly urging me to make a video message to distribute
around the mission to help do some teaching before missionaries can conveniently
leave their messes because of transfers next week.
Sis
Hatfield has been doing her own teaching today.
Young Sis Atkins is a whiz technology, but she has no sense of document
layout for a printed page. Sis Hatfield
has edited the content for this edition of The
Harvester newsletter, but it needs to be put in format. Sis Atkins doesn’t quite see it, so Sis
Hatfield is patiently showing Sis Atkins what a visually pleasing layout of headings,
pictures, captions, text, borders and other elements look like. Sis Atkins is a quick study, and is learning
things never thought about by the text message generation. Late that night, RaDene opens her finally
arrived Valentine’s gift from me: a copy
of Repicturing the Restoration, by
Anthony Sweat. I wanted to get a copy
when I realized how much religion is engrained in my own mind based on the
limited visual art of LDS scripture and church history. We need to expand our minds with truth, and
pictures are powerful teachers.
On
Thursday, March 18th, I awoke with a shrink wrap revelation. We small writing tables that we use in the
mission as study desks. During the
Pandemic and missionary surge, we bought some extras. Now that we are starting to contract, we have
a few extra. They will be useful in the
future, because missionaries break things like this. But they are awkward to store with their legs
and take up a lot of space. I’ve thought
I would like to disassemble them and then we could easily store for use as
needed. But I’ve been loathe to take
them apart because I know that the legs and hardware will be easily separated
from the table top and get lost. That
will make them useless. We don’t have
the boxes any more and they are an odd size to try to box. I’ve thought of duct taping the parts and
pieces together, but I know that the tape adhesive can easily ruin the
surfaces. I’ve stewed about this for
some time. But this morning, I awoke
with the answer. I will put the bagged
hardware and the legs inside the desk table and stretch wrap it all together
into a nice flat package. Inspiration
comes about even the little things.
Later,
I took the housing assistants to Home Depot, bought a toilet seat, and sent
them off to Mattoon, Illinois. They have
seen me do it enough by now that they can replace the seat that is allegedly
leaving splinters and take down an extra bed and desk without my close
supervision. Meanwhile, we have a new
missionary welcome video meeting that 2 missionaries coming on Tuesday of our
group of 21 are missing because the MTC teacher will not excuse them, in spite
of Sis Hatfield and Pres Bell’s polite but sincere request. A bit of an odd power play going on there,
for some odd reason. And while we are
having the welcome video meeting, there is chaos in the office because two
missionaries headed for Brazil tomorrow have arrived in St Louis and the
mission office to weigh luggage (my job), check in with the airlines, register negative
COVID tests and finish other necessary and confusing travel paperwork (Sis
Hatfield’s job). We try to keep that
activity off camera. I finish the day
working on the missionary apartment rent roll adjustments for the month for
Elder Jacob to put through the church system tomorrow because I will be very
busy out of the office, and if we wait until next week, the mail will almost
surely deliver some rent checks late. It
is disruptive and unnerving when late rent notices start getting delivered to
missionaries’ doors, so we start the process early to avoid that.
Saturday,
March 20, 2021 comes and goes and Pres Bell still hasn’t released the new transfer
board indicating where the missionaries will be come next Wednesday. That means I will have two work days plus
transfer day itself on Wednesday to get beds everywhere they need to be. It would be easy to criticize Pres Bell for
not getting this done sooner, but if he doesn’t feel settled about the
assignments, there is no fault to cast at him.
My job is to make his work easier, not to cajole or complain. Among those missionaries who have reached the
end and who are leaving on Monday is Elder Riley Scheurman, my former housing
companion and lately serving well as a technology specialist and a great help
to Sis Hatfield. We have seen so much
growth in him and he has endeared himself to us. So, as a prelude to his final supper at the
mission home tomorrow, we take him and his companions Elder Reader and Elder
Petty downtown to our favorite barbeque joint for a late lunch. Officially, they close at 6 pm, but at 3 pm
the line is winding around the building and they are out of all meat except
pulled pork. Sis Hatfield negotiates an
outside picnic table for us, and we have—you guessed it—pulled pork. And mighty fine pork it is. Before we are done with our meal, the place
has pretty much cleared out because by now, they don’t have any more pulled
pork. Someone ought to invest in more
smokers here at Pappy’s and they could get a return on investment for
sure.
After
lunch, we end our preparation day and get back to the office. Sis Hatfield needs to assemble departure
packets and I need to buy 14 pillows (I already have 7) for the incoming
missionaries on Tuesday. With all the
set up that will need to be wedged into a few days, we won’t have time to be
looking in the stores for pillows. While
we are out, Sis Hatfield has us pick up 50 plastic bins to hold proselyting
publications that are mostly just piled on the metal shelves in the
office. Since we must move out for the
paint and carpet, these materials will never hold up unless we put them in
something. When we get back to the
office, I see that Sis Hatfield has started sorting and packing already. There is a lot to think about and a lot to do
with respect to the office remodel. How
did this happen on our watch?
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