No pictures this week because our camera finally gave up on us after 12 years. We have a new one now, but no pictures yet.
Apparently all our bragging to people back home about our warm winter here brought on the wrath of the snow gnomes. Temperatures were in the 50s for Christmas, and two days later they dipped to 15 and the next week a big storm blew in, dropping lots of snow (but not as much as Salt Lake a few weeks ago). It's warmed up again a little, but we've learned our lesson and won't taunt those vengeful gnomes again.
Last week was crazy busy. In addition to end-of-the-year stuff, we had a double transfer (regular transfers and then some issues arose between when transfers were announced on Sunday and when they took place on Thursday, and that made for some last minutes changes so we had to redo a lot of things), and 13 incoming missionaries, plus the aforementioned snowstorm caused problems. The new missionaries were supposed to arrive on two flights on Tuesday night, but because of the storm, they ended up on 5 flights over the next 3 days, zigzagging across the continent, the last one arriving Friday morning on a redeye. We had been looking forward to a day off on January 1 with the office closed for the holiday, but we put in a full day and then some. Can you think of a better way to ring in the new year than serving the Lord?
Originally we had only expected four new missionaries, but there have been problems with visas and passport renewals, so nine of the new missionaries were given to us with only a few weeks' notice. Surprisingly, the missionaries with the problems are all (native) Canadian citizens going to missions in the States, hence they need to go to a mission in Canada until their visas come through. The issues aren't due to procrastination--it's taking the State Department a lot longer to issue visas right now for some reason. The missionary with the expiring passport has been out a while and started working on getting a new passport more than 6 months ago! He was here for about a week when he was told it had finally gone through. With travel time and waiting for his ticket back, it pulled him away from his mission for over two weeks. The other 9 visa waiter missionaries are fresh out of the MTC and will get yoinked out of our mission when their visas come through. President Pratt wisely put them all in threesomes which will minimize disruptions, but we still faced the issue of not having enough beds. We ended up ordering air beds (really nice 14" air mattresses) for about a third of what regular beds cost. They will take up very little storage space when the visa waiters leave, and will be useful in the future when missionaries travel and stay overnight with other missionaries, like for zone conferences or doing splits.
We're kind of hoping the desks in the office will get really messy in the next few weeks so when the visas come in they'll get lost in the shuffle. We'd love to keep these visa waiter missionaries--they're great!
Last week was crazy busy. In addition to end-of-the-year stuff, we had a double transfer (regular transfers and then some issues arose between when transfers were announced on Sunday and when they took place on Thursday, and that made for some last minutes changes so we had to redo a lot of things), and 13 incoming missionaries, plus the aforementioned snowstorm caused problems. The new missionaries were supposed to arrive on two flights on Tuesday night, but because of the storm, they ended up on 5 flights over the next 3 days, zigzagging across the continent, the last one arriving Friday morning on a redeye. We had been looking forward to a day off on January 1 with the office closed for the holiday, but we put in a full day and then some. Can you think of a better way to ring in the new year than serving the Lord?
Originally we had only expected four new missionaries, but there have been problems with visas and passport renewals, so nine of the new missionaries were given to us with only a few weeks' notice. Surprisingly, the missionaries with the problems are all (native) Canadian citizens going to missions in the States, hence they need to go to a mission in Canada until their visas come through. The issues aren't due to procrastination--it's taking the State Department a lot longer to issue visas right now for some reason. The missionary with the expiring passport has been out a while and started working on getting a new passport more than 6 months ago! He was here for about a week when he was told it had finally gone through. With travel time and waiting for his ticket back, it pulled him away from his mission for over two weeks. The other 9 visa waiter missionaries are fresh out of the MTC and will get yoinked out of our mission when their visas come through. President Pratt wisely put them all in threesomes which will minimize disruptions, but we still faced the issue of not having enough beds. We ended up ordering air beds (really nice 14" air mattresses) for about a third of what regular beds cost. They will take up very little storage space when the visa waiters leave, and will be useful in the future when missionaries travel and stay overnight with other missionaries, like for zone conferences or doing splits.
We're kind of hoping the desks in the office will get really messy in the next few weeks so when the visas come in they'll get lost in the shuffle. We'd love to keep these visa waiter missionaries--they're great!
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