A different mission

So, I have had a lot keeping my mind off writing a blog. It is finally slowing down a little.

Here is a FB post I did on July 10. More after that so keep reading:

I have not said much lately. Life has been very busy. It is like having been retired for 7 years and then suddenly being back to full time work in an office, including many overtime hours. Oh wait, that is really what it is... It has been exactly 7 years since I officially retired and now I am working in a very busy office, putting in many more than 40 hours each week. It is really quite interesting. From the photos in this collage, you see palm trees by the temple (the wonderful place that it is); managing a fleet of cars - having been last week expanded from about 55 to 87 - mainly driven by 18-19 year olds (see the damaged Corolla in the picture - miraculously no one was injured); attending many baptisms, including (as a sample shown) three in Chinese, two in Spanish, a number in English, one in a language of an Arabic speaking country (where the church is definitely not looked upon with fondness), a family from Portugal, etc.; running on at least 8 different programs and web sites to manage cars, drivers, driver safety, incidents (accidents), daily/monthly miles driven, keeping track of countless Pep Boys service receipts, gas credit cards for each of 87 cars (also used by 18 and 19 year olds), and a few other tasks that I cannot think of at the moment; visiting people in our ward here (and loving that); AND trying to keep track of our own finances, family issues at home and in New York, and the pace of life in Southern California . . . . . . . . . Wow, what an experience!

Two weeks ago, we had the blessing of returning home to Utah for the wedding ceremony for our grandson. It was a glorious experience.

Back in the mission, we have been busy with a lot of planned functions, but especially with those unplanned concerns. Last week we had our mission zone conferences and associated vehicle inspections. I was a crazy time. On Thursday we were in Escondido. 

Now we are settling in to the routine, which includes the normal vehicle maintenance work, attending baptisms and now Shauna getting into gear for being the head secretary in the office. I am trying to see how we can get by with fewer cars — we are told that we need to scale back our fleet by 9 cars (already having sold 5) — some of those were either office or extra cars due to the mission combination, but now we are getting to where we need to have more missionaries use bicycles instead of cars, or to share cars. We will make it work.

One of our office couples is going home next Tuesday (hence Shauna's move to the main office). 

The last couple of days, I actually was caught up enough to not have pressing issues and had some spare time on my hands, so I did some Danish research (which I really love). We just do not get to the temple enough to do the work for all the people I keep finding!

Well, life is good. We love it here and enjoy the people especially.