OCUPADO! MUY OCUPADO!!

Each Monday morning we get our week started with an office staff meeting. This week, however, we didn't have time for one.  Some weeks and periods of our mission service are so busy that they become a blur.  These past two weeks have been such for us.  It began with three more multi zone meetings. We traveled with President and Sister Dester to four different locations to participate in these conferences.  We didn't play a major role in these conferences, but we did each teach a portion each time. We started in the Copan zone on Friday of last week.  Elder Lui, one of my former seminary students and one of the very finest missionaries that we have is a zone leader there.  Then Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we  had zone conferences in the other areas.   Following our presentations we would hustle back to the office to try to get our regular work done.  On the days we are required to be out of the office to do extra things like these conferences, our work just piles up.  It doesn't go away.  So when we get back to the office we have to work hard.

On one of the days of conferences LaRae surprised me with this birthday cake.  Elders Bryce and Lorenzo called Elder Erickson and me out of the audience.  They then sang to us, and everyone enjoyed a piece of my birthday cake.

 

Keeping up with the house inspections is nearly a full time job for us.  This week we spent a full morning seeing some of the houses in the Choloma zone.  This is the house in Choloma 2 where we presently have Sister Vasquez and Sister Casteneda living.  This house is one of the good ones and they do a good job keeping it clean.  Others - not so much.

 

Wayne got a surprise call from the Area Offices in Tegucigalpa who announced that David Hernandez would be dropping by to do an audit of the financial records.  Even though Wayne has everything in excellent shape, these are always stressful moments.  He is very thorough and checks everything.  After six hours he announced that there wasn't any further need for review.  "Bien, hecho, Elder John," he said.  (Well done, Elder John).  It wasn't terrible, but it did add to the pressure of a week that was already too full. 

On Friday we spent the entire day driving to Tegucigalpa with Elders Rodriguez and Guevara.  Elder Rodriguez had arrived in the mission field with out having been through the temple.  President Dester asked if we could accompany him and his companion.  It is always a joyful experience, but it did take a full day.  While we were there we dropped into the Distribution Center where LaRae met with Hermano Bonilla.  He has been such a great help and support for LaRae in keeping our proselyting materials stocked.  He was sad to know that very soon we will be on our way home.  He has loved having a mission secretary with whom he could that was organized and got all of her reports in to him in a timely manner. 

While all of this was going on LaRae was busy trying to finish up the history of our mission since it was divided in June 2013.  (43 pages) She had only recently completed the 134 page history for the San Pedro Sula Mission for 2012 to give to the Area Offices in Guatemala.  Now, they wanted this one!  Finding all of the pictures and statistics was no easy task, however, she got it done in time for President Dester to hand it over to Elder Duncan at a training meeting on Saturday. 

 



We had to bid farewell this week to two very special missionaries.  Elder Larsen and Elder Cluff have been the financial and general secretaries in the San Pedro Sula East Mission for the past six months or so and have now been sent back out into the field with different assignments.  They have worked side-by-side with us to get these two missions running smoothly.  In our opinion, they are two of the very finest missionaries we have known.  And we are going to miss them!



Elder Cluff and Elder Larsen

On top of everything else we normally do in a week (the delivery run, the mail services, picking up name tags, paying the bills, getting two houses painted and several windows repaired, filling out reports, inputting baptismal records, doing inventory, making orders for more materials, and a myriad of phone calls and challenges) these extra things made for a busy but happy time.