THE OFFICE - WEEK 27

Last full week in the office. How time has flown...
Hi everybody. Glad to hear that the week went well. Nothing too crasy. Not too boring either though. The week here in office was pretty typical. Nothing too crasy. Lots of things that went splendid and make me wish I could stay. A couple of things that helped me to remember how excited I am for field life again. Kind of a week of mixed emotions I guess.
Right now I´m kind of multi-tasking so hopefully this all comes out making sense. I kind of procrastinated the day of my leaving preparations, and so I have some last minute computer stuff to do. You know... put my new music on my MP3, backup my pictures etc. All of that kind of good to do, but not really that important kind of stuff. Oh well. Something I´ve meant to do ever since I got here. Hopefully it pays off later.
As for the week.. it went decently. The office has continued to be hectic right up until the bitter end. I feel bad because my goal was to have things so under control by the time that I leave that it would be really easy for Elder Richards to take over. Well, unfortunately it hasn´t been that easy. For instance, there are a lot of random little things that we do differently here in my section of the office than they would typically run things in other mission offices of the world. Most of the reason being that we life in a country and society that is still decently behind the rest of the worlds standards. Not to mention that with Elders coming in and out every 6 or so months, without recieving any form of official or formal training, it means that a lot of things just get done in the same way that they´ve been done for a long time. Anyways, there have been a couple technicalities of my job that nobody ever taught me about. I have known for a while now that they should probably be done in another way, but honestly haven´t had the time to figure them out on my own. Well, just in the most awkward time possible, the people in Area headquarters have started sending us emails and stuff, asking us to do things the way they want them done. So now, rather than leaving Elder Richards in a nice comfortable and under control place, I´m leaving him right when all of these changes and other stuff need to be made or changed. So I´ve been trying to help him out our at least get him ready for all of this other stuff that he´s going to have to do. The only problem being that there just isn´t time to do everything I want to do. Even without all of that stuff, its been pretty crasy in the office. Just lots to do. That, and you think it would be more efficient with an extra guy in the office. But only kind of. Its nice that I can run an errand while he´s working. But its hard not to get anxious when you remember being in the same confused spot, but at the same time, you know what should be done, and know that you could do the work better or faster. I don´t think I´d be a very good teacher...lol. I like just being able to make my own mistakes if they are going to be made rather than watch them happen, or have to fix others mistakes. Oh well. I enjoy trying out a new challenge at the same time. At the same time, I feel kind of like a real dad, in that I feel like I´ve done everything that I can for him. I´ve taught him everything I know. I´ve done my best. He still lacks a little practice. And now its time for him to go off on his own. Make his own decisions and learn from his own mistakes. Must be hard to be a real dad, because it gets me all nervous for him just thinking about it. Hoping that you´ve done enough, but knowing that you can´t baby him forever. lol. So yeah. Thats kind of office life right now. There was only one time this week where it got really tense (bank closing in 15 min, check not ready, recipt missing etc... luckily I´ve managed to get good enough to make the bank run from the office to the till in 15 minutes. haha). Now all I can do is pray and hope for the best. I wish him luck....lol
In reality, that kind of sums up the week. lol. We had a couple good teaching moments. We followed up on a reference, and met a really cool guy. He´s Italian, and so we spoke about half of the time in Spanish and half in English. His name is Maximiliano. I think both come as easily to him, but for us, it has become really hard to just teach in English. So we end up mixing the two up and talking in fluent Spanglish. We´re pretty used to that by now. Thats all we really speak amongst ourselves as missionaries. Anyways, he seems to have a lot of desires and so hopefully he makes it to church this week. We found out later that our first visit actually happened slightly out of our boundaries and into the south mission, but thankfully we´re office Elders and so we´re used to that by now. lol. Hopefully we don´t make the same mistake with that again.
Wednesday was interesting. Being the extra man in the office, I got recruited to go and do the mail run with the mail man. That was something new. Wasn´t as bad as I thought it would be. Until we got to the distribution center and there was this huge load of books that we had been waiting for that had just happened to show up that week. So the two of us had to load almost 60 boxes full of copies of the Book of Mormon and other pamphlets into the van. Ugh. Oh well. Fun new experience. Then, our cook didn´t come and so we went out and got all you can eat pizza at Pizza Hut. One of our favorite things to do. I think I only ate about 10 pieces, but thats almost a full pizza, so I didn´t feel too bad about it. Anyways, afterwards, one of the assistants wasn´t feeling so well. According to what the doctor said later, he stressed and overworked himself to the point of exhaustion. So what did that mean for me? Divisions. Got to go to Moroni. Again. Good stuff. Got to do visits, and I feel like I actually was able to help out even more than usual, just knowing the area, and some people that Elder Cerpa didn´t know. That was fun. Got to see even more people that I missed too. Awesome.
Thursday was a little rough. I didn´t feel excited at all to get up and play soccer. I went anyways but was just really tired after a full day in the sun the day before. Anyways, with about less than 5 minutes before time to finish, somebody kicked the soccer ball onto the roof of the gas station. Ugh. So not only was it a lame soccer day, but it was my last one. Oh well. Today we played piki volley with the volley ball, and we also had fun playing with Elder Thomsons double dutch skipping ropes this morning. haha. Not sure why he even has them, but its a fun challenge for us uncoordinated types. Good stuff. The rest of the day was a little rough as we seemed to have the most number of problems in the financial sector. But we got through. Work out in the field was good. I got really pumped to use the ward list and we found some interesting looking people on the ward list that we are interested on looking up. It got me excited for my new area. I´ve learned a lot in the past 6 months here in the office, and the other 12 before that. Now I´m just really excited to take everything that I know and have learned and put it to work. Give everything I have to this new area and the people there. Not sure if there will be any more baptisms or success like that, but I know that I can put my whole heart might mind and strength into it and make a difference. That was another great thing that I noticed this week. It looks like I´ll be leaving this area without a baptism. Thats a really sad thought. Not something that a missionary likes to think about. But I also have been able to see more clearly now the value of every visit, every day and every effort. Yesterday we visited a family that is less active. I really noticed the change that I´ve been able to see in them in the last 6 months. They´ve gone from complete inactivity, to being really excited about church. They still have a long ways to go - they have only gone to church 2 weeks so far, and the dad still isn´t a member. But it just made me really thankful to know that I´ve been able to be there and take part in the change that has happened in their lives. See the blessings of the gospel, and know that lots really was accomplished during the time I´ve been here, even if the numbers don´t exactly show it.
Friday we had our changes planning meeting. My last one. Crasy. Looks like it will be an exciting one, since I´m technically not needed anymore, and so I get the fun jobs of taking out the old Elders to buy souveniers and eat yummy food. Stuff like that. Should be fun.
The only really sad news of the week is with our investigators that were supposed to get baptized - turns out that they are moving this week. Dang it. But we went and visited with them yesterday and they still sound like they are planning to get baptized in the future. At least one of them. They have gone through a lot of trials lately because of us and continuing to listen to us - the owner of their house is officially kicking them out for letting us in to talk. Ouch. But they´ve handled it well and don´t blame us for anything. So thats nice. Hopefully we can hear of the good news of their baptisms. To me, it really doesn´t matter if I´m here, or they are here or not for their baptisms. The most important thing is that they really make this step towards being disciples of Christ. And if they do that, its not really important if you are the one that does the baptism or not. I just hope they continue progressing and moving forward, even after we don´t meet together anymore.
Today was cool. The guys let me decide where to go for my last day. The places I really wanted to go (Sushi, Mexican etc) are all closed on Saturdays, and so we went to TGIFridays. It turned out to be quite the treat. When we showed up to the restaurant we ran into the Lloyds, the new American family in our ward. So we sat by them and chatted a little bit. Anyways, the meal was great. The burger was splendid. Great last feast in the office. But the best part was that as they got up to leave, they let us know that they had covered our bill and our meal was free. Well. Maybe back in North America, thats a usual-ish thing for a missionary. But around here, thats unheard of. Especially because that burger was ridiculously expensive. Wow. Really made us feel special. If I ever see them again, I sure owe them something special. Makes you feel really good and cared for. Not just because it was expensive, but just because people really appreciate what you do. Something you don´t always notice when a lot of people you talk to just don´t want to give you the time of day. Super cool.
Anyways, that was basically the week. Just finishing up the transferring of pictures onto my pen-drive. Last P-day in the office. Sad but happy. We´ll see what changes has in store for me. Its been the best of times, its been the challenging-est of times. Weird to put an end to such a big chunk of the mission. I´ll miss this place.
Anyways, thats that. Glad to hear about the good week. I´m pretty sure that Daylight savings should be coming up soon here too. That should put us within 2 hours again. A non trunky thought that I just thought I´d point out - since I´m getting to have less time left, I thought it might be good if somebody could call teh doctor, dentist and eye doctor guy and just set up an appointment or two so that I don´t get home and find out that they are all booked. Its been a while since I´ve seen anybody like them. lol. Also, if you haven´t written President yet, it would probably be good to do that sooner rather than later. I know you´re really busy, but just to be safe, it might be good to verify the leave date with him. Just so that there aren´t any scheduling problems. But besides that. Glad to hear that the birthday went well and you all had fun. What does Barb do for work anyways? I had fun imagining Dad at an artsy place - doesn´t really seem too much like your ¨thing¨. lol. The thought of driving in snow is scary. I won´t be able to drive nearly as crasy with that kind of hazard on the streets. Another thing I´ll miss. Cute baby. Congrats. Hope the skiing goes well. I´m super proud that ¨we¨ were able to finish our BoM read. Thats super legit. Congrats! Lets do it again! lol. As for classes, I´ll have to let you know next week what I´ve been able to think up. Then I´ll let you know. As I said though, there is a paper somewhere that says everything. Perfectly. Just have to find it. We´ll see how it goes.
Anyways, I´m out of time for this week. Gotta run. Thanks for everything. I love you lots, the church is true, and I´ll write you next week from my new area. Crasy stuff! Have a good one!
Ex Financiero Elder Humphreys