irst off, apparently Dad and Mom have heard that the office is for missionaries who have messed up or something. Ha ha ouch........ But I'm pretty sure that's not the case =) Also, unfortunately this has nothing to do with the mission home. That's just where President and Sister Robinson live. Sometimes smaller groups of incoming or leaving missionaries will stay there, and the mission leader councils are held there. But we live in Oegstgeest, work at the mission office from 9:00-4:30 ish, and then do missionary work in the Leiden area from then on. We also often have appointments with investigators that we go to during the day, if needed. So thank goodness I'm not stuck in the office the whole day =) I'm actually quite liking the office work though.... I just gain a really easy sense of accomplishment from it whenever I finish a project or knock off some tasks.
Basically, I'm in charge of all of the legality work (which is quite a bit), the front desk man, and the general problem solver. It's really weird. We're being trained for three weeks by the past office elders and I sure hope I get this all down by then. Elder Yocom is the other new office elder and he is over all of the financial work. Also in the office, the Winmills are the office senior couple, but their mission ends at the end of this transfer, so we'll be helping them train the new office senior couple. They get about 3 days to learn everything... Yikes! Elder Winmill is over all of the car stuff, apartments, and other random things needed. Sister Winmill handles all of the orders from missionaries for different supplies and stuff. Lastly, Elder Evans is also part of our companionship; he's from Antwerpen, Belgium and is an official office elder for his whole mission. He handles a lot of the things going on with incoming and leaving missionaries, and does other small needed tasks. So right now, the five of us (us, our trainers, Elder Evans) are all living in one apartment.... Woo hoo. It's gross and we definitely need to buy more food, but it's getting better =)
I'm really glad though that I'm the legality elder. It's definitely not just legality. President Robinson calls me up sometimes and just tells me he needs random things done, or other problems pop up and I just solve them the best I can. So everyday's a new day and my heart skips a beat every time the phone rings. That might sound dramatic, but I'm still just freaked out from the other day =)
President Robinson's name popped up on the caller ID the other day and I panicked a little and reluctantly picked up the phone. He said he wanted flowers sent to a member's funeral service who had just passed away and had been a really good help and friend to the missionaries over the years. So I got her name and for some reason assumed that Elder Lyman (my trainer) would know who that was, or there would be some other magical office website that had all of the members in the country written down. Stupid me. Realizing my fault later, I tried calling him back, but he didn't answer that day. So the next day in the morning, I called him again and he told me he didn't know any other information either. So I asked him who else I could ask, and he gave me a senior couple's name. So I called them, found out the funeral service was happening in an hour. So I called the place, asked him where the nearest flower shop was, called that place, explained that I needed to send a sympathy bouquet to a funeral service that was happening in an hour and the lady just paused and then said she needed to talk with her coworkers really quick and so she'd call me back.
Mind you all, this is happening in Dutch, with different accents and everything. Oh, and this was my first full day in the office.
So I'm sitting there, just waiting, told the other office elders that I couldn't go with them to our appointment because I needed to get this done. So I just waited for several minutes with the Winmills in the office. Oh and the Winmills can't speak Dutch, so they couldn't help me out with that either... Finally, she calls back and agrees to do it. But then she starts asking me all of these questions about the flowers. Are you kidding me right now???!! "Yeah, uh.... It doesn't matter that much. White. With a little bit of color in there...." Idiot. I just pulled up images of funeral bouquets before and saw a bunch of white ones. Sounds good, I guess? Then she keeps asking me a bunch of other crap using weird flower and billing vocabulary that I definitely don't know. Then I had to try and figure out how the crap she was supposed to bill us and all of the information for that.
That was a couple days ago now and I haven't heard anything, so I assume it all went well. No news is good news, right?
I've been organizing legality trips to Belgium, discussing with a hotel manager all the accommodations we need for the incoming group of missionaries, playing front desk and secretary for all of the random people during the day, etc., etc.
Anyways, life's going well. Our P-Days are indeed on Saturdays. I love you guys all a lot and hope everything's going well! Have a great week and enjoy this picture of me with my old 2 companions at the Rotterdam Zoo. Bye!
Basically, I'm in charge of all of the legality work (which is quite a bit), the front desk man, and the general problem solver. It's really weird. We're being trained for three weeks by the past office elders and I sure hope I get this all down by then. Elder Yocom is the other new office elder and he is over all of the financial work. Also in the office, the Winmills are the office senior couple, but their mission ends at the end of this transfer, so we'll be helping them train the new office senior couple. They get about 3 days to learn everything... Yikes! Elder Winmill is over all of the car stuff, apartments, and other random things needed. Sister Winmill handles all of the orders from missionaries for different supplies and stuff. Lastly, Elder Evans is also part of our companionship; he's from Antwerpen, Belgium and is an official office elder for his whole mission. He handles a lot of the things going on with incoming and leaving missionaries, and does other small needed tasks. So right now, the five of us (us, our trainers, Elder Evans) are all living in one apartment.... Woo hoo. It's gross and we definitely need to buy more food, but it's getting better =)
I'm really glad though that I'm the legality elder. It's definitely not just legality. President Robinson calls me up sometimes and just tells me he needs random things done, or other problems pop up and I just solve them the best I can. So everyday's a new day and my heart skips a beat every time the phone rings. That might sound dramatic, but I'm still just freaked out from the other day =)
President Robinson's name popped up on the caller ID the other day and I panicked a little and reluctantly picked up the phone. He said he wanted flowers sent to a member's funeral service who had just passed away and had been a really good help and friend to the missionaries over the years. So I got her name and for some reason assumed that Elder Lyman (my trainer) would know who that was, or there would be some other magical office website that had all of the members in the country written down. Stupid me. Realizing my fault later, I tried calling him back, but he didn't answer that day. So the next day in the morning, I called him again and he told me he didn't know any other information either. So I asked him who else I could ask, and he gave me a senior couple's name. So I called them, found out the funeral service was happening in an hour. So I called the place, asked him where the nearest flower shop was, called that place, explained that I needed to send a sympathy bouquet to a funeral service that was happening in an hour and the lady just paused and then said she needed to talk with her coworkers really quick and so she'd call me back.
Mind you all, this is happening in Dutch, with different accents and everything. Oh, and this was my first full day in the office.
So I'm sitting there, just waiting, told the other office elders that I couldn't go with them to our appointment because I needed to get this done. So I just waited for several minutes with the Winmills in the office. Oh and the Winmills can't speak Dutch, so they couldn't help me out with that either... Finally, she calls back and agrees to do it. But then she starts asking me all of these questions about the flowers. Are you kidding me right now???!! "Yeah, uh.... It doesn't matter that much. White. With a little bit of color in there...." Idiot. I just pulled up images of funeral bouquets before and saw a bunch of white ones. Sounds good, I guess? Then she keeps asking me a bunch of other crap using weird flower and billing vocabulary that I definitely don't know. Then I had to try and figure out how the crap she was supposed to bill us and all of the information for that.
That was a couple days ago now and I haven't heard anything, so I assume it all went well. No news is good news, right?
I've been organizing legality trips to Belgium, discussing with a hotel manager all the accommodations we need for the incoming group of missionaries, playing front desk and secretary for all of the random people during the day, etc., etc.
Anyways, life's going well. Our P-Days are indeed on Saturdays. I love you guys all a lot and hope everything's going well! Have a great week and enjoy this picture of me with my old 2 companions at the Rotterdam Zoo. Bye!