Week 1: Transfer week. New missionaries arrive and departing missionaries leave. Lots of meals and guests at the mission home.
Week 2: Prepare Zone Conferences, letters, talks, mtgs. Senior dinner.
Week 3: Zone Conferences
Week 4: Interviews
Week 5: Interviews
Week 6: Arrange transfers, mtgs, letters, talks, lots of computer work.
Begin Cycle again.
Each week Pres. receives about 160 e-mail letters from the missionaries and reads them all and tries to respond to as many as possible. This takes around 15 hours. He tries to do it a couple of hours each day. In three years this will be 2340 hours on letters to & from miss.
We mail about 200 other letters during the 6 weeks. Examples of these are: Welcome letter sent upon receipt of missionary recommendation from church headquarters., 2nd welcome letter with more info., Letter sent to miss. in MTC, Letter sent to parents when miss. arrives., letter sent to miss a few days after arriving, letter sent to missionary who is departing about 16 weeks before with travel forms, Letter sent to parents of departing miss., letter to stake presidents, letter to parents with itinerary, Letter to miss. 4 weeks before home with itinerary, letter to miss. 2 weeks with instructions, letter to miss. with going home packet., letter to missionary a few day after he gets home. Each letter has to be signed by Pres. or me.
These letters are multiplied by the number arriving or leaving, (average 10).
Pres. Albright attends 8 stake Correlation meetings each month.
We try to attend at least a couple of baptisms each Sat. It is impossible to attend all of them.
Pres. receives dozens of phone calls each day from missionaries with questions.
I receives around 25 medical phone calls each week. I am in charge of medical care for our missionaries. With 170 young adults this can be a lot of work. But it is fun and I enjoy doing it. All calls and dr. visits, etc. have to be logged into the computer.
We have a Sr Missionary dinner each transfer cycle. This is about 24 people for dinner. The Sr. all love to get together and get to know each other since they are spread all over the mission.
(even though their favorite thing is getting to know the young missionaries)
We have a Mission home Fireside on the last Sun of each month. This is usually attended by between 50-70 people. It is wall-to-wall people. Very spiritual. I make goodies all week.
We attend as many of the Stake conferences as we can. We are often asked to speak at Stake conferences. Pres. Albright usually speaks at a couple of wards each month. I speak at about 1 each transfer cycle.
We have a staff mtg. each week on Wed. This is when a lot of important details are taken care of. We have 2 wonderful couples working in the office. They keep the mission running and we love and appreciate them. There are 75 apartments to be taken care of and paid for and about 50 cars to be maintained, plus about 100 bikes. There are all the letters that have to be printed and mailed. And keeping the supply room running is a big job. We go through about 1000 (yes that's one-thousand) Book of Mormons each month. All of the books in 100 languages and all the pamphlets and pass-a-long cards have to be inventoried and ordered each month.
And one of the biggest and MOST IMPORTANT jobs is the mail. Each day the mailman brings around 100 pieces of mail. They have to be readdressed and mailed the same day to the missionaries. The mailman comes back later in the day to pick it up again.
There are lots of reports and all kinds of paper work that has to be maintained. It is an amazing thing the church does. All over the world, this same work is done in mission offices.
Pres. goes to the office every Sun. Evening for "call ins" Zone leaders call in with the reports.
This is the time when Pres. and Zone leaders get to discuss alot of mission work in each area.
He gets home LATE.
We have a Return and Report each cycle. This is 3-4 weeks after the new missionaries arrive. They come back to the mission home and spend the day reporting on how they are doing.
We have lunch and get to know them better.
We have a Zone leadership meeting each cycle. This is held the week after transfers. The 18 Zone leaders and Assistants spend the day at the mission home. Here is where the training takes place for leadership. They see how councils work and learn to solve problems and lead with love and trust. We have lunch at this meeting.
Zone conferences are wonderful, but very preparation intensive. A lot of work and energy goes into making them, meaningful, spiritual and fun.
Interviews are rewarding and the time when we learn the most from the missionaries.
Two straight weeks of interviews are very tiring and we kind of have information overload.
We try to have one or two zones or a couple of districts over for activities each month. We get to know the missionaries better this way.
Pres. tries to attend different dictrict meetings each week. These are held on Mon mornings.
On the 2 weeks off, he drives to different buildings to participate in these meetings and observe how they are doing.
We have missionaries coming and going all the time. We are open to lots of extras.
Visa Waiters, temple square sisters, Mongolians finishing their missions, mini missionaries. We sent to the airport 8 extra times this month. (not counting our arriving and departing)
And the list goes on. This is a 24-7 job. But it is rewarding and we receive so many blessings from it. We love these missionaries. Each one of them is special to us and we worry about every one of them. They are constantly in our thoughts and prayers. I hope their parents know that we try to take very good care of them. You can be proud of them. We have the greatest group of young elders and sisters. They love the Lord and work so very hard to be the best they can be. I'm sure Heavenly Father is very proud of the work they are doing.
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