Mission: The Mail

The mail takes quite a bit of time every day, of course, depending on how much there is.  Usually there is quite a bit.  The postman delivers at 10:30.  Or 11:00 or 12:00.  Or even 1:30 and brings it to the mailbox wall on the ground floor of the building.  I grab the mail tote and the keys to the mailboxes and walk to the end of the hall, take the elevator down to the first floor, go around the fake tree, (and so far, ram my face into one of the branches every time!! I have to fix that...) then open the boxes.  If I find that the mail that was put in there the day before is still there, I just turn around and go back upstairs and work on something else until my next trip down.  One advantage to there not being an actual regular time for the mail is that I get out of my chair multiple times for the mail each day.  Just about every day I have surpassed my step goal on my FitBit.  That is a good thing.

Once the mail arrives I separate out the junk mail and toss it into recycling, put the young missionary mail into alphabetical order, deliver the bills to the finance secretary, any housing mail to Dear One, any mail about cars including oil changes, insurance, and TiWi to the vehicle coordinator.  I keep the mission secretary mail to deal with after I get the other mail forwarded.

To forward mail I look up the addresses of the missionaries and use a mail merge program on the computers (Windows computer, I might add, not the kind I am accustomed to using!) which fortunately some wise person previously set up.  It works perfectly when I get out the procedure manual and follow it precisely.  As I gained confidence later this week (and the mail got later and later--I like to get that done before I eat lunch) I began to make mistakes. I think because my blood sugar was dropping and the old noggin was misbehaving.  The still small voice told me that I should just eat lunch at lunch time and not try to be a hero with the mail.  I guess I will try that out this coming week.

So after getting the "Please Forward To:" stickers made I need to affix them to the envelopes.  Before doing this, each address needs to be edited because the sticker has to be precisely the same thing as what was on the envelope.  For example: if the incoming letter says Elder Thomas Monson, then I cannot forward it to Elder Thomas S. Monson as it says in my system.  Sometimes Elder is left off altogether.  Also, when a whole sheet of peel and stick labels is not necessary I am supposed to delete the "Please forward to" so we can run the partial sheet through the next time, being careful to print the information where there is a label and not where I previously pulled off the label.  Later this week I had an issue with it.  Low blood sure is what I am blaming.  It could not be me, right?!

Often the label has to be cut up in order to fit on the envelope.  So far my cutting technique leaves something to be desired, but I think I will get better as time goes on.

Once the labels are made and affixed to the letters and USPS packages I take them back down to the mailboxes including any mail that others in the office want to mail.  If there are packages that cannot be put into the mailboxes due to overcrowding I return them to the office and the next morning put them on the floor in front of the boxes.

When packages come via UPS or Fedex there is a different procedure. I log in the package on a log sheet indicating who received a package, who was the carrier, what was the date, what zone the missionary lives in, and what was the disposition of the package. I put the zone abbreviation on the package then put the package on the table behind me.  When a missionary comes into the office from that zone, they will hand deliver the package to the owner. Or one of us in the office will deliver it.

Something I learned about mail delivery from the US Post Office delivery man on Friday is that they will forward real letters to people but if I put a "Please Forward To" label on a piece of bulk mail, they will just recycle it.  Well, I can recycle it just as well as they can so that is what I will do in the future.  No point wasting a label that is just going to dumped.

So that is more or less the mail procedure.

May I say that if you have missionaries in the field and you are thinking about sending a letter or a package:  please do it!  They long for mail from home that they can hold in their hands.  They love emails, but physical mail is also greatly desired.  Keep those letters coming!