Mission: Week Two In Field, including "A Day in the Life"

Two weeks have flown by!  It seems like we have always been here. At least our old life in Vermont seems to be fading into the background.  I could wish that my brain had enough information in it to give me confidence.  I am pretty sure that confidence will come.

Sister B has been a fabulous help, both to me and to the other office couple and other volunteers.  She has been there about five months and is quite confident and knowledgeable.  She is able to answer every question but does not put answers on me.  This week she did not hover close to me as she did last week.  It helped that I had written up a log of my daily responsibilities and then typed it up, adding to is as the week went by.  By the end of the week I made a Google calendar with things the recur on particular days.  There are things that recur weekly, monthly, and yearly.  Quite a few of them!  Having written them down in my own words has made this week less stomach-clenching.

As an overview,  my job is:
to handle the phone (and may I say there are many calls, and some of them difficult-both in content and tone),
collect and forward USPS mail,
accept parcels and get them moved on to their owners,
update the list (IN/OUT Report) of young missionaries either coming, going, or in field,
send requests for name tags (you will notice that all missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a name tag),
be available to assist the other office people in their work as time allows,
be available to the mission president and his wife to assist them however they need.

And whatever else needs doing!

Because the mail procedure is longish, and probably boring, I have put it into a different post.

The "Day in the Life" bit is as follows:

Wake up

Study

Shower and dress

Make and eat breakfast

Make and pack lunches

Head out the door by 7:55 if possible

Get to the office by 8 AM.  (Isn't that great that we are so close to the office!!!  The mentor couple has to drive 45 minutes to get there to help us.  I am so glad we are here now so they can skip that long drive.  The brother has MS.)

Check the voicemails that came in overnight and deal with them.
Put the phone back to live at 8:30.

Turn on the computer.  My computer is the main office computer/server so it needs to be up and running for the other people to use it.

Check the Internet Missionary Operating System for new incoming missionaries.

Check IMOS for referrals and disperse them properly.

Answer the phone calls and transmit them to the proper person.  This entails getting up from my chair and going to the person to tell them they have a call.  Or I could just shout out that they have a call, but that seems so icky to me so I get up and deliver the message that they have a call in person.  Even to the back office where the finance secretary and the supplies volunteer "live". Later this week I sort of learned how to forward phone calls...

At 9 AM I call everyone together for our daily devotional.  I have to make up the devotional calendar each month and make it as fair as possible, considering schedules.  Someone gives a spiritual thought or leads a discussion on a topic and someone else gives a prayer.  We bring up any business that needs to be brought to everyone's attention then we go back to work.

This week our topic was "hope".  It was interesting the different things people brought up.  Brother B used this one on Friday.  He had a paper copy and read excerpts from it.  We had quite an interesting discussion.

Deal with the email that comes in.  The office uses Outlook, not my comfort zone there, but I am beginning to get it.  Some people want to "collect" their own email rather than have me archive it into their folders.  Others want me to just leave it in the inbox for them to deal with on their own time...

Deal with the mail and packages that come in.

Deal with missionaries and others who come to the office...passing them along to the right person.

Have lunch sometime.

Continue to check the IMOS periodically throughout  the day.

Finish work.

At the end of the day, put the phone on auto attendant, log off the computer, shut off the monitor, REMEMBER TO TAKE LUNCH BAG HOME, and lock up the president's office.  If there are still others in the office let them lock the door, otherwise lock all doors and shut off lights.

Leave, hopefully around 5 PM, though it can be later.

Head back home to make supper and collapse, though the collapsing is getting better now.  Bed by 9 PM.  The time zone change is still rather taxing but we will eventually catch up with it and not be so exhausted all the time. I hope.

That is it, more or less.  And that is it for today. I am going to try to send shorter messages.  With more pictures...