Mission: Housing Coordinator...

Dear One's specific assignment is to be the housing coordinator.  With nearly 200 missionaries in the mission, there are a lot of apartments to see to.  There are a few part-time missionaries who help out as housing assistants  whose service is inspecting the apartments of the young missionaries.  The rest of the people have to be housed.  His job is to see to it that there are apartments available and habitable for them.

Some things he does:

Signs lease agreements

Makes sure the rent checks have arrived at the right addresses or get the correct addresses into the "system"

Makes sure the apartments have basic amenities

Deals with apartment managers and their concerns

Moves mattresses into apartments that are to have a second set of missionaries staying there

Closing apartments that are no longer needed because missionaries have gone home

Verify that smoke detectors are checked and working every month

Checks to see that new lease agreements have the proper signatures

Passes along apartment complex messages to missionaries  which come to his email and where the missionary presence might be a blessing to others, as in end of year barbecues, etc.

Makes sure utility bills are paid and up-to-date

Moves furniture from one apartment to another or to the storage garages when not needed

Manages the storage garages

Collects excess kitchen and other items from the apartments and puts in storage garages

Inventories storage garages

Manages about 100 units you might say

Cleans up/organizes the computer files which have been used by multiple housing coordinators with multiple work habits and ideas.

Sources housing for new missionaries

Help move missionaries on transfer days

Helps with  transport of missionaries and luggage for move-ins and move-outs

Help Transportation coordinator, and Finacial Secretary as needed

Remove trailer hitches from missionary cars

Install tires on mission trailer

Keep track of mission truck

Work with Housing Assistants (inspectors)

Attend zone conferences as needed.

Help Spanish missionaries with fleas in their apartment

Teach the High Priests and Elders on the third Sunday in our Ward

Deliver documents to the Mission President's home for his signing

AND generally do anything that is needed - especially as it relates to housing

Oh, and try to keep my wife happy while not allowing her to accumulate too much STUFF! 

You will notice that the last sentence was written by Dear One!!  In my own defense:  I have not accumulated THAT  MUCH stuff...Instant Pot, blender, waffle iron, three 2-gallon buckets with Gamma Seal lids, a stainless steel strainer, some cute jars to hold bulk spices, a cast iron frying pan and lid.  Is that so much? :)😊

Mission: The Stairs

In April with J, A, and the children moved into our home in preparation for our mission, Dear One and I moved upstairs into the bedroom that was my work room.  After son #4 moved out we moved into his room, which had originally been Dear One's work room.

It turns out that it was a good thing to move upstairs, even though it was taxing for me at first.  Four months going up and down stairs at least once, and often several times,  a day, helped me get stronger so I could manage our mission.

As luck would have it, the senior missionary apartments are two bedroom apartments.  Ours happens to be UPSTAIRS!!!  Seventeen steps, to be exact.  Also, the stairs are OUTSIDE!!  (Oregon where we are apparently has rain every day from October to May.  Last winter they had ice.  I am not looking forward to the stairs come winter.)

When we were unloading our car that first day two weeks ago (can it really only be two weeks ago?!!) I thought I would cash it in.  Just carrying myself up the stairs was enough but there was a lot of stuff to go into the apartment. I felt it would have been politically uncool to allow Dear One and the kind other senior missionaries to do all the carrying of the stuff that I brought west with us much to Dear One's consternation.  So I made three trips, I think...though I have now forgotten.

Now, two weeks later, I can walk up the stairs one step after the other rather that one step, bring the other foot to that stair then go up another step.  At least I can do that when my load is balanced.  I even was able to carry a big box up by myself on Thursday!  That made me happy.  Especially since it was a box of something I have had on my bucket list of potential purchases for many years!

These are the stairs.  Seventeen of them!