Week #13

This has been a slow but somewhat frustrating week for me. Two apartment complexes (four apartments) have decided they no longer will accept checks for any type of payment. We pay both rent and utilities by check. I told last week about trying to use our mission credit card, named PC-1, for payment but when I tried to get the portal system to accept the card it wouldn't allow for the number 1 as the first name. I spent hours on the phone but couldn't get it resolved. SLC suggested using either President or Sister Ames' credit card. That seemed to be the answer as the cards are in their names. I again spent literally hours this week trying to get the portal to accept one of their cards. Each time I tried to enter the credit card number an error message popped up saying I needed to enter a valid MasterCard number. The portal managers, who are in India, have gotten to know me. They are really quite nice and very patient and I could understand two of the three I've dealt with.😁 They end up saying it is a problem with the credit card and Bank of America and SLC say it is a problem with the system. So I'm in the middle not knowing what to do next. I'm pretty sure it is the system, also, as I don't even hit the enter button before it tells me to enter a valid number. I have a about a week to figure things out before we pay rent for March. We pay near the middle of the month so we don't get late fees due to slow USPS service. Other than that it was a pretty easy week.

Friday we took mom's cousin Norma and Sister Welbern out to lunch. We were getting bills from Sam's Club and no one in the office claimed to have bought anything there. I was about to get the credit card cancelled because of fraud but Sister Welbern saw that the Sam's Club was out by Liberty where Norma lives. Somehow her Sam's Club purchases were being credited to our mission card that she used when she was over housing in the mission. The charges were over $350 and she was embarrassed. She brought a check in Friday to cover the charges. 

Sister Kearns comes to the mission tomorrow as Sister Welbern's replacement. Sister Welbern extended a couple of weeks so she could be with Sister Kearns for a transfer which we just had this week. I don't envy her having to step into Sister Welbern's shoes.

Yeves and me
We had a nice fast and testimony meeting today. President Maloney had to get up at the end and cut things off  so the meeting wouldn't go overtime. A new branch member, Yeves, came to church a few weeks ago and we have kind of been assigned to give him a ride to and from church each week. He is from Haiti by way of Chile by way of Florida. He is married with two small kids but we haven't seen them yet. Mom understands him better than I do.😬 They both have jobs and he is doing the Pathway program and seems to be getting along well. I don't know how they and many others like them do it. Yeves' family is living with his Godmother so I assume she must be sponsoring him.
 

The biggest challenge the branch has is transportation. President Ames attended branch council last week and told them the branch members need to start figuring out how to get themselves to church each week without having to rely on the missionaries. Young missionaries are not allowed to transport people so that leaves the few branch members with vehicles and the senior missionaries to be the chauffeurs.  

Two is better than one
Fashion statements we are not. When we first got here we put up some curtains mom found in the cave. They didn't do much to block the light and a couple of weeks ago mom found some blackout curtains in the cave so we hung those, also. I left the old ones up as I figured two curtains had to block more light than  one.😂

Have a good week and those in Utah enjoy the snow. Today it was 63 degrees here. Wednesday night it was down to 8 degrees which was cold but not as cold as it looks like Utah got. Hopefully, the super cold is gone for the year.

This morning I read a good talk on miracles by Elder Hallstrom from the October 2017 conference titled "Has the Day of Miracles Ceased?" Short answer, "No". Take some time and read it.

And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water! 2 Nephi 31:5

From last week - Truman Library
More of mom's geese



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week #60

Image
Alisa and kids. One thing they bought was a goat. I'm going to take a Christmas break and do mostly pictures today. Besides, mom has already told you most of the news.  We enjoyed our sacrament meeting today. Short and sweet. The last two weeks we have been asked to pick up a former branch member who now lives about 25 miles south of us and then we have to go another 15 miles north to get to the branch. He hopes to move back into the branch again soon. And he is such a polite man - all "yes sir" and "no ma'am." We thought he might be in his 70's but when finding out about his family he is in his mid 50's. We could be his parents! DevinKim and family  minus Jace. Chickens, diapers, food... We went to Colleen's cousin Norma's annual Christmas dinner last night and the senior missionaries are having a potluck Christmas dinner tomorrow afternoon. I think that will be it for Christmas dinners this year. Thank heavens.  Tuesday, Shawna and Slava an
Read more

Week #71

Image
This might even be shorter than mom's letter. We are both tired after a short night and a long day. I keep thinking each daylight savings change that it might be my last one. I've been hoping for such for many years. Just watch. The politicians will get their act together just after I die and fix things. But until then, I'll keep hoping. We taught Sister Silva the first temple prep lesson before church this morning. Her husband, who received his endowment a few months ago, sat in with us. Sister Silva sat in on his lessons so most of this will be a review for her. Both have had a hard life but are progressing well in the Church. Minus the Sisters Saturday evening we were to have all six missionaries from the Branch over for dinner. In the afternoon, Elder Healy called and said we had a problem. The Sisters from our Branch had called and said their car was stolen. They were asked if it could have been towed. "Oh,no. We were parked in our assigned parking place." Th
Read more

Week #75

Image
Just a few words and a couple of pictures. Elder Healy has been so busy with new vehicles that we haven't had much time to spend with him learning Lots of money on the lot. finances. We plan to hit it hard this week. He's gotten lots of new vehicles in but not many licenses plates so they are piling up on the lot. He has 34 of them down there at this time. Ten are ready to sale but he doesn't know when they will be picked up. The rest are new vehicles but no license plates and he won't send them out until he gets the plates. There is not much room for more cars, so he is going to tell the dealers they'll have to keep them until he gets room to store them. Hopefully, plates will start showing up soon. Sis. Dennison and Sisters This evening we had dinner at the Dennison's. They been here about three months. A couple of Sister missionaries ended up having dinner with us. It was a fun time as they wanted to hear about our other missions. Mom and I decided we have lo
Read more