A Day in the Life
So, due to popular demand, (two requests), here is an account of a typical not P-day in our missionary lives. If it seems a little pedestrian, that is because it is.
The alarm goes off at 6 a.m. If we wake up on our own before six, as happened quite frequently before the time change, we go out for a walk/trot. By "we" I mean if it is not raining particularly hard, Richard and I will go out together, and I will walk all the time, and he will alternate walking with me and running on his own; If it is raining hard I will chicken out and he will either exercise on his own or skip it for the day. As it gets lighter in the mornings and we adjust to the time change, we are considering setting the alarm for 15 minutes earlier so we can get back from our peregrination by 6:20 and get ready for work. When we get back to the flat we change into nice respectable clothes and somewhat less comfortable shoes for work, and then prepare breakfast and lunch. Scripture reading is interspersed in there somewhere; precisely where depends on the weather and how zonked we are feeling.
We usually take a packed lunch, and I frequently make good resolutions about preparing it the night before. Occasionally I follow through, and those mornings are less rushed. We usually take sandwiches or a salad or crackers and cheese, along with home made trail mix, fruit, and some carrot sticks and celery to snack on. We always get hungry mid-morning, as we have a very light and rather early breakfast, so we take snacks with us. If we don't, we are liable to munch on the snacks available in the office. There is large open area in the office complex where missionaries gather, and in this room is a water dispenser and a set of wire shelves (Costco chromed shelving). These shelves are kept pretty well stocked with snacks and treats for missionaries. There may be brownies or cookies; there are always red twizzlers; occasionally you can even find some fruit. Anyway. it is safer nutritionally to bring one's own snacks, and even then one gets led into temptation from time to time.
We try to leave the flat by 7:05 a.m. This way we have time to scrape frost off the car and just about arrive at the office by 7:30 am. If there is no frost on the car, we can be five minutes early, which is good. The traffic tends to be pretty light until about 7:15, so if we leave the flat late we are likely to be delayed a little by heavier traffic.
The mission office is attached to the mission home and is next door to the Edinburgh Stake Centre. We drive onto the mission home grounds and park in the parking area. The AP's live above the office and there is a connecting door between the office and the mission home. If the door is open, we are welcome to wander into the mission home; if it is closed, we are not.
Four of us work in the office, Richard and I and two senior sisters, Sister C and Sister G.
Pride of place in the office is taken by Sister Helps racing chair (described in another blog post). Reputed to be the most comfortable chair in the office,
Sister C is the President's secretary, which means if the President needs something done, she is on the firing line. During transfers week she works seriously long hours implementing whatever the President decides, and then if he has to change his mind about anything, she does it again. She also takes care of visa and travel plans (including bus and train tickets as 170 missionaries travel about their daily business) and orders the supplies for the mission. She is very bright, enjoys being very busy, and loves the missionaries to bits. When the Liahona's arrive (we have about a dozen Chinese speaking missionaries and receive 7 Chineses Liahona's - and it just occurred to me while I was typing that I can and should do something to fix that!) I will wander into her office and announce that it is time to play this month's Liahona Lottery. To whom should I send the Liahonas? She knows who is going home soon, (I would have to look it up); who speaks but does not read Chinese; who really would use the magazine, and so on. So we divvy them up (but next month I think we will perhaps order a few more.) Sister C also loves to drive and on the least provocation will run out to her car and head for the airport, the bus or train station, or anywhere else a stranded missionary needs a ride, or the mission needs something done.
Sister G is in charge of housing. She arranges to rent and in due course close flats. She also deals with landlords and their agents (known as "letting agents"), irate, recalcitrant and otherwise. This is not a small job as the mission rents almost 100 flats. She organizes utilities and deals with utility companies, though some of the changes Richard is implementing will mean that she has to do much less of that, Utility companies are a little different over here. They behave rather like car insurance agencies in the US, dozens of them all with different rate plans and different schemes, trying to get your business and lock you into a contract. You will have an electricity supplier and probably a gas supplier, and then the council will provide you with water and sewer, and will send a bill for that along with the council tax bill, which the occupant, not the owner, pays.
Sister G also orders supplies for the flats and organizes for the flats to be inspected on a regular basis. And she orders name tags, manages official mission mobile phone distribution and prepares the mission monthly newsletter. I answer the office phone and about half the calls are for her, about a third for Sister C, maybe one sixth for Elder Helps, and just occasionally someone will want to speak to me, which generally means the missionary or his/her companion is sick. Speaking of name tags, we each have several, and keep one on each coat, and each visible layer that we wear. That way, theoretically, we are never caught tagless. Sister G is very calm, on the phone and off it. Every now and again she will mention to me that she is very upset over a phone call she has just received from an irate landlord, but you would never guess it by her demeanor. She too loves the missionaries and they love her.
Richard (Elder Helps that is, as we are now discussing the office) is in charge of Finances and Cars, each of which is a full time job, but that's okay because we work more than full time. If we were paid, the hours we work might be a problem. If no money changed hands, there might be accusations of slavery. But seeing as we pay for the privilege, all is well. He tends to receive quite a few calls from upset missionaries and generally makes them feel better.
Missionary: I'm out of money/I just crashed my car/The ATM ate my card/I forgot my PIN.
Elder Helps: There there. What you need to do is.../This is how we're going to fix it...
If, however, Elder Helps is initiating the call, it is frequently less pleasant for the missionary. All 36 of our mission cars are registered to the Area Office in Germany, so the way he finds out about tickets (this country is all about law enforcement by camera) is by an email from Germany. He then has to phone the missionary to tell them they have a ticket to pay. Depending on the nature of the ticket, there may be a loss of driving privileges. The one bright spot is if tickets are paid expeditiously, the fines are discounted by 50%!
Elder Helps also pays all the bills and keeps all the financial records, which takes less than a line to type but many hours to do.
Now to me. I answer the phone and the door. The door is answered by pushing a button on my desk. I should look up at the Security screen before unlocking the door, and sometimes I do. No matter what else I am doing, the phone will ring. If I just have to pass the call through, all is well, but if I actually have to do something as a result of the call, I had better quickly write down what I was doing before the phone rang. It's easy enough to remember through one interruption, but when five or six jobs in a row have been interrupted it helps to have notes to carry you back through the list. I sort the email box and move everything related to finance over to Richard's finance box. We all share one general inbox, so I try to clear my stuff out of it as soon as I can. I deal with referrals and anything to do with baptisms. After transfers I provide proof of address letters for the missionaries and keep the Bishops and Stake presidents informed of which missionaries are serving in their area. I also deal with the mail and printing various supplies for missionaries, and also missionary health. If the missionaries are healthy, I don't have quite enough to do; if several missionaries are ill I can easily get overloaded. I try to keep ahead of any jobs that are not time sensitive, and then if the missionaries are all pretty healthy that day I help Richard with financial recording or chasing up petrol receipts, or wander pathetically around the office asking if anyone has anything they need me to do. Actually that last situation has only arisen once and only for a few minutes.
Our office day usually starts with a devotional which we take turns conducting. If we finish the devotional before 7:50 a,m, there is a fair chance we will not be interrupted by a phone call. If the phone rings before 7:35 am, chances are we will skip the devotional that day. Some days there is a constant stream of people coming to the office. We always try to greet visitors and make them comfortable. We work all day and leave the office at about 5:30 p.m. We usually eat lunch at Richard's desk and get right back to work, but occasionally we rebel and take a walk at lunch time.
In the evening we quite often do a little shopping, since we have limited fridge and cupboard space, and its nice to stretch our legs. Cooking dinner is a creative release; laundry and cleaning up is necessary a few times a week and then we have an hour or two free, and it's off to bed.
The alarm goes off at 6 a.m. If we wake up on our own before six, as happened quite frequently before the time change, we go out for a walk/trot. By "we" I mean if it is not raining particularly hard, Richard and I will go out together, and I will walk all the time, and he will alternate walking with me and running on his own; If it is raining hard I will chicken out and he will either exercise on his own or skip it for the day. As it gets lighter in the mornings and we adjust to the time change, we are considering setting the alarm for 15 minutes earlier so we can get back from our peregrination by 6:20 and get ready for work. When we get back to the flat we change into nice respectable clothes and somewhat less comfortable shoes for work, and then prepare breakfast and lunch. Scripture reading is interspersed in there somewhere; precisely where depends on the weather and how zonked we are feeling.
We usually take a packed lunch, and I frequently make good resolutions about preparing it the night before. Occasionally I follow through, and those mornings are less rushed. We usually take sandwiches or a salad or crackers and cheese, along with home made trail mix, fruit, and some carrot sticks and celery to snack on. We always get hungry mid-morning, as we have a very light and rather early breakfast, so we take snacks with us. If we don't, we are liable to munch on the snacks available in the office. There is large open area in the office complex where missionaries gather, and in this room is a water dispenser and a set of wire shelves (Costco chromed shelving). These shelves are kept pretty well stocked with snacks and treats for missionaries. There may be brownies or cookies; there are always red twizzlers; occasionally you can even find some fruit. Anyway. it is safer nutritionally to bring one's own snacks, and even then one gets led into temptation from time to time.
We try to leave the flat by 7:05 a.m. This way we have time to scrape frost off the car and just about arrive at the office by 7:30 am. If there is no frost on the car, we can be five minutes early, which is good. The traffic tends to be pretty light until about 7:15, so if we leave the flat late we are likely to be delayed a little by heavier traffic.
The mission office is attached to the mission home and is next door to the Edinburgh Stake Centre. We drive onto the mission home grounds and park in the parking area. The AP's live above the office and there is a connecting door between the office and the mission home. If the door is open, we are welcome to wander into the mission home; if it is closed, we are not.
Four of us work in the office, Richard and I and two senior sisters, Sister C and Sister G.
Pride of place in the office is taken by Sister Helps racing chair (described in another blog post). Reputed to be the most comfortable chair in the office,
Sister G also orders supplies for the flats and organizes for the flats to be inspected on a regular basis. And she orders name tags, manages official mission mobile phone distribution and prepares the mission monthly newsletter. I answer the office phone and about half the calls are for her, about a third for Sister C, maybe one sixth for Elder Helps, and just occasionally someone will want to speak to me, which generally means the missionary or his/her companion is sick. Speaking of name tags, we each have several, and keep one on each coat, and each visible layer that we wear. That way, theoretically, we are never caught tagless. Sister G is very calm, on the phone and off it. Every now and again she will mention to me that she is very upset over a phone call she has just received from an irate landlord, but you would never guess it by her demeanor. She too loves the missionaries and they love her.
Missionary: I'm out of money/I just crashed my car/The ATM ate my card/I forgot my PIN.
Elder Helps: There there. What you need to do is.../This is how we're going to fix it...
If, however, Elder Helps is initiating the call, it is frequently less pleasant for the missionary. All 36 of our mission cars are registered to the Area Office in Germany, so the way he finds out about tickets (this country is all about law enforcement by camera) is by an email from Germany. He then has to phone the missionary to tell them they have a ticket to pay. Depending on the nature of the ticket, there may be a loss of driving privileges. The one bright spot is if tickets are paid expeditiously, the fines are discounted by 50%!
Elder Helps also pays all the bills and keeps all the financial records, which takes less than a line to type but many hours to do.
Now to me. I answer the phone and the door. The door is answered by pushing a button on my desk. I should look up at the Security screen before unlocking the door, and sometimes I do. No matter what else I am doing, the phone will ring. If I just have to pass the call through, all is well, but if I actually have to do something as a result of the call, I had better quickly write down what I was doing before the phone rang. It's easy enough to remember through one interruption, but when five or six jobs in a row have been interrupted it helps to have notes to carry you back through the list. I sort the email box and move everything related to finance over to Richard's finance box. We all share one general inbox, so I try to clear my stuff out of it as soon as I can. I deal with referrals and anything to do with baptisms. After transfers I provide proof of address letters for the missionaries and keep the Bishops and Stake presidents informed of which missionaries are serving in their area. I also deal with the mail and printing various supplies for missionaries, and also missionary health. If the missionaries are healthy, I don't have quite enough to do; if several missionaries are ill I can easily get overloaded. I try to keep ahead of any jobs that are not time sensitive, and then if the missionaries are all pretty healthy that day I help Richard with financial recording or chasing up petrol receipts, or wander pathetically around the office asking if anyone has anything they need me to do. Actually that last situation has only arisen once and only for a few minutes.
Our office day usually starts with a devotional which we take turns conducting. If we finish the devotional before 7:50 a,m, there is a fair chance we will not be interrupted by a phone call. If the phone rings before 7:35 am, chances are we will skip the devotional that day. Some days there is a constant stream of people coming to the office. We always try to greet visitors and make them comfortable. We work all day and leave the office at about 5:30 p.m. We usually eat lunch at Richard's desk and get right back to work, but occasionally we rebel and take a walk at lunch time.
In the evening we quite often do a little shopping, since we have limited fridge and cupboard space, and its nice to stretch our legs. Cooking dinner is a creative release; laundry and cleaning up is necessary a few times a week and then we have an hour or two free, and it's off to bed.
It sounds so busy and yet so delightful!
ReplyDeleteThis was fascinating. Thanks for sharing. In a future blog post, I would be interested to know what dealing with missionary health entails.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this one. I, too, would like to know more about dealing with missionary health. Are you allowed to prescribe or would that require licensing?
ReplyDelete