The Office

Life has really changed around here. We are now spending much of our time in the mission office.

We spend a little less time than the others because we are still working with the missionaries and looking for apartments, but we do spend a big part of each day there. It feels very different.

The Frogleys and President Packer are spending almost all their time there too.

Justin and the two assistants spend at least half-days in the office. It's a full house.

I can see clearly that the mission office is the backbone of a mission and much needed. There is a real need for couples who can staff the mission offices all over the world and keep things running.

We have been trying to get the office organized before the new "real" official office couple comes.

They were supposed to come on Monday, but as they were leaving the MTC the doctor contacted them and said that Elder Giles needed to have some more tests to check out an illness that he'd had a few weeks earlier. The tests showed that he is going to need surgery and will be delayed for at least three months. It is such a blessing that they didn't get here and then realize these serious health concerns were still there. There wouldn't have been adequate medical care for him here. It seems that the adversary is very intent on slowing the progress of this mission. But we are all determined to move forward.

Then by some strange "coincidence" we got surprising word that another couple will be coming the end of Aug. They have years of office experience, including another mission served as an office couple.

We also found out that our missionary force will be increasing sharply in the Sept. and Oct. transfers, so we are spending a lot of time looking at potential apartments. It's not easy to find them. The standard we have is that they must have water on the property (most don't have it in the house, but they at least have an outside tap) and power most of the time. You wouldn't think that would be hard to find, but it is. We have been to five apartments in the last three days. This is always an interesting experience.

So, this is how house hunting at two places went this time. We took Justin and went to the first house. On the way, we first had to stop and pick up a lady who was sitting on the side of the street selling homemade donuts. She left her wares in the care of a money changer who was sitting in his plastic chair next to her table and got in the car with us. Then we went to the house. Nobody was there and all the gates were locked. Justin and the donut lady talked in Swahili for a few minutes, made a call or two and then we went off to another place to pick up the man with the key. When we arrived at this place, the person she was looking for wasn't around. We waited about five minutes and he walked past our truck and over to a shop across the street. We waited another five minutes as Justin and the donut lady talked a lot more and a lot louder in Swahili. Then the young man came to the truck. He told us that the person who knew where the key was had a test to take and he wouldn't be finished for about 15-30 minutes. If we could wait there he would come and tell us where the key was. We decided not to wait and headed out to another house. We found nobody there either. So, the woman suggested that we try again tomorrow. We took her back to her donut stand and gave up the efforts for the day. The next day we started the process all over. No luck. So the third day, we told the donut lady that we needed for her to get the key before we came to the house (novel idea, isn't it?). After three days of trying we finally got into the houses. Both were really, really unacceptable. One of them had only a cement room for a kitchen, not even a sink. Nothing! The house did have running water and it was running inside the house. It was running in one bathroom,overflowing the bathtub and flowing out into the bedroom. Good thing it only had cement floors. So, the search goes on. It's not easy to find an apartment here in the Congo.

We were glad this day to headed back to the office. It's one of the nicest places in town.