If you have never been involved in a transfer day, you will not really understand how exciting it is and how busy it is. Every 6 weeks a group of missionaries goes home and another group comes in to the mission. In an ideal world the number that come in would exactly match the number going home. If more are released – which today was 10 – than come in – today it was 4 – then some active area will probably be closed down – today there were three areas either closed down or absorbed into another area. Also this means some cars need to be turned in along with their gas card and phones.

  

The calm before the storm. All the cars neatly parked while the missionaries are in transfer meeting. Then the musical cars starts with missionaries moving lots of luggage and bikes. It is something to see 100 elders and sisters getting the right people, their luggage and bikes in the right vehicles. It must be the Lords work because mere mortals could not make it happen so smoothly.

  

Elder and sister Beagley arrange Ensign and other supplies to be picked up by the missionaries. The mail carefully sorted and laid out to be gathered by them. Elder Beagley explaining to a sister about how to get her oil changed at Pep Boys – he is probably busier than any other senior missionary and he does it in a very efficient and kind way.

Since all missionaries the serve here in the Fort Lauderdale mission must have bikes, there are bikes of those being released to be sent home or donated  and new bikes for the incoming missionaries to be distributed. Add to all this a ton of luggage, lots of bicycles, and of course missionaries to be jockeyed around and you get an idea of how many things have to be coordinated every 6 weeks on Transfer Day.

Today was the first time we were part of the logistic team from the office that were involved in all of this. In the past we just saw the scrambling around as the missionaries changed companions without realizing everything else that was going on. Also here in Fort Lauderdale we have a larger number of missionaries and vehicles than the other missions we have served.

Mary and I were responsible for the mail – you can not send mail the last week or so before transfers because of missionaries being moved from one area to another so we have it available for pick-up. We worked out a program that I think worked quite well with about 80% of the mail being gathered up and all but one of the packages. These were sent to the missionaries new addresses by the end of the day.

I then helped with getting the cars shuffled around. When we were done we had two cars that were turned in because the areas they were in had  been closed until the next transfer when a lot of missionaries are coming in.

Finally we had volunteered to help Sister Anderson prepare lunch for the new missionaries and their companions who stayed for training by President Anderson. By the time we were finished we were rather tired so after picking up a car from Pep Boys we came home for lunch and then went back to the office to take care of the mail that came in and that which was left over, help some with cars, and then the office staff basically called it a day and everyone went home.

In Six weeks the party is on again….