Well we are back to Monday – the Monday before transfers. I thought I had pretty much got everything thing done that I could with transfers before we went home on Friday. It turned out I was wrong. Since there will be three new areas created this transfer I needed to have 3 phones available for the companionships. We have one extra phone available so I only needed to activate two more. I activated one early in the day and it took about 10 minutes. I should have activated the other one at the same time but something came up and so I decided to do it later. Big mistake as the second one took 40 minutes and it took the technical staff to get it running.

What came up was a need to make a quick trip up to Boynton Beach to deliver a special birthday present to sister Smith. The original plan to get it up to her early today fell through and since I had promised that she would get it for her birthday we jumped in a car and took it up to her. We also took a package for another missionary, three cards for sister Smith and even a letter for her companion.

It was a nice drive and it is always a joy to visit and talk to the missionaries. Sister Packard and sister Smith are having great success. They hope to have two baptisms soon. We found out that they recently got a couple of investigators married and we decided that right after baptisms and confirmations on the weekly report there should be a spot for reporting marriages.

  

As we were going to the van to go to the office I caught Mary coming around the corner – I wanted to show her and the blue sky but for some reason it turned out gray looking. Oh well the important thing is there. The assistants came in and I took what will probably be the last one of the three of them together that I will take. I think this is the first time I have seen elder Rippstein make a face when I was taking a picture. These three have been great assistants and have seen the mission and the missionaries grow. We will miss elders Rippstein and Avila but look forward to working with elder Shipley and his new companion.The last picture shows sister Smith with her birthday package from home.

The afternoon seemed to have me running from one project to the next. None of them really on my schedule but all important to get done right away. The good thing about being busy is that the afternoon went by quickly and other than a piles of bills that I need to pay tomorrow, my desk is clear – or as clear as my desk ever is.