The Office Season 2 Episode 2

Hi family.

This week I realized my job, in reality, is easy. I talked and worked a ton with President this week. He has a hard job - not me. 

First off I thought this would be a week without an airport run but who was I kidding? (is that said?) We had a new Elder to pick up. He is from the US but lived in Argentina for a little while so he passed the Spanish test which meant he only had 2 weeks in the CCM. We went, picked him up, ate KFC on the way home, and then he hung out with us for a day and a half. President was in Tarija the whole week so he didn't meet this Elder until 2 days after he got here. But now he is off being trained by my old companion Elder Strong. Oh. And he also brought candy in from the US. I forgot how much I love twizzlers. He had to sit in the offices one day and I think he got the impression at first that the whole mission was going to be really boring. I hope that has changed. 

My companion Elder Garcia and I are running a lot too. We wake up 5 minutes early every day so we are out the door by6:30. I love running in the city. Its usually pretty empty and we can run in the middle of the streets. We have recently been running and finding the tallest buildings and then going up the stairs to the top floor. I have been sore for a week now. The tallest buildings here only have like 15 floors so really its not very much. We are just really out of shape. I think its because we sit in A/C all day long. But thats just a guess.

We have had so much to do this week. There have been days when we go early to the offices and then stay late at night just to finish some things. This week I think President Willard has been a little stressed out. His daughter is leaving to serve her mission today (it was his last week with her), he found out that some reports that were due in Feb. of this year still have not been done, and also that close to half of the mission baptisms have not been reported because the old registros secretary did not do his job. He has called me on several occasions this week asking for my help. Elder Garcia and I have done our best to help him. We got an email from the Area saying that for several months now our baptized and confirmed numbers have been way different (when they should be the same). President called me and asked me to help him. Elder Garcia and I went through every single baptism record for the past few months and found 1. who had been submitted to the area 2. of whom did we have a record but the area didn't know about them and 3. who did the Zone Leaders say was baptized but we never received their record. When we finally finished we found over half of the records that the old secretary had never put into the system. Now we are trying to fix the system numbers for the number of members, converts, and everything for the church. For General Conference coming up they need a report on the number of new members but they get that information from the area. And we are the ones who give it to the area. If we are wrong, we make everything messed up. Its a lot of responsibility to try and fix all this. We were in a pretty big hole and we are now just trying to get out. 

On top of that, President's counselors were supposed to do a report about the leadership within the mission for the year 2013 which was due in Feb 2014. We just now got word that is was not done and now we have to do it. I had to go since July 2013 and find every missionary who had been a trainer, District leader, Zone leader, Assistant, and Secretary. Then I am going to put all their names, pictures, dates of service, and assignation in the mission on a report that then I will send to the First Presidency. I'm a little stressed out about it all. And really I'm just doing a part of the huge informe we have to do. The assistants are doing a part, President is doing a part, his counselors are doing some and it just is a ton of work. 

Then on top of it all, my companion got a call sunday morning at 5:30 from an Elder who had horrible stomach pain. He went to the clinic and turns out he had kidney stones. He had an emergency surgery and so we were in and out of the clinic, offices, and church all day Sunday. I really don't think normal days exist in the offices. 

Apart from the work in the offices we had a hard week in our area. We are having a hard time finding new investigadors. We are always working in the night so there are always people drunk which is hard and then there are the families who leave and go out to dinner but never want to listen to us. We just have to work harder! Set more goals, find new ways to accomplish them, and keep praying. 

Oh. Read these scriptures.

Mosiah 1-2 and then listen to General Conference this weekend. 

Love you lots and lots.

Hurrah for Israel!

Elder Gehring

These are some fotos that my comp sent me. We were eating at a place called Vaca Fria. Its the best ice cream here.