Deadlines, Skype Calls & Missionary Friends

Prior to our mission Elder Oveson was a CPA that did income tax returns. With that job there were a lot of deadlines which were always overly stressful. Over the years he worked very hard to get the work in early and out as quickly as possible to avoid as much stress as possible. Now on our mission there are a lot of deadlines, but we are not the ones in charge, we are here to help and assist, but not to do for them. One problem with that is we are often caught in tight deadlines trying to finish up projects that have to go in by a specific date. And lately it feels like there have been a lot of those deadlines that we have been up against. One was a major report that the Area Manager requested which will be part of a larger report that will go to the Area Presidency. The initial deadline was October 1st, but then they wanted revisions by tomorrow. We wanted it in today just in case there were additional changes that needed to be done.

Today we had Skype calls scheduled with Sister Roberts in Hong Kong, Steve Yeng in Taiwan and Elder & Sister Ricks in Thailand. Steve is the new Area Operations Manager and Elder Oveson had to discuss a Perpetual Education Loan that he had to review with him. The other two calls were for our Communication Couple calling. We often speak to Sister Roberts three or so times per month, but it had been three weeks since we had a chance to talk. We did the Skype calls from the office and it kept freezing up on us. One of the times Sister Roberts froze with a great smile, so we captured the picture and put it on our blog. Elder & Sister Ricks have become great friends and now that we have met them we are even closer to them.

As Sister Oveson went down to get our lunch out of the refrigerator she ran into two of our missionary friends, Sister Galahad and Sister Chin Pharun. Sister Galahad used to translate for us in the Steung Mean Chey 3rd Ward, and Sister Chin was in our Institute class and just arrived back from the MTC in the Philippines. They will be companions up in Kampong Cham.

This evening it got even darker than last night, due to heavy clouds, which turned into a heavy downpour. We were glad that we were home when the heavy rain started.