The Office

Today was our first day at the office.  We were busy all day long, learning and doing!  Sister Decker trained Jack in several aspects of finance.  He paid bills, paid rent, discussed new missionary packets and instructions pertaining to finance, reviewed statements, posted receipts and made a bank deposit.  

Sister Mihlberger trained me.  I am now office receptionist.  I answer the phone and route calls, I take care of the mail and make labels.  I'm over media and name tag orders.  I learned all that today.  Some other responsibilities I'll have, which will come later, will be referral manager, zone packets, schedule buildings for zone conferences, fire sides and luncheons, and make office cleaning assignments.

The biggest, and most time consuming assignment I have is mail!  We have around 200 missionaries in our mission.  Mail and packages from home are SO important to these kids!  All mail and packages are sent to the mission office.  It is my job to re-route them to each missionary.  The reason families don't send the mail directly to the missionaries' apartments is that their addresses could change every six weeks during transfers.  I have to go through all the mail and alphabetized it, then create current address labels for each piece.  When the labels are applied, all traces of the previous addresses and zip codes have to be blacked out.  Then the mail and packages are put in the next day's out-going mail.  I thought we had a lot of mail today, but Sister Mihlberger said that Monday and Friday are the biggest mail days.  And, she said, "At Christmas, it gets crazy!"  I can imagine!!!

First day at the office was fun!  We learned so much!  We got to meet some cool new people-Dwight, the UPS guy, and Rose, the mail truck driver.  They are so cute and friendly!  They call the office staff by Elder and Sister, and just seem to be part of our little family.  :o)