August 9, 2011

This morning started off with a bang. I got up and read an e-mail from Elder Warner in Vanuatu that was sent last night at 11pm. He said that Sister Jessa flew in that day from Tanna (one of the islands) and is expecting to fly to Fiji on the 9th but they don’t have any ticket information! I woke Jan up and we hurried over to the office to try to figure out whether we had some flight information. Unfortunately, Jan had never been trained on how to access the Mission Office e-mail. We knew the user name and password but just didn’t know how to access the website. We looked all over the office for hard copy evidence. We then went back to the mission home to see if I could access it through my own laptop. Finally, we went back, got on Jan’s computer and I was able to access the e-mail. We found an itinerary and e-ticket that had been issued back on June 9th. I sent Elder Warner an e-mail apologizing for the misunderstanding and that we would be sending him the e-ticket once the office was open. I told him it appeared to me that the flight didn’t leave until about 4pm Vanuatu time so they will have plenty of time to get the information and get Sister Jessa to the airport for her flight here. There is definitely a steep learning curveJ

At the office I followed up with the flight information which we got to Elder Warner first thing. Today was transfer day. This meant that there were missionaries coming and going most of the morning and early afternoon. I got some good training preparation in and began reading the missionary weekly letter. We received two boxes containing the new brochures for training new missionaries. There is a small pamphlet for trainers and a thick booklet for trainees. It booklet contains a detailed 12 week study program. Since we received these and arranged to have the missionaries who began training within the last 3 weeks to come in this coming Thursday for a 90 minute training meeting. This is to be followed by a 90 minute meeting with these missionaries and their new companions to review the new training program. During the afternoon I finished the missionary weekly letters and took phone calls from the Area head of Humanitarian work and made some follow up calls with the Director of Senior Missionary Assignments in Salt Lake. After dinner I went back to the office and worked further on training. I began working through the training for these two new 90 minute training meetings (I had received an outline of what should be done in a guide to mission presidents for this new training program.) I also worked on ideas for the leadership training meeting and the Zone Leader’s Training Counsel meeting. Each of these meetings is to take place in New Caledonia next week and in Vanuatu at the end of the month. The Trainer/Trainee meeting and the ZLTC are to take place in Fiji this week but the Leadership Training meeting for Fiji is scheduled during the week between the NC trip and the Vanuatu trip. Things are starting to heat up.