Adventure Iz Us: Too much is happening

Sorry to have not kept up with the Blog for a couple weeks. It is not that nothing has been happening, but rather that there has been too much. Rather than try to fill it all in, I will try to capture a few special segments.

The Ohio Cincinnati mission will be dissolved on June 30. The mission won’t change much in most ways, it is just that the administration of the area will be distributed between Columbus, Ohio and Charleston, West Virginia. The Cincinnati area will be administered from Columbus, and the Huntington, WV side will report to Charleston. In the Cincinnati area there are 8 missionaries who would normally go home at the middle of August. Since the transfer schedule in Columbus is offset from what has been the Cincinnati schedule, these missionaries will either have to go home a few weeks earlier or a few weeks later than was planned. Parents have been calling and asking to have their missionaries released sooner rather than later, many so that they can get started back into school. We put the question to the Columbus mission president. He replied to the effect that he recognizes what the parents want, he is interested in what the missionaries want. So April has been contacting the missionaries to get their input.

Here we go, I can hardy see through my wet eyes, most of them said they are loving their mission, that they came to serve for a full two years, and they would be happy to go a few weeks longer rather than a few weeks shorter. So that was a pretty special experience.

Yesterday the missionaries who will be going home today met in the office for their outgoing interviews with President Robbins. I got to talk to my trainer, a great Elder from the Boise Idaho area who used to handle the vehicles before we came. I asked him what he planned to do when he gets home. He replied, “Well I don’t know yet, because I haven’t given it much thought. I will wait till I get home and I will discuss it with my dad.” Again, I was impressed at the obedience of these great young people who want to serve the Lord so much that they willfully refuse to allow thoughts of the future to distract them. I wish I were half so good.

Some more excitement in the vehicle area, someone crawled under our passenger van this weekend and used a power saw to cut out the catalytic converter from the exhaust system. Apparently they can get up to $80 at a scrap yard for the rare metals in the converter. For the dealer to fix it they have to replace 2/3 of the exhaust system since it is all one welded piece. The estimate was $2200! I found a weld shop that is going to weld in a replacement converter for LOTS less. But in the meantime we needed a van to do the transfers yesterday, so we called Columbus and they offered to loan us theirs, so last night we drove our car to Columbus, got their van, and brought it back and the Assistants used it for the transfers. We will take it back tomorrow and probably stop in to sign a contract for our apartment there. It was quite amazing how it worked out.