ALL OUT Recover

Have I said that our work here can be crazy? I think I have. This week we had 30 new missionaries come to our mission, 8 Hermanas and 22 Elders. They came form 4 different MTC's Brazil, Guatemala, Provo and Santo Domingo.  Which means they all arrived at different times and some on different days. And then of course there were 3 different times that the missionaries were leaving which means many trips to the airport for us. Which means Hermana Borup and I went to the airport 4 times in 2.5 days. The craziest thing about this transfer was that President Santos needed to interview all the new missionaries before assigning them their trainers. Think about that if he took just 10 minutes each that is 5 hours of interviews. President Santos has an amazing ability to spend the time he needs when he interviews. This was a minor miracle for him to get through all of the interviews. We have 86 missionary companionships after this transfer. We lost 10 missionaries and gained 30. That means 10 new areas. There were only 7 companionships that did not have a change this week. We are tired!

For the missionaries going home I think it was pretty hard. They had spent their whole mission with President Nuckols except their last transfer. I think it was hard for them to have such a great relationship with the old President and then have the new President send them off. It is something that happens in the Church all of the time but seems extra hard for young missionaries. These missionaries were good leaders and they will be missed.

We were talking this week about the work of missionary work. As of the end of last year there were 71,000 full time missionaries in the world if 30% are Sisters that means that 21,300 are sisters and 49,700 are Elders. In order to keep that many missionaries in the field 273 Sisters and 478 Elders on average need to receive mission calls per week. So 751 missionaries get calls by revelation from God during an average week. Thinking about that many calls is mind numbing, but add on top of that all the administrative tasks that have to go on with each of those calls it is really an amazing work. If each call took only 1 minute that would be 12 hours 31 minutes. I'm guessing the average call takes a little longer than that.

With that hanging over our heads we decided to take some time to see another part of the country and went to Samana and enjoyed Conference weekend at an all inclusive resort.  It has been a nice time to decompress. But it is not without some feelings of guilt. They say as Seniors we can do these things like this but it still feels weird. This island is very beautiful.

This week i met the first person since we got here that claimed he did not believe in God. He happened to be the most unpleasant person I have met here also. He worked at the Hotel where we stayed. I'm not saying one caused the other but I'm going to guess that there is at least a relationship.

We hope that no one is too  jealous of our conference weekend. It is one we will remember for a long time.  We love the work here and loved to hear the word from the Lord's anointed here on earth.
Have a great week! we will!

Hermana y Elder Borup


Hermana Borup and Hermana Buhler taking a break. They didn't reaaly care if Elder Buhler and I came or not.
New missionaries after they have been assigned their new Companions
New Missionary and her new companion. Best friends for at least 12 weeks
Another new companionship
New companions
New companions again
4 missionaries on their way home with Elder Bateman an assistant in the middle. 
Our view for conference weekend.
Preparing for their first day in the mission
When it comes to Hermanas and Elders we believe in segregation. 
Elder Murphy's mom should be happy to see all of those years of Piano lessons paying off

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