Dear All,
It has been a couple of very busy weeks since we have Blogged. We have been in the office for these two weeks, and won't start traveling again until the end of the month. So what have we been doing? WE have been trying to get a replacement couple for us before we leave the end of April which is approaching rapidly. Last week I talked with a couple who were thinking about another country, but as I talked with her Sunday morning she got really excited about the possibility of coming to Germany. Her Husband's father left Germany shortly after Hitler came into power. He was Jewish, was able to get US citizenship, and then sponsored his family out of Germany as Hitler was coming into power. The family came originally from Berlin, and he is very interested to visit Berlin and try and find where his father and grandparent's lived. Anyway we are trying to rush their missionary papers through the system to get them in to the March MTC class for senior missionaries. If they can get into that class they will arrive in Frankfurt 2 days after Derek, Alexis and the Twins leave. Then we'll have some overlap training time which will really help them. Needless to say there have been a number of emails and phone calls to this couple and the Church Office in SLC. I talked the couple through filling out the essential parts of their mission papers. I received an email today stating that their papers have now been submitted. While I've been busy doing that Susan has been busy training all the couples on a new finance system. She has taught herself much of the new procedures, and pointed out areas (to finance) where the bugs haven't been worked out yet. This has really been a nightmare for everybody. She is becoming quite the little accountant, but she still doesn't want to balance the checkbook.
Last weekend we spent most of Fri. and Sat. in the office and several hours hours Sun. after church in the office working on the monthly computer in thenewsletter that we send out each month. The couples all submit a report with a picture or several and we then rewrite what they say to get their submission to fit into the program we use for the newsletter. Doesn't sound like much work, but it is.
We also have been working with our couples to encourage them to close old projects and send in a Project Summary sheet (this is templated), these generally have to be touched up. They are then attached to the Church's Humanitarian file in the computer. We also make a copy for our personally file. I am going to send a copy of the newsletter in another Blog.
During the last two weeks I have been(with Susan's help) updating the country project book and making 2 new books for each country. When a visiting dignitary from one of these countries visits the Area Office they are given a book to show them what the Church has done in their country over the past. It is quite an impressive book and all pages are in English and the country's native tongue.
The biggest news of the week is that Susan flew back to NYC on Thurs. to spent a weekend with her mother and sister. Susan was at the airport here in Frankfurt almost all the day waiting for Delta to get it's act together, and then her flight was cancelled. They continued to make mistakes, and by the time they were finally correct there were no more flight out to the States, so I picked her up and we had dinner with some of our distant Leonard Cousins. Thursday morning early I took her back to the airport, and she flew out at 9:00 with Singapore Airlines. She arrive safely and is now having a wonderful time with her Mom and sister Vickie. Susan will arrive home Mon. morning at about 10:00, I bet she will freshen up a little and then comes into work.
It has been a couple of very busy weeks since we have Blogged. We have been in the office for these two weeks, and won't start traveling again until the end of the month. So what have we been doing? WE have been trying to get a replacement couple for us before we leave the end of April which is approaching rapidly. Last week I talked with a couple who were thinking about another country, but as I talked with her Sunday morning she got really excited about the possibility of coming to Germany. Her Husband's father left Germany shortly after Hitler came into power. He was Jewish, was able to get US citizenship, and then sponsored his family out of Germany as Hitler was coming into power. The family came originally from Berlin, and he is very interested to visit Berlin and try and find where his father and grandparent's lived. Anyway we are trying to rush their missionary papers through the system to get them in to the March MTC class for senior missionaries. If they can get into that class they will arrive in Frankfurt 2 days after Derek, Alexis and the Twins leave. Then we'll have some overlap training time which will really help them. Needless to say there have been a number of emails and phone calls to this couple and the Church Office in SLC. I talked the couple through filling out the essential parts of their mission papers. I received an email today stating that their papers have now been submitted. While I've been busy doing that Susan has been busy training all the couples on a new finance system. She has taught herself much of the new procedures, and pointed out areas (to finance) where the bugs haven't been worked out yet. This has really been a nightmare for everybody. She is becoming quite the little accountant, but she still doesn't want to balance the checkbook.
Last weekend we spent most of Fri. and Sat. in the office and several hours hours Sun. after church in the office working on the monthly computer in thenewsletter that we send out each month. The couples all submit a report with a picture or several and we then rewrite what they say to get their submission to fit into the program we use for the newsletter. Doesn't sound like much work, but it is.
We also have been working with our couples to encourage them to close old projects and send in a Project Summary sheet (this is templated), these generally have to be touched up. They are then attached to the Church's Humanitarian file in the computer. We also make a copy for our personally file. I am going to send a copy of the newsletter in another Blog.
During the last two weeks I have been(with Susan's help) updating the country project book and making 2 new books for each country. When a visiting dignitary from one of these countries visits the Area Office they are given a book to show them what the Church has done in their country over the past. It is quite an impressive book and all pages are in English and the country's native tongue.
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| This nativity scene was in front of the annex at the temple
We send our love to you all,
Oma und Opa
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