December 21 - 23, 2015 - Normal Office Days

December 21 - Today is Leslie's birthday. She was our Christmas present 39 years ago. We hope she has a wonderful day. When prospective missionaries hand in their applications, they come here to the office. I was trained in what to look for to make sure the application is complete, with extra pictures, copy of passport, birth certificate, etc. Elder Draper and I went through three of them; one needed a copy of the birth certificate, one needed the extra 6 passport size photos. Elder Peterson had to request those items from their branch president. Only one is complete and ready to send on to the Area in Johannesburg.

I am still working on creating a report in Excel for the President showing all the convert baptisms since he started in July 2014. A monthly report comes from Salt Lake with the information. It is a matter of going in the report copying and then pasting it into Excel. The missionaries can now have a list of all the converts that should be coming to their various wards or branches. With missionaries being transferred throughout the mission it it easy for new converts to get "lost" among the other members and not be recognized as needing extra care and attention.

We also were looking at referrals. The names of people who requested a Book of Mormon or a Bible through the Internet. We now need to send that information to the missionary in the area where the person resides. Most were asking for it in English. We don't have a supply of the scriptures in English, so the missionaries will have to stop by and see if they want more information about the Church or if they just wanted help learning English.

Elder Peterson had plenty of finance work to do, Sister Mikesell handled the finances while we were gone but more work comes in each day. There was the receipts to take care from our trip to Mbuji-Mayi also.

Elder and Sister Draper were in charge of Family Home Evening tonight. Salt Lake had sent the President the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert from last year. We were looking forward to watching the Muppets.  However, when it was put into the DVD player we only heard music. On further examination Elder Draper found it was only an audio CD--not the video we were expecting. So we listened to a BYU devotional instead. Sister Draper made the best sweet rolls with cream cheese frosting for a treat.

December 22 -  Elder Peterson was not feeling the best so Elder Mikesell gave him some medication and I took a walk with Elder Mikesell this morning. After going back to bed for a couple of hours, Elder Peterson was able to come to the office for the rest of the day.