Normal Week

It was a fairly normal week this week, getting back into the swing of things after our trip, getting all our office work cleaned up for the month and getting ready for transfers on Tuesday, 11/1.  We did drive up to Yonkers on Wednesday to pick up four brand new 2017 Chevrolet Malibus for the mission!  I’m not sure why the church upgraded from Cruzes to Malibus.  I suspect it’s for the safety features, and I know the elders and sisters won’t mind!!  The Malibus are beautiful, plus a little bigger and have blind-spot warning, back-up collision warning, and even automatic braking collision avoidance!  Plus, they have full Bluetooth and wifi (just for 1^st few months) in them.  While we were driving one home, Diane kidded (I assume), “I think we need a new car!”  We laughed about it, but it is amazing how much things progress in two or three years!!

The mission has 12 vehicles now that need body work (9 minor accidents in last 6 weeks), so I plan to keep one ‘old’ (2013 with 51k miles) car in service as a loaner for a transfer or two, until we can get caught up.  Getting new cars will also keep me (more) busy trying to sell three more old cars (added to the two I haven’t sold yet from the last batch).  Well, we wanted to feel needed…

We had another elder go home early this week, which was/is heartbreaking!  He is one of our favorites, and a wonderful missionary.  As usual, it was sad to say goodbye to him, cry with him and see his companion (a new missionary) crying in the lobby.  We assume the early return was health-related, although we really never know. We do know, though, that the lessons and challenges of mortality are constant and unique for each of us, and there’s a good reason even the best of us, Jesus Christ, had to experience mortality in its fullness!  All we can do is pray for each other and love each other!!  The one time I went with Diane to education week, one of the teachers showed from the Book Of Mormon that our challenges spring from three different causes:  Our own miss-use of our agency (bonehead decisions, as Dad would say), Other’s miss-use of their agency, and just plain lessons of mortality!  (And they are all hard!)  We hate to see people we love suffer, but our testimony is strengthened with every experience that it’s so much easier to bear and learn from these experiences if we remain obedient to the principles of the gospel. 

Several of the senior missionary couples that were here when we got here are finishing their missions and being replaced by other couples.  It’s sad to see them go, but also fun to meet and get to know the new couples!  Every couple is unique, with their own strengths and challenges, and Diane and I often comment that it’s like working in the temple—it’s such a blessing associating with others who are at much the same place in life as you are, and are all trying to simply do what is right!!   Another brief glimpse of what heaven will be like!  WE STILL LOVE IT.

Dinner at the Duffys, 10-30-16. L to R: Marc, Sister Duffy, Diane, Brother Duffy, Kathy (Sis Duffy sister from CA), Elder Harris, Sister Harris