The First Transfer

We have had a busy week.  On Monday we sent home 7 missionaries.  Dinner at the mission home, testimonies, etc.  The next day we received 26 new missionaries.  This is a photo of their luggage in the mission home garage.

Then we took a photo of all of them (well all but one--he missed his plane coming to PA from the MTC in Mexico.  It layed over only a short time in Texas and he was delayed in customs.)  We ended up going to the airport a second time to pick him up later that night.  He was so very glad to see us!

Then they came inside of the mission home to eat, so being considerate missionaries, they took off their shoes!

 We enjoyed some hamburgers and the new missionaries had to fill out some papers, then be interviewed to see if they could drive a car, then interviewed by the mission president.  Then there was some instructions given and questions answered by the assistants to the president.  I saw lots of head bobbing going on by then.  They had all been up since about 1:30 am...  The next day we picked them up at the mission home and brought them to the mission office (attached to a stake center).  At this point they lined up to see who they would be paired up with.  Lots of hugging, clapping, etc...  Corry then made a short presentation on handling stress.  It is from a newly arrived booklet on the subject.  The Church has had to address this problem.  I got to watch only a bit of it, but it looked like he was doing really well.  (Corry enjoys doing this type of presentation).  Meanwhile, I made a quick trip to the airport to take one last elder to the airport for his trip home to Samoa.  He would be traveling for 2 full days.  He was an awesome and big strapping elder.  Then there was the chaos of getting all of them to downtown Philly where they street contacted for a time and then more chaos of getting all of their luggage to where they would be staying.  Those in the city could not take it as they use public transportation.

That all took place yesterday.  Then today The president made a special run to a new elder whose diabetic medication arrived just after he left yesterday and we made a special run into downtown Philadelphia (our first!) to deliver medication and a cord to a new elder who has Cystic Fibrosis.  He had left his cord at the MTC...  We did survive all of it and learned tons in the process.  We learned that the mission mother has a huge responsibility.  She prepared lots of meals for the visiting authority all of last week and then meals for the homeward bound and newly arrived missionaries.  She fields calls from their parents and looks after the ones with special problems.  And that is just a tiny bit of what she does.  So now I am praying for her...