This is part nine of a ten part series chronicling Paul’s Mission. It is told mostly in his own words using excerpts from his letters and photographs sent home.
January 2006
I spoke in church yesterday about agency. [Dad], you looked thin in the wedding pictures. The CD pictures were nice. Elder Checketts from Texas is my new companion, we stayed in the office but moved to the Oakland 6th Spanish ward. They must have messed up the paper work for the doctor visit. Sister Bauman sent me to the doctor to have them look at the ring worm on my arm. Don’t pay the bill yet, I’ll talk to her today and get it figured out and maybe have her give you a call.
They paid the doctor bill. The powerball is working well. Four other missionaries have them now but no one has beat my record yet. The pictures came through fine and download really fast at the office. We are on a cable modem. We go to a Spanish ward now. There is probably about 200 members that come. I’ll write you an essay on office work but maybe not until I get transfered out of the office. We stay really busy. This week we are going to see the new Joseph Smith movie during zone conference. It should be fun.
I sent a big shipment back to the salt lake distribution center of surplus supplies that we had. We got a pallet from Safeway and stacked 25 boxes on it and wrapped it up. We have a baptism set up for Ivan Quintanilla for the 29th. It should be good. Beranice Martinez got baptized last Saturday so we drove out to Concord to see it.
February 2006
Daniel should go eat at Betos, it’s really tasty. He should go to classic skating or the ice rink for the day activity or play ultimate frisbee. The office is pretty busy. It gets busier around transfers. Ivan the guy that just got baptized is from Guatemala, ask Derek what part they are going to. You’re getting a little anxious about this release date eh? I’m not sure when it is June 21 maybe. It doesn’t bother me which doctor. The last doctor’s breath smelled bad so I didn’t like him. Tyler’s CD came. All of the roommates really like it. Ivan got confirmed yesterday. My companion, brother Rojas and I each blessed one of their kids in sacrament meeting then Ivan’s wife bore her testimony. Ivan is set to baptize his brother and daughter on the 19th. We’ll see what happens.
They have a hard time getting the information right at the visitor center. They are supposed to get the phone number of Lon the member in order to get the phone number of Amber the member to send the missionaries to visit her husband our friend of another faith. We ended up moving Manuel and Vanessa to March 5th. It should be good. Go ahead and send me Tyler’s and Jake C’s address.
March 2006
I’m going to ship it home. I’ve always wanted a bike. It is a Liahona. I’m planning on flying home with all of my MTC buddies. I can’t remember my student ID for the U of U but I remember the password. I sent them both to Dad a long time ago. If he can’t find it my student ID card is in my box of stuff and it has the number on it. We moved the baptism back a week to this week. Vanessa the daughter is set to go. We took all of Carlos’s coffee from him so we’ll see what happens. [Dad], we’ll have to work on your family history when I get back so I can learn how to do it.
It looks like this transfer will be the last in the mission office. We’ll see what happens. In the office I do lots of things: order all the supplies Books of Mormon, pass along cards, DVDs and so forth. Handle all of the referrals for the mission. If someone calls on a TV commercial for a free DVD the information comes to me and I figure out what missionaries it goes to. Enter all the baptism records into the computer and send them to Salt Lake. Keep all the computers running. We do lots of misc. stuff but those are the main jobs.
The office meeting is with all of the office staff and the President. We get one hour to write email. The baptism candidates haven’t been coming to church. They have been working instead. We’re going to postpone them until they shape up. I learned how to install laminate flooring the other week. It’s not too hard to do. Fix the squeaky floors while the carpet is pulled up. I haven’t heard from Jake C for a while. I think he must be busy too. One of the single members was asking if I had any single aunts or cousins. I told him about Melissa and that she speaks Spanish too. He wants me to bring a picture over but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
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