What Do We Do All Day Long?

It's been a busy few weeks in the mission. Well, it's actually been busy since we arrived. It's always busy!

We operate on a six-week transfer cycle where new missionaries arrive in the mission on a given Thursday (September 12 for this cycle, October 24 for the next cycle, and so on) and departing missionaries leave a day or two earlier, depending on their home destination. I manage the travel arrangements, with the help of travel agents in Manila and the United States, for the departing missionaries. (Travel for the arriving missionaries is managed by the missionary training center.) This includes all airline reservations, along with hotel reservations and bus rides depending on their itinerary. I also work with immigration agents to provide photos and other documents required by departing foreign nationals.

This transfer cycle we had ten missionaries departing and sixteen arriving. Two of the departing missionaries were picked up by their parents, so I had to coordinate their travel arrangements to match their parents' itineraries. Families that pick up their missionaries usually tour the mission and other areas of the Philippines with their son or daughter before returning home.

We host a nice family home evening program for the departing missionaries on Monday night, just prior to their Tuesday or Wednesday flights. It's fun for everyone who attends, and we get to witness the growth and maturity that comes from serving the Lord for eighteen months or more. Most missionaries are excited to go home, but sad to no longer be a full-time missionary, and sad to say goodbye to other missionaries, local church members, and the many families and friends they met while serving here.

The arriving missionaries are equally excited, but are also nervous, anxious, and uncertain about what the next year or two will bring. We bring them to the mission office from the airport, feed them, introduce each of them to their first missionary companion (their trainer), provide them with an orientation packet, a personal pillow and a 72-hour emergency kit to keep during their mission, send them off to be interviewed one-by-one by the mission president, and then put them up for the night in the mission home, our apartment (we have three bedrooms), or a local hotel. This is because the mission is so large (geographically) that it’s best to have the newly arriving missionaries stay the night in Dumaguete before leaving on Friday morning for the six to eight-hour bus ride to their teaching areas. This week we made 26 sack lunches for the departing missionaries since the bus doesn't stop for food; it only stops to quickly let passengers off and on at the side of the road.

The mission is divided into geographic zones, which contain geographic districts, which contain geographic teaching areas. Each missionary companionship is assigned to a teaching area and is responsible for the missionary work in that part of the mission. There are six zones in our mission and each transfer cycle we host a zone conference in each zone, although sometimes we combine two smaller zones into a single conference. This means we travel to the outlying areas of the mission two, three, or four times every six weeks to help support these conferences.

Back in the office, Sister Cutler manages the ordering and delivery of medical supplies for each apartment, and she works with the apartment coordinator to ensure the missionary apartments are safe and properly equipped for our young missionaries. She manages incoming packages and delivers them to the respective missionaries, along with managing and delivering teaching materials, such as copies of the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and other printed material. She keeps the mission office stocked with medical supplies, kitchen supplies, purified water bottles for our two large water dispensers, snacks and quick meals for visiting missionaries, and everything else necessary to run a busy office.

I manage the missionary cellphones, Facebook Messenger accounts, Google Messages accounts, and missionary email access for the young missionaries. I'm also in charge of the office computers, printers, network, audio visual equipment, security systems, and so forth.

Most of my time, however, is taken up by mission secretary duties. I manage inbound and outbound communications, acting as the "voice" of the mission to the Philippines Area office, Salt Lake City offices, missionary parents, leaders and personnel from other missions, and many others. Our mission leaders (President and Sister Reyes) run the mission, of course, and manage their own communications, but for general mission communications, the task falls on the mission secretary. I also help the financial secretary with a few items, mostly when there is something complicated on the computer, and Sister Cutler helps the apartment coordinator with ordering supplies, carbon monoxide/smoke detectors, furniture, and so forth. Since we only have four cars in the mission, the vehicle coordinator (the same young missionary who manages the apartments) has fewer things to worry about, mostly consisting of ensuring maintenance and oil changes are performed on time, and making sure dents and scratches are repaired quickly to prevent rust. Sister Cutler and I haven't had any accidents, but several others have had very minor fender benders.

The above tasks are complicated by the fact that you can't just go to a store and buy everything you need. It might take several trips to several stores to finally find something that will work, but the next time you go to the same store to buy the same thing, it won't be available. (That's kind of the same way it is with restaurants: you'll have a fabulous dish one night, but the next time you order the same thing at the same restaurant, it'll be awful.) A shopping trip is more like buying groceries in Brooklyn than it is in Phoenix. In Phoenix, you hop in your car and drive to the store and park in a large parking lot close to the entrance. You go inside, buy everything you need, quickly check out and load your car, then drive home and put things away. In Brooklyn, you walk down four flights of stairs to the street, visit the butcher for meat, walk two blocks to the bakery for bread, then around the corner to buy vegetables, then haul your separate purchases back home and up those same four flights of stairs.

Sister Cutler and I can walk to almost any type of shop within five to fifteen minutes from our apartment, but it might take three or four different shops (or more) to get everything we need. We could also drive to one of the three malls, park in a parking garage some distance from the mall, shop inside the mall at three or four different shops (or more) and get everything we need. Then carry everything back to the car and drive to our apartment, unload, and then drop the car off at the church (which is only fifty yards away and has plenty of parking, unlike our apartment). We can also take a pedicab (motorcycle with a sidecar) anywhere in town, for about fifty cents a ride, so I'm not complaining. It's super easy to get around and shop, but it's not easy and it's not convenient. Checking out at the cash registers seems to take forever! There is no self-checkout.

It probably doesn’t sound like much, but all these things keeps us very busy! We usually arrive at the mission office at 8:00 AM (I unlock the office each morning) and leave around 6:00 PM, although President Reyes is often still there when we leave. We travel regularly, so we get to meet the missionaries serving in the outlying areas and better understand their needs and how we can support them. It’s pleasant, fun, and very fulfilling work, and we know we make a big difference to the missionaries and to the mission leaders because they’ve told us as much!

We hope everyone back home is doing well. Thanks for your ongoing support!

[Photos from top to bottom: Confetti cannon to surprise newly arriving missionaries, photo outside the mission office with newly arriving missionaries, dinner with departing missionaries, sack lunch assembly line, elders at zone conference, sisters at zone conference, feeding the missionaries at zone conference, fruit market, mobile hot bread (pandesal) vendor, impromptu pizza during a late night office day.]

[Note: The last picture was taken a few days ago and you may have noticed the Christmas tree. Yes, Christmas comes early in the Philippines! They start decorating on September 1 and celebrate during every month that ends in -ber, perhaps because it reminds them of "brrr" as in cold?]