I do not live in the mission Home... I live in an apartment
with six missionaries. The apartment is about the same size as Bensons and
Kaitlyns apartment. Its only one floor but its big. The mission home is fairly
nice. It has lots of rooms and its not huge but the landscaping is beautiful. I
have only been there twice in two weeks but Elder Carter says we go every now
and then. I would have to say the nicest thing about being in the office is the
office. Its on the seventh floor in one of the nicest buildings in Arequipa!
Okay maybe not the nicest building but I have an awesome view of the city from
my desk. Arequipa reminds me a little of Treasure Valley except its much more
arid and concentrated.
I am the Financial secretary. I am in charge of finding
solutions to all problems with money:
- I make sure that all
the missionaries in the mission have enough money to get through the month. I also revise and
reimburse the costs of all the zones and their activities. The mission
will pay for some of the activities that the missionaries do. They have to
call me and make sure that the mission will reimburse their activity. I
also get tons of receipts from all the ten zones in the mission, I have to
archive them and send money to the zones through the Zone Leaders cards.
- I am in direct contact with
president and I make purchases for the whole mission and leaving and
coming missionaries. For example President comes in and says I want
Christmas hats for every single missionary in the mission get it done. I
have to create a budget and get them bought through whatever means
possible. I also buy food for the mission house. Basically when president
needs something done that has anything to do with money he goes to me.
- Pancho and Obispito: Pancho
and Obispito are two Men who work for the mission. Everyone in Arequipa
knows them. They are registered as taxi drivers but they deliver water,
they make hospital appointments, they take missionaries to and from
places. They always help us out in the office with making deliveries and I
will often times send them with a budget to go purchase things
Thats mostly all of my
responsibilities but I have to keep track of everything and its one hundred
percent problem solving, I am still just a missionary.
I wake up and have a normal
missionary schedule until 10:00 AM. At that time most missionaries leave. I go
to the office. I am working in the office from 10:00 in the morning until 5:00
in the afternoon and then we leave to go teaching.
Yes I do still have an area. I
work in the Umacollo ward and its amazing. It has about 200 active members
which is a large increas from the 50 and 30 from my previous wards. The bishop
is awesome and we have tons of progressing investigators. I
am super sad because There is so much potential and we have to go to the
office. It gives us tons of incentive to get our office work done so we can go
leave during the day.
We do have Pdays, because we just stay in the office
and write family and then do things to help the rest of the week go along more
smoothy instead of going to the beach or playing football with tons of
missionaries. So we do have a P-day do we do much on P-day no ..
Arequipa is expensive but Now I am in an area where I can go
the mall! I CAN GET ANYTHING I WANT!!!
I was being trained by Elder
Carter all the time! I am still super overwhelmed but I have learned a ton and
I am going to try to help the mission in whatever way possible.
love Elder Tanner
