5:15
alarm sounds. I turn off the white noise app on my phone (we like heavy rain pouring).
We dress in exercise clothing, make the bed, and pray together and then separately.
5:35ish
head upstairs for a fifteen-minute stretch-yoga-calesthenics routine as
we listen to a General Conference talk.
6:00
Thirty-minute walk around the neighborhood.
I set my phone alarm for 15 minutes and, when it chimes, we head back home.
We each take a plastic shopping bag to pick up trash along the side of the road.
We used to ride bikes during this time on Tuesdays and Thursdays but the front tire of my bike (actually Rebecca Johnson's bike) has a slow leak and the Johnson's bike pump is really a pain to use and pumping takes up valuable bike-riding time so we have suspended riding bikes until we can bring two unused bikes over from the mission storage shed.
6:30
I shower and get dressed for the day.
Steve does scripture study
7:00
I fix my lunch and breakfast and empty the dishwasher and eat
Steve showers and gets ready for the day
7:30
Steve fixes his lunch and breakfast and eats
I am still eating but at about 7:45 I do my scripture study
8:15
We are out the door.
We do our couple scripture study in the car during our 30-minute commute to the mission office.
It starts with us singing one verse of a hymn - unaccompanied. If the hymn is one we are not especially familiar with, I might read the verses rather than try to sing it. (if we were doing this at home sitting down in the living room, we would sing every hymn in the order it appears in the hymnbook - me on melody and Steve on either tenor or bass)
Steve drives and I work on embroidery.
9:00
Work at the Arizona Phoenix Mission office begins.
There is always a short devotional right at the start of the day. Devotional duty rotates among the staff which consists of Elder Baggiore - Finance, Elder Parker - Housing, Sister Parker - Referrals/Receptionist, Sister Brown - assistant to mission president' wife (she does newsletters and keeps up with medical records), Elder Brown - Executive Secretary (he makes all the appointments for the mission president), Steve - Vehicle Coordinator, and me - Travel / Baptisms.
The Browns, Parkers and Elder Baggiore are all "part-time" senior missionaries meaning they are Arizona residents full-time and they don't work as many hours as Steve and I do who are full-time senior missionaries. The office is open from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Thursday and 9:00 to 1:00 on Friday. The Browns and Elder Baggiore come in about two times a week and leave when their work is done. The Parkers come in Monday through Thursday and leave at 4:00 except on Thursday when we get to leave at 4:00 and they lock up at 5:00. It is only Steve and me in the office on Friday.
We do regular office work - typing, answering phones, keeping records.
I think Steve has the more difficult job.
He has a LOT of record keeping and he fields phone calls from missionaries with vehicle problems all the time. He is like the dad of the mission.....you know, when you were a teenager and you got a flat tire. Who did you call? Dad.
He also travels to all the zone conferences to do vehicle inspections.
He sets up new vehicles (the mission just got a mini van yesterday)
and he decommissions old vehicles that the church will sell.
I record baptisms into CDE (convert data entry).
I keep track of all incoming and outgoing missionaries - this happens every six weeks -
and I prepare arrival and departing binders.
Arrival binders contain important information and booklets for missionaries
to reference during their mission.
Departing binders include a letter of appreciation from the mission president,
contact information for the previous mission president and the current one,
instructions on how to give a good mission report to the high council and stake presidency,
photos of all the missionaries,
a record of all the places the missionary served and who was their companion,
and finally, a copy of their flight itinerary and their boarding pass.
Steve and I bring our lunch and eat at the table in the workroom.
Here is the entrance to the mission office. Our part is on the left. Family Services has an office on the right. The Bishops Storehouse is in back. A Deseret Industries is across the parking lot.
another photo of the office
This is my desk on the left.
Here is a group of newly arriving missionaries
This is Sister Parker's desk and the office entrance
Steve working at his desk in the workroom
This is another view of the work room
Every office has a "water cooler". Missionaries visiting the office hang around it to look at the photos on the board. The door is to the mission president's office.
This is where Elders Parker, Baggiore, Brown and Sister Brown work
5:00 (or 4:00 on Thursday)
We drive home. On the way, we have been listening to The Chronicles of Narnia dramatization on CD. We are currently on Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Once we finish with this collection, I suspect we will see what the public library has to offer.
I drive and Steve tries to stay awake
Evening
Sometimes, we stop off at a store on the way home - usually it is a grocery store
that has a great deal on produce
Sometimes, we are so worn out when we walk in the door that
we will take a short power nap before tackling dinner
After dinner
Monday - we have Family Home Evening which is usually watching something on LDS.org
Tuesday - Steve does laundry and I do finances and bills
Wednesday - we clean house
Thursday - we do grocery shopping
Friday - most of the time, we will try to catch the 1:30 session at the temple.
Then home to chill (literally and figuratively) . Usually watch something from Redbox or Netflix
Saturday - if Noah has practiced, I will give him a piano lesson via Facetime.
We have set aside Saturday for visiting family around the valley day
or having someone over for a meal.
Sunday - church from 9:00 - 12:00, light lunch and long nap,
phone conversations with assorted children throughout the day
(for example: Julina, who is 3 hours ahead of us, talks to us at 6:30 Sunday morning)
10:00
Light's out
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