December 6, 2008 - Secretary to the President

Hello!

How's it going?

Crazy stuff's been going on, and really crazy stuff just happened. Elder Hewitt, the secretary to the president, has been having some medical problems, and now has to go home prematurely. Guess who they called to take his place. You guessed it, sadly.

Elder Goodfellow and I were in the apartment, and I was packing to go on a one-day exchange with Elder Pyle, when President Robison called. He asked if I was willing to serve in the office, and said to expect the Assistants to arrive later on that night to pick me up. So I packed everything else I have, and they arrived around midnight. Elder Memmott, a new missionary, is taking my place (imagine being transferred early, within your first six weeks?) from Big Spring. Events like this are called emergency transfers, or ETs. They happen when missionaries are being bad, or, in this case, have medical issues, and other missionaries have to be moved around. Elder Goodfellow has to take over and finish training an almost brand new missionary; so it's pretty big for him, too. My new companion (for the last half of the transfer, at least) is Elder Johnson. He, along with Elder Hewitt, and Elder Blackmer (the vehicle coordinator) is also from Canada.

Anyways, now I have the three days or so before Elder Hewitt goes home to learn what would ordinarily be trained/instructed in about three weeks. It's pretty crazy. I just spent the last few hours learning how to process paperwork for incoming missionaries and departing missionaries. That is one benefit to be working in the office: I get to meet a lot of other missionaries, whether brand new, or going home. Also, I'm going to be spending a lot of time with Pres. Robison. Maybe I'm too much of a trouble-maker, and he needed me close by to keep an eye on me. :P

In terms of missionary work, we have an area that we cover (the Lubbock 4th ward), and President has been pushing to get the office elders more into the field, and less in the office. We're going to figure out a good schedule that gets the business of running the mission done with quicker, so we can work more.

By the way, now you don't have to worry about sending letters, since we use the mission office address as our mailing address.

Oh, and Elder Goodfellow got the card you sent, and was really happy about that.

Anyways, that's pretty much it, I guess. I'm kinda bummed about leaving Midland, especially in the middle of a transfer, but such is life. Something tells me it won't be bad here.

Hope things are going well.

I love you!

-Elder Brandon Wong

Something I wish I knew before my mission: to learn macros on Microsoft Word.