Friday, March 4, 2011

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Well as you can tell, this week has been a busy one. We have been on the go as we have prepared for Zone Leader Council. We had a senior couple that got hit with some pretty bad colds, so we ended up sharing a lot of their responsibilities and taking care of our own. I believe I bought airplane tickets for the first time in my life. That was a new experience - nothing big, but new. I did great. One thing that I have learned being here is that there are a lot of logistics that go into a mission this big. Lots of traveling, and lots of missionaries thinking, and lots of potential problems. We try to keep things as simple as possible. We had very few problems bringing in the zone leaders from all over southern Italy and the two islands. After everyone was here in Rome at the misison home, we had a great council about things that could go better in our mission:

1. Our relationship with members and how we work with them.

2. Rules in the Missionary Handbook that we need to focus on as a mission.

3. Being more diligent in our work.

It was a good conference. We got people back to their assigned cities with a little hassle, but everything went well.

So a couple of incredible travel things that happened during the council - First, a couple of missionaries in Sardegna missed their flight because during the night someone knocked the phone off of the nightstand, and the battery fell out. They got to the airport as fast as they could but missed the flight by a couple of minutes. Somehow, Alitalia let them change their flight for free. Try that on for size as a miracle in these days. Then on the way back, we were driving out to the airport, and we got there (40 minute drive) and one of the missionaries says that he forgot the key to their car in Sicily at the mission home. So to make a long story short, we are changing our traveling schedule so we can fly to Palermo instead of Catania to get the car out of the airport parking. Nothing ever goes 100% correct when you are moving missionaries around. Too much free agency involved. Although that is not a bad thing. It is just what keeps it from going 100% great and keeping us from getting "pneumonia in the baptismal font from baptizing so many people." haha

Well that is it for my letter. Love you all!

Anziano Hatch

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