Called to Serve Phoenix: August 2008

It was a challenging week for me. I thought it would help me to record my experiences as a source of a therapy. It’s always easier to look back and laugh.
We finished a 5 day Zone Conference and Apartment check on the Reservation and drove back from Flagstaff on Tuesday night. We tried to put things away to prepare for Travis and the kids who were coming next day. When I woke up on Wednesday morning, I cleaned up the house a little and got out in my car to go to the grocery store, and found my car battery was dead. I proceeded to find my battery charger and realized that we had loaned it to the Matsen’s. So I called President and he sent Sister Matsen from the office to bring me the battery charger. Well, we tried to jump the battery and it still wouldn’t turn over. Surely we were doing it right. There were two of us doing what we do best, jumping batteries. I came to the conclusion that either the battery charger didn’t work or I had a dead, dead battery. While trying to get things up and running I placed my cell phone on the top edge of the hood of the car and when I proceeded to close it I saw that the hood wouldn’t go down completely. Long story short, I had slammed my cell phone in the hood of the car and it was lodged in tight. We couldn’t even budge the phone and now the hood of the car wouldn’t open either. So, I made another call to president, who was a little annoyed at my continuous calls, and he sent the Assistants over to help with the problem. They did it missionary style and slammed the hood down hard enough so they could unlatch it. Can you say CRUSHED cellphone.

Meanwhile, I needed to go to the airport to pick up Travis and the kids. We got to the airport and parked the car. We weren’t sure which flight they were coming in on because we left the info back at the office. So we waited and hoped they would call and let us know when they arrived. They did.....we were at the wrong terminal as they had come in on Continental. We jumped back in our cars, picked up the kids went home. When I got home I picked up the mail. Inside a letter addressed to me was a series of defining pictures of me and my car. Not exactly the kind of picture you want to have put on the refrigerator or put in your scrapbook though. Supposedly, they had caught me going through a yellow light that turned red. I still say it wasn’t red. I fail to see the humor that everyone else saw in the photographs sent in that letter. Arizona has this weird thing about putting camera’s in every intersection and taking pictures of cars doing there thing. I failed to see the humor in it. A sweet $214.00 ticket and traffic school. I don’t have time for traffic school! So back to the cell phone thing,.. I go over to Verizon the next morning to replace my cellphone, since I know the missionaries are trying to call me to give me some kind of medical problem to solve. I was hoping they could transfer all my saved numbers over from my old crushed phone to my new one. Guess what...They can’t....so I take the new phone and put it in my purse and the box with the chargers and instructions, which Emma placed in my purse also and went over to Costco to buy some food for the kids, since I didn’t get it done earlier because of my dead battery. When I got my wallet out of my purse I took out the phone and placed it in the cart. Funny thing how things just disappear into thin air. By this time I feel like I am loosing it. I have just bought a new cell phone and have lost the charger which was essential because I didn’t have a full charge yet. I had had just about enough fun for the day with disasters. All I wanted to do was spend some quality time with my grandkids, right? President, trying to protect me from a breakdown, calmly sends the assistants to the house to pick up my new phone and he proceeds to go to Verizon to rectify the situation. I don’t even want to know what it cost him or what he did to get me up and operating again. Sometimes details should be ignored. I now had a cell phone but was without any numbers to call because they couldn’t transfer numbers from a crushed phone. Oh well you can’t have it all.

That night we take the kids to a place called “Rawhide”. A little mock western town with donkey rides, shows, petting zoo, a jail, a mechanic bull, etc, hoping to have a wonderful night together. We got there about 6:00 and it kind of looked a little deserted, you know not a whole lot of people there. We bought tickets for the kids and had dinner, the kids went to the petting zoo and all of a sudden we notice the mosquitoes are bitting. We start slapping them and realize they were out of control. They were actually attacking us! We immediately gave our remaining tickets away to some one entering the town and told them to enjoy the misquitoes and ran to the car for cover. We never even got to see the outdoor western show that we came for. So much for that ghost town experience. Later we found out that was not the time of year to visit that attraction.

Sadly for President & I, it was a quick visit with the kids, but we were so glad to have them stay with us at the mission home and see their cute faces again. I realized just how quiet it had been since we had arrived here in the mission. The next morning we take two cars to the airport, because we also needed to take our assistant as he had finished his mission and was going home. Somehow, I forgot to fill up my gas tank in the car that Travis was driving.....result....emergency exit off the freeway to fill up.

Wow, I made it to the weekend. That meant Preparation Day was tomorrow. A day to renew myself, do a little shopping, get my nails done.....wrong again. I forgot we had to drive up to Tuba City that morning to talk in the Saturday evening session of conference which began at 7:00 p.m. Or at least that is what the email said. When we arrived up there at 5:00, we checked in the hotel and freshened up because of the long drive. We headed over to the church and walked in and sat on the back row by our missionaries. Something was not right. This appeared to be the meeting we were suppose to be talking in, not the leadership meeting which supposed to be first. We found out later that they had changed the time and forgot to send us the revision. Oh well, so we missed giving our talks. Not so...Our General Authority, Brother Webb, got up and asked us to come up on the stand and told us we would be talking next after the temple president. This was wonderful..after all I wasn’t even sure what I was going to talk on. This would be the true test of instant inspiration, which I might say did come through for me. Oh I forgot to say that before we left the valley to head up to Tuba City I couldn’t find my scriptures, realizing that there was a good possibility I had left them in Cottonwood Zone Conference on the previous Tuesday I became a little hysterical (I’m sure there are those of you who remember that I’ve already lost 3 sets of scriptures already and I wasn’t willing to go through that experience again)
Anyway, I felt I needed them to prepare for my talk on the long trip up to Tuba to the Conference and I was without.

It is now Sunday, the beginning of a new week, surely things were going to change for me. I was trying to keep a positive attitude, right? After all I am the Mission President’s wife and we have to be positive and cheerful all the time, because my 202 missionary sons and daughters are watching.
Other than an emergency transfer home that day, because of a disobedient missionary, things were going well. Tyler drove down from Provo on Sunday to visit with us and do a little missionary training here at the mission office with the assistants. He even went out tracking with two of our Elders. He found it wasn’t so fun in 106 degree weather but endured. He called after they were through and I proceeded to go over to pick him up. As I am looking for the name of the street to turn on, I let my foot off the gas and slowed down. Immediately, I was slammed from behind by another car that was following too close and going too fast. Was this really happening to me? I thought things happened in 3’s. I was on 4’s and 5’s and 6’s and they were still coming. My beautiful car was now not so beautiful. Can you say SMASHED! I think I used that same word earlier in the week didn’t I.
Well, this is just another week in the life of a Mission President that I can look back on and see the humor. Yes, that is what you need to have when you are a wife of a mission president.