Dear Family and friends:
Another week down the tubes. Weeks are all running together and beginning to all look alike. It is getting more difficult to come up with “newsy” things to talk about. But I’ll try.
Mom may be able to remember my letters home from my mission, as the end drew closer, I started filling out form letters. All I had to do was put checks in boxes, didn’t have to say anything. So I’ll start looking for form letters for ex-patriot sons (not sure I can get John to use them, but I'll try).
I’ll break this email down into bullet points like doing a presentation and see if that makes it easier to write
• I forgot to tell one story from last week. In the Board meeting there was a presentation going on by a Finance guy and he was talking about consumption improvements for fuel and electricity. He looked at me and asked “Paul will these improvements be sustained”. About a minute before that time, Debi had sent a message saying “she’s here” along with a picture. So I was looking at my phone waiting for the picture to come up and was not paying attention at all. Fortunately the group knew that Debi was in the US and I was expecting a granddaughter so I was forgiven for being “absent” when I told them what I was doing. Anyway I’ll always remember what I was doing when I found out my granddaughter was born.
• I had some interesting experiences this week in dealing with people that wanted jobs. I can’t “give” people jobs, I only recommend the number of people I need to operate the plant and then the HR people supply the men I need. Well most people don’t know that. I have men come and talk to me all the time asking for jobs. This week I had a man come in whose contract was expiring. We needed a translator because he didn’t speak English. But it came out that he had two wives and 11 children. Needless to say he needed a job. To give all community people an opportunity, people are only hired for 9 months and then they leave and give others a chance to work. So this man wanted me to bypass the system and give him a job. Another fellow came in and presented me with all his educational paper work and letters of reference and asked for a job. He told me he was married and had a family. I had to give him the same story that I don’t hire, the HR group hire men, when I told him that he began to cry. The people here need work so bad but the economy can’t support all the needs of the workers. It is far worse than in the US. It gets heart breaking at times. Some of the people that have jobs don’t deserve them and some of those that need them and deserve them can’t get them.
• On the way to church today I saw kids out on a stock pond dipping water out of the pot holes so they could recover what little water was left. It was reminder to me how blessed we are to just turn a faucet to get water. Life is so simple here, they don’t have to decide what dress to wear or which pair of shoes to wear, they only have one of each.
• Today was the first week with the two branches separated. There weren’t many people in attendance. But having the church move closer to those members in Rangai will be a huge blessing for those members what won’t have to spend much money to get to church. It will be an interesting process to organize the branch with so few members. Not all organizations will be fully staffed and all will be required to have more than one calling. But it will be exciting.
• There was a young man that came in and talked to me today and said he wanted to start preparing to serve a mission. Those experiences make it all worthwhile. The youth here between 18 and 27 are incredible. They have a good understanding of the gospel and strong testimonies. Of course those older than that are strong too. But there aren’t too many in that age group in the branch. 75% of the members are under 30. I’m the oldest guy in the branch.
So much for babbling, I’ll shut if off.
Love you all
Paul/Dad
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