Labor Day, New Missionaries & New Software in the Office

This is Ben's letter from this last Saturday-August 30, 2014.

Hello Family,

Haha, the pictures were super adorable. That´s great that Will was willing to try new things. I hope everyone is having a great Labor Day Weekend. (John and the kids as well as some of Justin's friends spent this last Saturday at King's Island. John paid for the ability to get pictures emailed of them riding some of the rides. I forwarded the pictures to Ben. I will post a couple here of Williams face so you can see what he is talking about. Will was very expressive in these pictures. Will was a little nervous about going on some of the big rides and was very brave. He had a great time being so brave.

This last week has been absolutely crazy! We had the change meeting, received 16 Oros (New missionaries) and sent home another large amount of Valientes (Missionaries ending their mission). 

We're almost ready to start with the new insurance program from Aetna (goes effective Monday) and I think we're almost prepared. We are still missing the actual insurance cards for now, but I think we can print off a copy for those who really need it in the next few days. 

Outside of the Bible cover

I received the package you sent me. Thank you so much! The scripture covers are amazing. They must have been extremely difficult to make. They did take a while-it was a labor of love and the entire family helped to find images and make these covers special for Ben. We even all signed the back flap of the covers. John did all of the burning into the leather. I hope they remind Ben of our love and he gets lots of use out of them on his mission and when he returns home.

Inside of the Bible cover

Outside of the cover for the Triple

Inside of the cover for the Triple

We've been  keeping rather busy here in the offices. This change there are two new missionaries here. Elder Gallagher and Elder Rydalch are now training two new missionaries that just arrived. Elder Bekker (Utah) is the new secretary and Elder Bohórquez (Colombia). It's a pretty large adjustment for them, but they're taking it very well. I think that this change, my Spanish should improve quite a bit. I not only am trying to force myself to speak more in Spanish, but in our house of 6 it's just me and Elder Bekker who are Gringos, so we're almost always speaking in Spanish. Before, me and the other Gringos had a tendancy of flocking and talking in our native language (Just as the Latinos also did).

Right now Élder Galeano and I are working on getting the rents payed. He's doing great with his new responsibilities. I'm trying to help him make his own decisions. He's a naturally timid person, but with his responsibilities, now he needs to be able to make a decision and just do it. When I started Elder Muñoz told me "You're going to have a lot of problems and difficult decisions, and people are going to expect you fix everything. So... think it through, follow the Spirit, and Fix it." 

I though it was a little harsh at first, but it's helped me so much in my decision making and my leadership skills. I might need to do a little more of that so he can learn to be self-reliant.

We've worked A LOT in enrolling some of our manual payments into electronic payments in a program called PeopleSoft©  (A fiscal management program). It's been a lot of work but now that we have it roiling we're seeing more and more fruits for our labours. It's something that the Area Offices in Argentina have asked us to work on. Until we get this done we will just continue needing to cut checks for every payment we make. It's the whole principal of "If ya do what you've always done you'll get what ya always got." and right now we're doing things the same way as financiers did thing 15 years ago and we're still getting the same errors and having the same problems that we've always gotten. But hopefully as we continue to exert more and more effort into this, we should be able to "knock it out" before this change.

I'm really happy to hear that Dad is doing better, very proud that he's taking better care of himself and is being a great example for our family. How is 2nd Grade Will?

I love you all so much, I miss you, and I send my best wishes back home.

Élder Benjamin Taylor