26 May 2008

DEAR THE FAMILY--

Another transfer is coming to a close. I promise, they are getting faster! Pretty much my days as Mission Secretary and Mission Grandma are coming to an end, but my days as Mission Recorder are just beginning! Yeah, that’s right. I received my transfer call last week, a week before everyone else in the mission. Basically, the AP’s walked out of the President’s Office and said, “Hey Hogge, start getting trained!” So, I go from sorting mail and ordering plane tickets and setting everything up for new and returning missionaries to receiving/organizing/distributing referrals and doing all the baptism paper work and making sure the computers don’t explode.

If you told me I would have a desk job for my first summer in the mission field, I wouldn’t have believed you! And then I would have thought a while, and then I would have said, “Alright, Air Conditioning!”

Truthfully, I would rather be out there doing what I have been doing for four months, but I don’t think the Lord wants to let me do one thing and get comfortable doing it. Maybe the Lord knew I have always wanted to get a desk-job-career, so He gave me this chance with the warning, “Do you really want that???”

Haha, if I’m like my Father in Heaven, then He probably gave me this goofy sense of humor! I have a theory that God had all these different personality traits, and He gave all of them out until He was left with one weird/goofy sense of humor. He had to get rid of it, so, in His panic, He picked the Hogge’s. And now I stand here before you.

Also, the weather is getting . . . interesting. I’ve heard Sacramento weather is pretty normal, so I just assumed that when the sun shines, it’s hot, and when it rains, it’s cool, just from countless days and summers and winters in California. But since God has a sense of humor, He decided to mix things up on me! It’s just sooo wet and hot! And when it’s not raining, it’s still wet and hot! I literally walk out the door, and I almost choke because the air is so saturated with water! And it’s not even really hot yet! It’s so humid, I think I haven’t stopped sweating for a day or two. Don’t worry, if you don’t understand, I’m sure I will have parts 2, 3, 4, etc. on weather in letters to come!

Well, the AC just got switched out here in the Mission Office (for the new Mission President next month), but we haven’t been able to use if for about three weeks. Let us all pray that it will come back on in the near future!

Well, thanks for your prayers and patience and letters.

Joey Hogge