Mission Store

How did you all like General Conference!? I loved it to death. There were so many good talks that it just blew my mind into space. I had questions answered I didn´t even know I had haha. Saturday Afternoon and Priesthood sessions were probably my favorite but all of them were way good. I learned a lot of things and set some goals and I just want to go out and conquer the world now. I love how General Conference does that to you. I wish I had my notes with me or I would talk a lot more about all the talks but I don´t...so maybe I´ll just save that for a different time.

This week has been incredibly busy. Like insanely busy. First, on Tuesday and Wednesday we were getting ready for and then welcoming all the new missionaries for this transfer. I had to give them all the binders we make and give a short presentation on it which was delightful. I´m pretty sure they don´t remember anything because I sure don´t remember anything the Historian said when I got to the mission. I couldn´t even tell you who he was haha. But hopefully they weren´t so shell-shocked and got something out of it. This week was also the last week of the month, and that means time to enter in all the Baptismal Registros in the mission.The mission broke the record for number of baptisms in one month (we got 126) which is awesome for everyone except the guy who has to type those all in to the computer...haha. I also completely redesigned a baptismal program I have been working on because it was being moody and I have to present it tomorrow at consejo (which is a training with all the zone leaders) so that was just one other thing on the list.

A little over a week ago I got this super crazy idea to make a program that would help the Mission Store. Right now whenever people want to buy things like scriptures or scripture cases or church DVDs or whatever they sign up a on a little list and write down how much it costs and their name etc. so the financiero can later subtract it from their mission card. But, people don´t always fill it out right and Elder Kammerman is left guessing who bought it and how much he actually needs to take off and stuff like that, so it´s just not a very productive system. Sooo, this week I made a program that is going to basically do the same process but on the computer. Every missionary is going to have their own card (seperate from their actual mission debit card) that has a barcode on it (which we get from their missionary ID number). Now when they come in to buy stuff they´ll just scan their card and then we´ll scan the barcode of the thing they want to buy and it´ll automatically add it to a sheet that the financiero uses to take money of their cards. We´ve also got it set up so we can keep track of our inventory so when people buy stuff it´ll automatically subtract one from the inventory. Then when we get stuff we have another page to enter it all in. That allows us to know the Net Worth of the store and helps the financiero in budgeting. It will also help the Materialista see when we´re getting low on things and need to order more. I also have a page to easily update the database since the missionaries change every 6 weeks. Haha I even added a PIN number, which is just the missionaries birth date in number form. I thought about it so much last weekend that I spent most of P-day working on it and getting it started haha...even though I´m embarrassed to admit that... It´s been a giant project but I´ve learned a ton and I think it´s going to help the mission out a lot so it´s cool seeing improvement like that because of something you did.

So a little quick update about Matias, he didn´t get baptised this weekend. I don´t really know what happened because on Tuesday I went by with a zone leader and we had a lesson with him and set the date for Sunday and he got his interview and then on Wednesday I started working in a different area. But, he came to at least one session of Conference and now has a baptismal date for this weekend to come. So I´m really hoping he´ll reach that. I´m probably going to go on divisions with the elders in that area just so I can by him and try to get everything set firmly.

Oh, by the way, my new companion is Elder Falcon. He´s from a part of Argentina called Chaco and he´s really fun. I think we´re going to have a good time together.

Thanks for all of your updates!

With all the love of a cheese warehouse,

Elder Lounsbury