This has been another interesting week, as we've seen the beginning results of Pres. Machuca's new emphasis on fewer baptisms and an increase in other ordinances. The new policy is that only youth, unendowed members or those with family names are to do baptisms and they have to bring their own priesthood brethren to help. With few exceptions temple workers will not fill in if they don't have enough or they don't get to do baptisms. In addition, they will only do five names each unless it's family names. At first it was five sheets (25 names) but by Saturday it was changed to five names only. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday evenings we had just small groups of youth come in and, with them only doing 25 baptisms each, were done by 6:30. Except for Wednesday, when the missionaries were at the temple, most mornings during the week no baptisms were done. That had a great impact on the laundry load. It was easily done. Even Thursday, when we had a large group come in, the laundry was done before the end of the last session. Saturday was also interesting. Even though we had large groups of youth come, we had large blocks of time when no baptisms were being done. The groups or youth would come in, move through quickly because they were only doing five names each and were out. Before these groups would be there for a couple of hours and overlapping with the next scheduled group. Of course that made for a huge amount of laundry piling up, but there was more time between groups to get it done. Much of these new policies are the results of and supported by the training that the presidency received this week from two brethren from the temple department who were here the first part of this week.
Another policy change, suggested by the visiting trainers, was that we no longer have to make sure that all wet laundry is done before leaving. If it's not done by the time the last session is finished then it is either left in the machines, if not completely finished washing or drying, or in the laundry bin to be done the next day, even if it is wet. This will be an interesting bit of news for the Halls. Many times, the previous presidency would have to stay very late to make sure all wet laundry was done.
For the last couple of weeks, with so much non-busy time in the laundry now, I've had some time to do some repair work on the baptism overalls, such as, reinforcing seams, resewing hems, repairing torn linings, etc. I went through, piece by piece, examining each one for any repairs needed and completed them. I finished the last of it on Friday night. This should help to make them last a little longer as the presidency has approval from the temple department to replace the older overalls during this next year: a third in January, a third in July and then the last third next January.
Monday's FHE was at the Neil's. Sister Neil gave a very short lesson and then turned the evening over to Brin, who had planned a kind of surprise birthday party for me. She had made one of our family favorites, rainbow sheet cake and we played a game I've never played before with dice. When I asked the name of it I got several different answers. But, it was fun and we enjoyed the evening. The present Brin gave me was a small box with a whole cut in it and made to look like a camera that all of my kids had gone together to buy for me. As the real thing hadn't arrived yet in the mail this was a substitute. It still hasn't come yet but I will be excited to get it when it does come. A big thank you goes to all my family for their thoughtfulness and love.
Well, it finally happened. Our car quit working, after about three weeks of it coughing and struggling to start. It refused to start at all yesterday when we were leaving to go to do our shift at the temple. We ended up walking a few blocks down to Garza Sada and catching a taxis. Hopefully, Lynn can get it to the garage on Monday to get it fixed.
Well, I guess that's it for this week. Hope this coming Christmas season is full of good memories.
Here is the picture of the Christmas card that Lynn and I are giving all the temple workers this year for Christmas.
No comments:
Post a Comment