What We Do Every Day

Africa Southeast Area Office - where we work Monday-Friday
 

We haven't posted much about what we do day-in and day-out during the work week, mainly because Bob's job is highly sensitive and Martha's keeps changing. 

Martha has been assigned additional responsibilities this week, working for the Area Director of Public Affairs, Sean Donelly. In addition to her many responsibilities as Assistant Executive Secretary to the Area Presidency and property manager for 19 senior couples' apartments at Duke's Court, and teaching piano lessons, she has now been asked to be responsible in Public Affairs for:

• Quarterly Reporting
• Opinion leader database
• Hosting VIPs (set up, program, communication, etc.)
• Using outlook diary for Sean and adding contacts, etc.
• Stock and inventory of printed materials and music and supplies
• Preparing folders for VIPs
• Minutes and agendas
• Finance – payments, reimbursements, trip reports etc.
• General admin duties such as scanning and copying , preparing training materials, etc.
• Some writing for Facebook and Newsroom
• Attending team meetings each Tuesday at 0900 and other planning meetings and luncheons with guests

How many full-time jobs can one person have?

And if that's not enough, the Temple President would like us both to work one 6-hour shift per week. He needs Bob as a sealer and would like Martha to become an ordinance worker. We're awaiting the approvals.

We haven't said much about Bob's job, because of its confidential nature, but just to give you a feel - over one short weekend, he arranged for 8 missionaries to return home early, another to be reassigned to a different mission, another to be reinstated after a medical leave, and another to receive a 2-day leave to attend his mother's funeral within South Africa. 

The early releases were an American elder whose parents were both tragically killed in a car accident, an American released two months early to provide a life-saving bone marrow transplant for his sister, an American senior couple released so the elder, a cancer survivor, could have a cancerous mole removed, an African elder who was ill and tested positive for HIV, an elder from Polynesia suffering from depression who had to fly home accompanied by the Area Medical Advisor (3-day flight each way), an African elder who confessed to serious misconduct in the field, and an African sister who returned home on her own insistence because didn't want to be a missionary. 

If that sounds like a lot of missionaries going home early in one weekend, it is! But you have to put it in perspective. With over 4,000 missionaries serving in Africa, 8 out of 4,000 is .002 or two-tenths of one percent, but enough to justify Bob's position and keep him plenty busy. But most weekends aren't quite that busy. 

Bob's work, much like Martha's, comes in waves, some days are very slow and others extremely busy, and for him often the busiest times are after hours (when Salt Lake City wakes up). 

Monday through Friday, we normally wake up by 6:30, drive to the area office by 8:30 and, depending on the day, drive home anywhere from 3:30 to 5:30. On some slower days, we'll go to one of the malls for lunch and spend an hour or two. Bob often has 2-3 hours of work in the evenings. Saturdays are our P-days and Sundays are usually filled with our church meetings and responsibilities in the Protea Glen Ward, Soweto Stake. 

We live within a few minutes' drive of three nice malls - Killarney Mall (walk across the street), the upscale, large Rosebank Mall (about 2 miles north) and the Sandton City Mall (a very huge and modern high-end mall about 7 miles north). And we live only 3 miles north of  the central business district of Johannesburg. 

The modern and huge Sandton Mall

A chocolate Easter candy exhibit in Sandton Mall

Killarney Mall from our bedroom window

 

Here are more photos of the gardens around the area office building, where we work, on the same grounds as the Johannesburg Temple, about 2 miles south of our Dukes Court flat.  

The forest and stream between the area office
and the Johannesburg Temple

Entrance to the distribution centre at one
end of the area office complex

Summer flowers surrounding the temple
 

 

Our week started with a family home evening and farewell dinner for the Dummers on Monday at the mission home and ended with a birthday party Saturday night for our area travel supervisor, Liz Burger, at House of Ribs (Africa's answer to Chuck-a-Rama, an all-you-can-eat buffet) and we both got runny tummies and got sick overnight. But we were both okay in the morning.

 

After 6 weeks without losing electrical power even once, the Eskom Power Company's "load shedding" rolling blackouts began again this week. We had no power for about four hours Wednesday evening and at least 10 hours on Friday. But you learn to work around the outages.

Finally, here are views of the four walls in Bob's office. Martha has a desk there which she will continue to use a day or two per week, when she's not at her other two desks with the Area Executive Secretary and Public Affairs.

Bob's desk and double monitors

Bob's credenza, zebra painting and SACTM sign



The Africa map wall and guest chairs



Martha's desk

We hope you are all well wherever you may be around the world. Know that we love you and miss you, and we're doing just fine, loving Africa and our mission! We especially love Sundays with our ward and the amazing Young Single Adults we work with.