Missionary Apartment Checks

The past month has been extra busy as we have done quite a bit of traveling to check on missionaries and their apartments.  Outside of Aarhus we have visited the cities of Viborg, Skive, Randers, Silkeborg, Herning, and Horsens.  This has been a change of routine, and also a lot of fun as we meet and get to know the young missionaries who are serving in the North Jylland Zone.  Most are Elders, but four are sisters.  They are wonderful young people dedicating this time of their lives to the Lord.

Each missionary apartment is supposed to be a "house of order," and we found that most pass fairly well, at least on inspection day!  It reminded me of the dorm checks we used to do at Aspen Grove, where everyone stuffed as much as they could in their closets and tried to keep the doors closed.  Unfortunately, some elders didn't have closets and were using exposed pipes to hang suits, shirts, and ties to keep them in order.

One of my favorite apartments was very old, but the missionaries actually had spice cookies baking in the oven when we arrived, supposedly to give us a treat.  I told the elders that they had a good plan to hide an oven which had not been cleaned, and was now too hot to check! They also had a broken piece of glass as a mirror, but when we asked about getting them a new mirror, they declined because the broken one had a long history concerning other missionaries previously living in the apartment.

Two apartments of elders had wonderful loaves of golden brown homemade bread sitting on the counters.  They were making bread as a service project to take to the elderly members of their small branch, which consisted of ALL elderly people. they also had waffle batter sitting on the counter which was what they fixed every Saturday night.  Other elders had a stock of Oreos as their main food item.

I believe that apartment inspections are generally dreaded, but our elders and sisters quickly found that Elder Parker was a "handy man" to have come for a visit!  Packed with first of all, his Leatherman, then a box of tools, extra smoke alarms, batteries, vacuum bags, fire extinguishers, etc. he could fix almost everything that was wrong in the apartments!  He was even allowed to wear Levis!  I know that he saved the mission tons of money in repairs, though I imagine many things would just not get fixed for a long time if he couldn't do it.

My job was to keep Elder Parker stocked with goods, track all the expenses, log the receipts, and submit to the mission office for reimbursement all the maintenance expenses.  Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it?  Oh, and of course, take chocolate candy bars as treats for all the missionaries.  They loved me too!

As the family knows, plumbing is the least favorite task to do, but he did it cheerfully and with patience, even without Jon or Tod or Daren to crawl under the sinks!  A great number of "broken" bathroom and kitchen faucets and shower heads just needed to be "unplugged," so he taught the missionaries what to check and how to do it.  They were amazed at his skill. One elder was greatly looking forward to his next shower when he would have "adequate pressure."  Another elder later thanked Elder Parker for changing out a broken toilet seat so it didn't pinch anymore.

Some missionaries did not know what a vacuum bag was, so when we showed them how to "fix the broken vacuum" because it wouldn't suck dirt anymore, another miracle was recognized.  Dark showers became illuminated when light bulbs were changed, and mold could be slightly remedied by cutting off the bottom inch of their shower curtains if they truly had no time to wash them...

After reminding them that their health and safety are important, and that utility expenses are very high in Denmark, we encouraged them to take short showers, turn off lights when leaving, and turn down the heat when it wasn't needed.  What great life lessons missionary apartment checks bring about.  Some missionaries even said they would be glad for us to come back - soon!  Great reward for us...