Our Chinook season is continuing. I say season for we have had two weeks of Chinook type weather and our snow is nearly all gone. El Nino is alive and well and affecting weather this far north as well. We are enjoying the weather but have real concern about the lack of moisture in this region. The number of accidents involving our vehicles have dropped to zero in the last three weeks and nearly all of the vehicles involved in accidents are now repaired so, knock on wood, we are in good shape.
This week has gone by quickly. One of the highlights for me was the arrival of two more of our Rogues at the Nissan dealership. We now have four new AWD Rogues; two have already been assigned to areas in British Columbia where snow is a bigger challenge. We are also anticipating a Dodge Caravan and a Chevy Colorado sometime during the next two weeks. This pushes the number of vehicles in our fleet to 90. Our allotment is 86 so four vehicles have to come out of the fleet, be prepared for sale, and sold. I have a list of about 20 people who have already indicated they want one of them so moving them out will be no problem. I will work with the Fleet Headquarters in SLC to determine a price and then arrange for them to be detailed and sold. This will be my first experience in this aspect of my job so will work closely with the Area Fleet Manager to make sure this goes as it should.
On Tuesday evening all of the office mission staff got together for dinner at a popular Italian restaurant. They have a half-price special on Tuesday nights. The food was great so it may become a regular thing. The Calgary Temple is closed for two weeks for maintenance so we did not get to visit the temple and go to dinner afterward; we did the dinner outing on Tuesday instead. On Friday evening Kathy and I visited the huge mall in our area, the Chinook Mall. They have a very interesting sculpture in the entrance which is made up of a lot of gears and other assorted junk car parts. I will include a few pictures of it at the end of the blog.
We have had to deal with some fraudulent phishing incidents involving gas cards assigned to some of our mission vehicles. On three different occasions we have had a call from Bank of America, the card company, telling us that the card numbers were used for small purchases in far away areas such as Virginia, Texas, and New York. We are not sure how the thieves get the card numbers; perhaps randomly or from a list and then an attempt is made to make a small purchase to see if the charge goes through, and if so, this would be followed by a large purchase; however, in each case B of A has cancelled the card and notified us of the activity. We have accounted for the card in each case so it is not a case of card theft. I shudder to think of how many other attempts might be made. In each case we have to obtain a new card and PIN to replace the cancelled card and this takes about two weeks in each case which is proving to be a real nuisance.
We love the work we are doing and the opportunity we have to work with such outstanding young missionaries. We hope you will all have a truly great week. The promised pictures follow.
Love, Evan and Kathy
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