A Less Stressful Week!

Wow, what a difference a week makes in the weather. This week we performed two different car inspections, 20 cars on Tuesday and 27 on Wednesday. This was done while the Elders and Sisters in two different parts of the north mission attended a temple session at the Calgary Temple followed by lunch and then their zone conference. The weather on both days was a comfortable temperature, around 82 degrees (28 degrees Celsius). We even got a little sunburned. This was in stark contrast to our experience the week before having 4 inches of wet sloppy snow fall on us during the car inspections. Given the beautiful weather, we could actually see the exterior of the cars so we were able to make a list of needed repairs and perform some minor repairs such as replacing worn windshield wipers. Since the Calgary Temple shares a parking lot with the Royal Oaks Ward building so it all worked out very well.

On Monday I was able to sell two of the older mission cars which have come out of the fleet. Both were Chevrolets, a Cruz and an Equinox. We still have a nice Chevy Colorado truck and a Dodge Caravan to sell.

During the car inspection on Tuesday we made an interesting discovery; the new Caravan we received about two weeks ago has no spare tire! The Dodge Caravan has a cranking system to lower the spare tire. Ordinarily it sits under the front row passenger seats. The device cranked with amazing ease but no spare tire appeared, just the device that connects to it, -  so I called the Dodge dealership involved in delivering the car to us. You won’t believe what I was told; “The spare tire is an accessory and must be ordered as an accessory item. The spare tire was not specified when the Church ordered the vehicle.” This is a new one for me. I was flabbergasted. I called the fleet managers at Church Headquarters and they, too, were amazed. They are working on resolving this for us. In the meantime I asked the Dodge fleet guy with whom we worked what it would cost. Are you ready for this: $712 CD (about $534 US)!

Other than the laborious task of putting the inspection results into the CARS system (entered item by item and one car at a time X 90 cars!), this has been a rather typical week so there isn’t much else to tell you except that it is finally raining. We have had rain on and off for over three days, sometimes mixed with some snowflakes. What a welcome blessing! It gets light now about 5:00 a.m. and I am enjoying being able to run outside. Lots of lilacs in bloom along my route but they are going fast. I have always loved the fragrance of lilacs; my personal favorite!

I am proud to tell you of the high school graduation of my twin grandsons, Ethan and Jonah. Their papers are in to serve missions so as the summer continues we will hope to hear where they will be assigned. They will both be great missionaries.

I’m sorry there were no new pictures to share this week.

Love, Elder and Sister Thorley