Learning the Ropes

The Africa West Area created one third of all of the new units in the Church during 2013. It is on pace to pass its number of new members again this year. Someone has to do all the paperwork associated with getting those wards, branches, districts and stakes organized. That someone is the office of the area executive secretary. One of Bob's duties is to take the recommendations that come in to form new units and to make certain that the information submitted matches that which the Church has from its prior reports so that there are enough active members to make the unit viable. Part of Deanne's job is to create the maps for all of the new units for the Church headquarters in Salt Lake so everyone knows where all the units actually are. Every time we get to the point where it looks like the units we were working on are completed another two more e-mails show up and we start over. In the Air Force we used to say that we couldn't take off until the weight of the flight planning paper exceeded the weight of the air plane. Here the weight of the paper has to exceed the weight of the new bishop. These are very interesting callings and very much behind the lines where no one sees all those who make the nuts and bolts of the Church run.