Every other month, each senior missionary couple is assigned to inspect 4-5 apartments (of the young missionaries) for safety and cleanliness. Brian and I always make an appointment-no surprise inspection visits. Last Thursday we stopped at Dunkin Donuts on our way to the apartment inspection of 2 Elders and bought a half dozen donuts because it was one of the Elder’s birthday two days later. When we rang the bell to the building, they both came out of their apartment to let us in to the building and then we walked up to their apartment on the third floor. We found out that we were all locked out of their apartment! There is no superintendent living in their apartment building or management office in the building, so they called the mission office. The Elders found out that Elder and Sister Horrocks would email the management office to tell them that the Elders would be coming to get a spare key to their apartment. We wished that we had a car to help them out….. The Elders had sandals on and no coats on. Brian gave them money to ride the subway…..and at least they had donuts to eat. We will re-schedule the apartment inspection, which means they will have to clean things up again….
Update: Elders were able to walk the short distance to the management office to get a key. We would have stayed to help but were sponsoring an employment lunch for our volunteers, Sis. Suzy Yamada, and Elder and Sister Tippets, our Spanish translators. We inspected their apartment the following week–they ended up with the cleanest apartment out of the four we inspected. I think they got a prize for it.