New Cars

Last week, during zone conferences, Elder  Lund got a phone call from church headquarters telling him that he had new cars waiting for him to pick up- -14 new cars to pick up to be exact. This is great news! At the same time, this is a royal headache. I thought I would share with you what is involved with new cars.

Life would be good if the church would just let you come and pick up the new cars and bring them back to the mission. Not so. In order to get a new car usually, it is necessary to trade an old car in. Before you can trade an old car in, Elder Lund has to first find out which cars in the mission has the most mileage on them. Sometimes the cars could be in North Salt Lake, or in Ogden or in Malad, Idaho. Once identifying which cars have the most mileage, then it is necessary to get those cars in pristeen condition. That means, if there are any dents, scratches, bumps, or windshields needing to be fixed that they are fixed. Now, this seems like an easy thing, you would think. But in the case of mission cars, they need to go to the nearest auto body shop and have them take pictures and get an estimate. That estimate is sent to Elder Lund. He then completes a file of paperwork on the necessary work to be performed. Then the filework,  pictures, estimate, and all is sent in to church headquarters who processes it, sends authorization back to Elder Lund, who in turn tells the missionary to take the car in to have the auto body work performed. If the necessary scratches and body work is over a certain limit, then all the paperwork goes to the church's insurance company for approval before being sent back to the mission. Bodywork can take from one to three weeks or longer to have done once approval is given.

When the car is all fixed up, looking shiny new, the car is then driven to Salt Lake Church headquarters where it is traded for a new car. Once the new car is driven back to the mission field, new manuals, paperwork, and registration is all processed. Eventually, the missionary gets a new vehicle.

We currently have 14 cars that were to be delivered to our mission. The other day, we picked up 5 cars (3 of which were new to the fleet increasing our total number of vehicles to 66). However, each car is assigned their own gas credit card. Because these vehicles are new to Ogden, they do not have a gas credit card yet. So, for now, they are sitting in the mission parking lot, waiting for gas credit cards to arrive. Then, they will be assigned to missionaries.

For now, 9 vehicles are still waiting in Salt Lake for the body work to be approved and done and to be traded in for used vehicles. It is really quite a process to get new vehicles. And did I mention, transfer week is this week?   The good news to all of this process is this, if we were in a mission outside of Utah, Elder Lund would also be responsible for SELLING the old mission vehicles. At least we eventually get to drive them back to Salt Lake for them to sell. Hurrah. And oh yes, did I mention it is transfer week this week? There is always something to keep us busy.