Not only did I sprain my ankle while walking out a back door with a burned out light I had recently requested that maintenance replace but it really was quite difficult to rent out apartments with cockroaches running across the floor. There were apartments with big holes in the carpet that the maintenance man (friend of the owner) would say, could just be patched up but he never patched them up. There were apartments with appliances tipped over by former renters. Oh, and one of the buildings of this 149 apartment complex (not including the empty building that had had a fire in it) had mushrooms growing in the hallway. All of the community laundry rooms had had fires in them and the damage was never repaired. On my first day there the ward missionary stopped by and told me to run. He said they had had several different managers get fired for no reason at all. I later heard I was the 13th manger in 2 years. The next day the other Ward Missionary came by. It was THEE Robert J. Debry. He also suggested I leave before they fire me. Then he made me aware of the fact that he had several different law suits against the owners of the company. It turned out the actual owner had fled Utah to avoid prison time. Not really what you want to hear on your first week of work. Nonetheless I busted my butt and did everything in my power to rent apartments. And I did...until all the presentable ones had been rented and they wouldn't fix up any of the others. I was at a stand still but still working hard handing out eviction notices and turning in rent (the majority of which the church was paying).
In the mean time one of my cleaning ladies stole my vacuum and her husband was arrested for stealing tools out of maintenance trucks. There was also the crazy guy I was evicting who came to my apartment while I was home alone (after hours mind you) pounding on the door shouting obscenities at me and threatening to sick is dog on me.
I later testified in court against the owners on an unrelated charge.
Ok, so fired just before Christmas. We were able to move back to our same apartment where we had lived before. At that point they knew we would be sticking around. I was called to the YW presidentcy and Steven was called as the YM president. We grew to love all the youth. There was a family of boys that lived with their single mom in our same apartment complex. Derek was the oldest (we went to his wedding in Nauvoo years ago, Dallin (this is the day he got married, and Lincoln. Derek was out our house a lot. He kind of became like a little brother but as we've gotten older he's more of a peer. Dallin was around too but not as much because Derek didn't want him around. Our house was his escape from having to be the responsible big brother. Just after Derek left on his mission we moved out of the ward. We were still close and would see Dallin on occasion but nothing like before. Anyway, we attended Dallin's sealing at the Draper Temple and then a dinner afterward. The next day was their reception. This is where we ran into many of our Brighton 1st ward friends. It was so fun to catch up but mostly fun to see all the boys who are now men. We just had to break up the line and take a picture. We had heard the mother of the bride may not be thrilled about it but we didn't know when we'd all get together again. As always there was discussion of making the movie Final Furry to complete the films they made in young mens. The first film of the maybe some day trilogy was Ultimate Furry followed by The Pink Ninja.
In order from left to right. Wayne Donaldson (the former scout master), Jake Jung, Derek Manning with his baby girl Ashlyn, Dallin Manning (the groom), Steven with Max and Sam, Max Shin (I taught him in prmary), Jon Shin (Max's brother and AMAZING violinist. They lived above us before we moved the first time and we would listen to the two of them practice.), and Benjamin Engh (also one of my primary boys).
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