Today was our final day of classes at the MTC. We focused on how to work well with local leaders, instead of showing up and taking over. The CES Senior Missionary Coordinators also came and gave an inspirational message about how we will touch lives and be blessed for serving, using the story in Acts 9 about Saul's conversion as somewhat of an analogy. In the afternoon, we had a one hour presentation on the BYU-Idaho Pathway program, which is an online way to work toward a degree with very inexpensive tuition -- the hope is that we can point some of our YSA kids that way when appropriate.
By 2pm we were done, so we did laundry and called three of our kids (one more to go tonight) to say goodbye before leaving the US. The final shipment from Amazon was supposed to arrive today, but didn't; not a biggie, as it's an unimportant $7 item, but our fear is that they'll try to forward it to Italy somehow and we'll get stuck paying for it. My companion spent a bunch of time on the phone with two USPS offices trying to get it resolved.
Tonight we are packing and weighing suitcases again. So far, so good, but it will be a very early morning, getting up probably around 3am to shower, finalize packing, and be ready for the shuttle at 5:30am for our 9:30-ish flight. Getting up that early actually helps out, because we should be tired enough to sleep well on the overnight flight to Rome.
Dee has been really sick with a cold all day. As we say, she is "draggin' her wagon", but she's been a trooper, though she did skip most of the last hour to get some rest. At lunchtime we each got a Priesthood blessing to help us to be well enough to travel tomorrow. She feels a little better, and I feel much better tonight, though we aren't over it yet. Hopefully the very long day tomorrow will go ok for us, despite our colds.
We are really excited to take off for our destination. It's kinda scary to contemplate sometimes -- so many changes await us so quickly -- but this is what we've wanted to do for so long. We love serving the Lord.