Saturday off

Saturdays are off days for senior couples, and the rest is welcome because it's been so busy. Unfortunately, we couldn't really sleep in late because breakfast runs from 7-8am, and entering the cafeteria requires missionary dress code. 😞 No biggie.

Here are photos of our mag-stripe missionary cards, which open exterior doors and get us into the cafeteria. We also each have a physical key for our room.

After some welcome down time in the morning, we went to lunch at Guru's Cafe in downtown Provo, with my sister Marilyn, who drove down from Ogden, and my long-time friend/business partner/boss, GaryC, and his wife Roxanna. They just moved from Florida to Park City, which I hadn't known. It had been a few years since I had seen Gary, so it really great that everyone was willing to drive to see us. Here are some photos:

Elder Whiting and Gary

Whitings, Marilyn, Gary, Roxanna

Marilyn with the Whitings

I seem to be coming down with a mild cold, so Marilyn took us to a market on the way back where we bought a few things including cold meds. Hopefully it will stay mild, particularly with the big trip coming up. We continue to place small Amazon orders for things we'll need during or before the trip. Thank goodness for Prime shipping! Sorella Whiting inadvertently had one of them shipped to our home in Carlsbad, then we were puzzled why it wasn't here at the mailroom after Amazon said it had been delivered, until our son asked via email what we wanted him to do with the items 😕. So we re-ordered it to be delivered here.

After a bit of relaxed time in the afternoon, this evening we went to visit a district of young missionaries destined for Italy. The instructor is a recently returned young sister missionary who is the niece of a long-time friend of ours, BradC, so we had asked if we could come meet them. We worked up a fun little program where we taught them some Italian culture issues that they will find useful; e.g., not making the "sign of the cross" when two missionaries shake hands with two Italians by crossing hands over each other (definitely verboten), and how to count with your fingers (a thumb is "one", thumb and index finger is "two", etc). We then gave a spiritual thought from Mosiah 16:1, which is on our mission plaque. Finally, we encouraged them to serve missions in 40+ years, explaining that the rules are different for seniors: we can hold hands, and then we got a big giggle from them when my wife "unexpectedly" gave me a peck on the cheek (I said "fantastico!"). We took turns: one of us spoke first in English, and the other then translated each phrase into Italian. They got to ask us some questions, and we had a lot of fun together. Here is a photo, with the instructor on the far right: