Last Steps

This last week was more relaxing than I thought it would be.  Liz started packing her suitcases a week before I wanted to even think about it.  Consequently she found that she needed more space than the 2 suitcases we had allocated ourselves,  So when I finally started packing I put most of my clothes in a suitcase and remarked that my clothes would easily fit in one suitcase.  I still had a lot of incidentals to go, but it meant that Liz used three suitcases.  As I gathered all my things I found that I had no room to spare.  We were both overflowing.  We had to jettison some things we wanted to take with us.  Example:  chocolate is available in Croatia but chocolate chips are not,  So I had three 5# bags from Sam's Club that I really wanted to take.  Nope - they all had to go.  I left my new-ish hoodie.  I left half my suspenders.  And so forth.  It took two days to get down to four suitcases weighing less than 50# each.  But due to Liz starting so soon, we were all packed and ready to go a full day early.
  We called Marti and Keith and went to dinner with them one final time, shedding some tears at parting.  We watched the rest of the Hill Street Blues (1980s TV series) episodes I'd bought.  And we had a relaxing day.  We sold our car to a nice young man from Phoenix and walked home.  Then Ruth came and got us to go to Nancy's house for dinner.
   Friday night:  Our Stake President came to Nancy's at 7:00 pm.  He set us each apart as full-time Missionaries, and gave each of us thorough, personal blessings.  He was awesome!  And then he interviewed us again for new temple recommends.
  Next morning our faithful Ruth got us and our dunnage to take us to the airport.  After all our sweating about getting our suitcases to just the correct weight, the guy who checked us in hefted each one and said they were good.  No scales, no mess, no bother.
  So now we are in our hotel room in Provo with our granddaughter.  We held our great-granddaughter last night and hugged her parents.  We;ll see them more this week because they had the good sense to live almost across the street from the Missionary Training Center where we will be in classes all the coming week before traveling to Croatia.

I put in this photo of our luggage at the airport.  Liz is at the counter getting our car for us while we are in Provo.  Four BIG suitcases, two small ones, two computer bags, and coats.