Well, we had a good. long run with none of our missionaries afflicted with COVID-19. A week or two ago, we had one who came down with it. Sadly, symptoms manifested the day after transfers. For those who don't know how transfer days work in missions, it is a day at a regularly scheduled time when the mission president and his helpers re-arrange assignments for the missionaries. Same stay at their same location, and some move to another one. They have to stay together two-by-two, so all the missionaries who are involved gather at one location and go home in their new pairs. Often, the missionaries who aren't involved come too, so they can have a social gathering, say goodby or hello, and be friends.
The implication of a missionary declaring COVID symptoms the day after transfers, is that the missionary was already shedding virus, but nobody was aware of it and they naturally relaxed their guard, didn't wear masks, ate together, hugged each other, etc. The Mission President's wife hugged all of them, of course. As soon as we realized one of them had COVID (at that time it wasn't confirmed but the first symptom was loss of taste and smell, which is pretty specific to COVID) we had every pair of missionaries involved in that transfer isolate and go into quarantine. And now, we have several cases of active COVID amongst them, in two countries, and including the mission president's wife. A few of them are very sick, but most are not greatly affected other than by being isolated.
We have a first injection of Pfizer vaccine, which isn't proof against it, but is supposed to prevent the strongest symptoms if you get it in between shots. I wasn't feeling great last Wednesday and took my temperature. I had a temperature 4 degrees above my normal. I had headache, which isn't normal for me, and they persisted in spite of Tylenol. Yesterday I was only 2 degrees above normal, but still had headaches and general malaise. Today I feel a little better, but have some congestion in my lungs which seems more like bronchitis starting up than something exotic like COVID. Nonetheless, I feel like I should isolate until I'm better, but the mission nurse disagrees.
Yesterday we had a baptism for a young man in our Celje Branch. We worked with the family to give him a nice program and celebration. Churches are still restricted, so only family were there, along with the branch president, and Sister Ashurst. I sat in the car outside the church and watched it on Zoom, while wearing a mask.
Earlier this week, Liz walked over and took this photo of our sister missionaries sunning themselves on the 30-inch window sills above the fountain at our old apartment. Cute.
The days are warming up and we have our flower boxes out hanging on our balcony. The swans are on their nests, and these birds are still here, although they will leave soon to go to nesting areas.
They look kind of like seagulls, but they are something else, entirely. I never paid much attention to my birds while studying zoology.
Restaurants opened for outdoor seating this week. We have lived here for many months and keep telling ourselves that someday we will go to the fancy restaurant on the balcony of the hotel next door. The one in whose parking garage we pay to park our car. Tuesday, the weather was nice and we went over for lunch.
The restaurant is called City Teresa, which means City Terrace. The hotel is the City Hotel. So there you go. I am sorry we didn't photograph the dishes we were served. We had lobster and shrimp soup that was yummy. I had steak, which turned out to be fried prime rib. They served it still in a frying pan with lots of juice, and a plate with the veges. It was truly wonderful. Liz had salmon and it too was perfectly cooked and served. It was very, very nice, and not cheap. As we ate, a cloud moved in and it started to rain. Before the government shut down restaurants entirely (last Fall) this space on the Terrace had no roof. Now it is covered and there are sliding doors so they were able to close it for us when the wind picked up.
Today, as I hung our flower trays on our balcony railings, our waiter came onto the stairway between our buildings and complimented us on our flowers.
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