Saturday, November 14, 2020

THE LONG FAREWELL

This week began the long farewells.  Monday evening was our last FHE with the Senior missionaries.  It was Alisa’s and my turns to bear our testimonies and say goodbye along with the Walkers, McMurrays, and Burtons.  The Walkers and McMurrays flew out Thursday, and the Burtons will leave a couple weeks after us. The number of senior missionaries here will then severely dwindle due to no replacements coming. We met at the Area office building for the function, and ended up with heavy appetizers which counted as dinner and desert for us.

Tuesday we were back at pickleball after a couple of weeks layoff.  The people there seemed genuinely happy to see us, thinking we had gone home without saying good-by.  Wednesday evening was the farewell dinner for the McMurrays at Al Forno’s Italian restaurant.  Friday evening a young YSA couple treated us to a picnic at a little park, Hilders Park in BeachHaven on the beach, Matt Krull and Maddy Pederson.  We had had them over for dinner previously. 

Saturday morning we had beautiful sunny weather.  I enjoyed my 10 mile bike ride.  Then I spent a few hours at the office finishing up my final review and update of each of my files on InfoGuide, and transferring my files to the remaining attorneys.  My last 2 weeks will be spent training and wrapping things up.  Saturday afternoon we attended a luncheon for the International Law and Religion Symposium (ILRS).  And in the evening we were invited for dessert with Mike and Trisha Fox at their home. I presented them with a Book of Mormon and Meet the Mormons video.  We enjoyed spending a couple of hours with them.  Mike is one of our pickleball buddies. 

Today I teach our last Temple Preparation class, combining the last 2 lessons since we have run out of Sundays.  Then we have 3 YSA’s coming over for our last YSA Sunday dinner.   As I said, things are winding down.  I paid the last installment on my electric fat bike, and we started the process of getting our cars registered and getting insurance.  There’s a lot still to do to get ready for our return to Covid 19 stricken America.

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