.: MTC Day 4

Today, we manned a call center for the church for a brief period of time in the afternoon. You all have seen the commercials for the church on TV. We were answering those calls. It was pretty quiet for a while then BOOM!, a commercial must have just run on the East Coast. In came the calls from the Mississippi River to Boston. I received a call from a newlywed in Kentucky! She requested one of the Church DVD's on Christ.

Tonight, we are going to dinner with some dear friends, the Jacobsen's. Owen and I served in a Stake Mission Presidency together over 15 years ago. Since that time he has served as a Mission President in Florida and Temple President in Dallas. He is serving as an Executive Secretary for the Stake President in Provo at this time.

The weather turned cooler, but is still bright and still. I haven't taken the pictures of the fall colors yet, but I will.

Tomorrow, we pick up our prescriptions that will last us for the next 18 months. It is also our last day of Missionary Training. Saturday is P-day (Mormon lingo for washing and ironing and other necessary preparations). Sunday is full of meetings and devotionals, then on Monday we will be in the lobby at 5:15 a.m., ready to leave for the airport. We arrive in Moscow at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday. The countdown has begun!!

Post Script: We just got home from the Jacobsen's. We had a wonderful dinner; a special reunion with our very special friends; we got to meet Joyce's sister Mary and husband Joe who served a mission in Australia; Scott, a returned missionary from the Ukraine; Owen and Joyce's daughter, Marcy; and Gilbert (President Paul's son) and Amy Paul, who we had met and had taken a picture of at conference. The food was delicious and the company was great. Thanks Owen and Joyce for making our time here in Provo so memorable.

Earlier, while Joyce was working up a culinary delight, Owen took us for a ride to see some fall leaves and to visit the new Hinckley Alumni Center. This beautiful building, sitting high on a hill, on the campus, was built from donations of over 70,000 people. As we were walking out of the Hinckley Center we ran into Lindsay James, the daughter of Terry and Dorris James, from our home ward.