We made it!
We finished our second week in the Missionary Training Center (MTC) and left Utah for the “field”. We’ve really enjoyed spending time with three other senior missionary couples, and after many comments about my amazing ties (all of which are the Jerry Garcia brand) I decided to give each of the men a tie from my ample collection. They were thrilled and insisted we pose for a group photo.
If nothing else, I’m spreading the good word of Jerry Garcia ties.
After our last morning of training, Pepper and I hopped in our (fully loaded) car and drove to Las Vegas. It’s about halfway between the MTC and our destination in El Centro, so it made a good stopping point. More importantly, there were two restaurants I really wanted to visit. The first was Maggiano’s, a fabulous Italian restaurant I’ve missed greatly. We had dinner there.
The next day we stopped for lunch at Cheba Hut, a Colorado classic and still my favorite sandwich chain on earth.
I admit it felt a little weird to stroll The Strip wearing our missionary tags while we were approached multiple times by scantily-clad women looking to pose for a photo, and passing billboards and ads for strip shows and call girls. I guess Vegas will be Vegas.
Then we headed south. As we crossed into Arizona and then southeast California, the landscape became increasingly flat and desert-ey.
Eventually we came to an honest-to-goodness desert: the Imperial Sand Dunes. We stopped for a few minutes to enjoy walking barefoot through the super fine (and surprisingly cool) sand.
That evening we arrived at our new apartment in El Centro. The church arranges housing for all missionaries, young and old, so it was nice to be able to move right in. Since we didn’t really bring all that much– just a few outfits and some computer equipment– the move-in was quick and easy.
The next day we went shopping to get groceries and a few other essentials for the apartment. I found a sale and bought a handful of short-sleeved dress shirts (there weren’t any to be had in Montana). The temperature was 101 degrees that day. Even when it’s hot, it’s important to look cool.
Everyone we met kind of laughed and told us “this is nice weather… wait until it gets really hot!” When it’s 101 and people are joking about how much hotter July will be, I’m not quite sure what to say. Uhh, thank goodness for air conditioning?
Today at church we met about fifty people, all of whom were super friendly and introduced themselves, and all of whom we’ll probably have to ask to repeat their names next week. We also met some young adults we’ll be working with, learned about the institute classes we’ll be teaching, had lunch with a bunch of younger missionaries, scouted out new housing for a set of missionaries in a neighboring town, participated in several group chats, planned a lesson, cleaned a new apartment that’ll be used by other missionaries, and did our level best to figure out just what the heck we’re supposed to be doing for the next year. It’s a little overwhelming, but I know we’ll figure it out and have a grand time doing it.