It was the shortest week; it was the longest week

My apologies to Charles Dickens, but it's how I feel. On Sunday, last week, I found out that one of missionaries had had a second seizure and would need to go home for evaluation. Since he started new medication on Saturday he was not allowed to travel alone. The mission nurse figured she'd go with him. But on Sunday morning the President called and said they needed a male to accompany him. I asked if maybe the other male in the office could go instead of me. President Strong just said, "Huh? What other male?" Sometimes he gets pretty focused. Anyway we hurried and made travel arrangements with the travel office in Salt Lake and we were off.

The Elder is from Couer d'Alene so we were flying to Spokane. It was a quick trip. We were leaving Bentonville (XNA) at 8:05 on Monday and I'd be returning Tuesday morning. To make the 8:05 flight we have to leave the Mission Home at 6:30 for sure. So I get to the Mission Home at 6:30. I have to wait. Evidently the missionary was cold so he took a 20 minutes shower. The president had knocked on the door at 6:32 and he was still in the shower. OH NO!

The traffic here is busy but sporadic. So at 6:30 it's a 30 minute trip to the airport. But at 6:50 not so much.

He finally came down around 6:50 and we hurried to load the luggage and we were off. Speeding was not an option because the traffic was too bad. So we just did the best we could. I parked in the short term lot, grabbed two of his bags and literally ran to the terminal. When we got to the kiosk and checked in it said baggage check in was closed. I begged, begged, begged and the lady finally agreed to check his bags. 

So I lug his first bag up on the scale. It weighs 60 pounds (against a 50 pound limit). I say, "Do you have anything you can leave behind?"

"Absolutely not."

So we open his bag and pull out 10 pounds of protein powder.

"Can't we leave this? Do you really need it"

"Yes, it was expensive." (Remember he lives in Couer d'Alene which is pricey.)

So I stick his protein powder in my bag and check it and we hustle up to the gate.

I have to say, I'm a pretty spoiled traveler. Delta takes good care of me. Unfortunately, we were on American. No perks! So we strip down and go through the "naked picture machine" and get to our gate in time to board.

We had layovers in Dallas and SLC.

Here I am in SLC. I have to say that Café Rio had not tasted this good before. The smothered pulled pork burrito was amazing!

Then we flew on Delta to Spokane and got there around 4:00 pm.

I got to the hotel, ordered Jimmy Johns, and watched the Niners and Seahawks all by myself. (-:

My flight the next morning was at 6:30 so I had an early start to the airport. On the way home I was on United and had only one connection in Denver.

This is me walking through the Denver airport.

This is me on the flight from DEN to XNA. Clearly I have no status on United.

So I got to XNA around 2:00 PM. So I only had three more days in the week, hence the shortest week. But because of the flying around it seemed like a very long week.

By flying to Spokane I missed the only legitimate ice storm we've had here in Bentonville. Carol said they had to close the office down early on Monday and head home and that there was 1/4" of ice on everything the next morning.

Other than that, my week was pretty normal.

We love you all and love being missionaries.