A crazy week

The latest in mission casual wear?

Over the course of the eighteen plus months, rare has been the Monday that I've not been able to carve up my schedule so that I could dedicate time to the letter from TMFKATB. There have only been a couple of occasions where I've not been able get his letters or give him a decent response. This past Monday was crazy for me. Ironically, he entitled this week's letter 'A crazy week.' I got his email about 15 minutes before my craziness was hitting 11 as I was about to go on stage with Doug Parker, CEO and Chairman of American Airlines, to chat him up in front of 700 or so industry colleagues. Suffice to say, I wasn't able to interact much with TMFKATB this past Monday.

So that's the excuse for posting this week's update a little late. As for the update, he did have some craziness. He and his companion had been told as of last Monday they'd be training a new missionary. Within a matter of days, the threesome became a foursome and by the end of week, the two new missionaries were on their own, opening a new area. Things change quickly when visas come through for missionaries and that was exactly the case with the fourth missionary (a Mexican national serving in his home country until his US visa cleared, allowing him to head behind the Zion Curtain to serve the balance of his mission assignment). Suffice to say, it made for a bit of craziness for them all, but they seemed to get through it with flying colors. That's always good.

This week's pearl of wisdom came from TMFKATB in the form of this endorsement:

Draper is so sick!

For those of you who either do not live behind the Zion Curtain or are not familiar with the cities and towns that make the Zion Curtain what it is, Draper is a town south of Salt Lake City. Its greatest claim to fame, and it's dubious, is that it houses the charm-free Utah State Prison and was the site of the execution of Gary Gilmore. It is also the place where the first IKEA in the whole of Utah was built. A prison and an IKEA, going all 'Ebony and Ivory' is rich, given that they are both meant to hold people against their will.