Yesterday I received several text messages from the weather service about a winter storm coming through overnight last night. We got up this morning and a storm had indeed put some snow on the ground. This has been a very mild winter in southeastern Idaho, so this snow is likely quite welcome. For me, however, it was a great reminder that in two days we’re headed a couple of hours south and in sixteen days we’re on our way to Hawaii. The reality is starting to set in!

Nina has started packing. She’s probably got twice as much “stuff” to get into her two suitcases and one carry on than I have. So, I’ll start packing things up sometime today. It’s a good day to be indoors while the snow melts, anyway. So, we’ve downsized from a house to this motor home and now have to downsize from the motor home to 2 1/2 suitcases apiece so we can upsize to an apartment in Laie, Hawaii. I think we’re in a small minority of senior LDS missionaries who actually upsize when they get to their mission!

In addition, we’ve been living and traveling in this small space since the middle of September (that’s 5 1/2 months so far), so we’ve already made the adjustment to being together in a small space twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Our world will actually expand when we get to Hawaii!

Yesterday afternoon as the storm clouds began moving in and the sun was setting, the light on Chink’s Peak to the east of the campground turned to a lovely, bright golden color. That was certainly picture worthy and my iPhone did a fair job of capturing the moment. It lasted for less than five minutes. The name of the hill was the center of some misguided controversy. The peak was named after an early settler in the area, nicknamed “Chink”. A couple of years ago, someone started fussing about the name, thinking it was a derogatory reference to the Chinese laborers who came to the Pocatello area to work on the railroad and in the mines in the area. They got a resolution passed requesting the hill be renamed “Chinese Peak”. The name has never officially been changed, so there are maps that now show it as “Chinese Peak” and others that still show it as “Chinks Peak”. I’m sticking with the original name. Settler Chink was here long before the Chinese came to town!

We went over to Soda Springs Sunday afternoon after Church to visit with mother. This was our penultimate visit. We’ll stop there on Thursday on our way south to North Salt Lake. That’ll probably be our last time to see her alive. She’s in very fragile health. She went to the emergency room last Friday evening with chest pains (the EKG said no heart attack) and her blood pressure is all over the map. One of her important wishes, however, has been to stay alive long enough to see Nina and I off on a mission. It looks like her wish will be realized. We’re being set apart as missionaries this evening at 7pm. Two days and we’re out of here. Five days and we’ll be officially on our mission at the Missionary Training Center. Sixteen days and we’ll be “in the field” in Laie, Hawaii trying to figure out what we’re supposed to be doing.

Life is good!