Monday Dec 5 - We're off!

Finally! It seems like the days have been going so slowly but we are now sitting at the airport, our bags are checked in and the next leg of our journey is about to begin. It was a concern whether our bags were over weight but they were fine thank goodness. We packed and repacked so many times that it was hard to be sure.
Ethan picked us up from the MTC on Friday afternoon when we finished there, drove us up to Foundation Arts to pick up some beautiful prints that they so kindly gave us. We are so grateful for all of our wonderful friends in the LDS Booksellers industry who have been amazingly good to us, sending us with  things that will bless the lives of people in Malawi. We stayed with Lorry and Patti Pitcher and had a great weekend with them. Patti brought us to the airport this morning and sent us off.

We fly just after lunch today (Monday) and we will arrive in Lilongwe on Thursday after lunch. Yikes! Originally the plan was for us to fly to Lusaka in Zambia and spend a couple of days at the mission home then go to Lilongwe but they are sending us straight to our area and President Padovich is meeting us there. The Bullocks told us that might happen because apparently you can only take one bag when you fly from Lusaka to Lilongwe. That could be a problem since we each have three, that is, if they all manage to get there.

This leg of our trip takes us from Salt Lake to Dallas, Texas where we have a couple of hours layover. Then we fly to London which is about a nine hour flight then another eight hours on the ground. After that, an eleven hour flight gets us to Johannesburg on Wednesday morning local time. There we have a hotel and actually can lay down, shower and change clothes. Thursday morning we fly out again and arrive in Lilongwe after lunch, about a two and a half hour flight. We can hardly wait to get there. It will be great to meet our mission president, the missionaries we will be working with and the members there, to get settled in our new home and figure out how to shop for groceries.

Then the fun begins!
We will be sure to give you a tour of our new home, a bit of the city, the church etc when we get there. Any other requests, just let us know.

Love you all and pray for you always.