Some where over the Atlantic

Whitney called us from Denver at about 4:30 pm yesterday. She said that she and 3 other missionaries were in line at Burger King after getting off the plane and a man in line ahead of them paid for all of their lunches! Awwhhh! The kindness of strangers.

She also told us about her random encounter with Amanda at the eye doctor the other day. That is so cool! What a great send off for her. It's amazing to think of all the little pieces that had to fall in place for that to have happened.

I asked her about the suitcase Heather mentioned in one of the letters she had sent home. Heather said something about Whit leaving it behind at their old apartment and ...did she mean for Heather to have it? Whit didn't know what she meant other than it was probably the suitcase that she borrowed from Sara when she came home for a few days before her mission. Heather said she would hang on to it so Sara ...heads up, better go retrieve your suitcase from Heather's apartment before it disappears!

I did find out why her phone card minutes got devoured so quickly ... every time you use a pay phone it automatically charges 10 minutes. Then for calls to or from certain states like Texas, Colorado, etc. instead of charging 1 minute for every minute you use, they charge 5 minutes! What a rip off!!! Anyway we were able to hook Whit up on a 3 way toll free conference call from her pay phone to us so that was sweet! It came in very handy because her dad was out of town and could hook up with us from Kansas. Nothing like some last minute updates from dad on all things "BYU sports" before sending her on her way!

She told us she'd heard a random conversation between an RM from Rostov and some missionaries at the MTC the other day and they were saying that the mission home in Rostov looks like a castle with big gates out front. Awesome!

Also there are a total of 20 missionaries arriving in Rostov today. That's a pretty big number considering there are only 80 missionaries in the whole mission. Some are from a previous group who didn't get their visas a month or so ago and have been waiting it out in Montana. Can't imagine many Russians are up there but the climate may be closer to the real thing.

She was still super excited and I can't wait for her first email though I'm not sure if it will still be on Tuesdays or if the day will change. I'll keep you posted.

Luv you all,

Mom Richards