and he's off...

Last Sunday morning, Alex was set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!

Jackie, David, Ben, Kathy, Gary, Beth, Glen, Eric, Alan, Alex, and Grandpa

Monday night, Glen, Eric, Alex, and I enjoyed Sarah and Luke's hospitality (and now I have another game I would like to own--Onitama. It's kind of like chess but rotating cards tell you how your pieces can move and since my birthday is coming up...).

Tuesday morning we drove to Salt Lake where we took in a live session in the Salt Lake Temple. It will be closing down at the end of December for major renovations and will be closed for several years, so we were really glad that we got to go. It is absolutely gorgeous on the inside.

Salt Lake City Temple Celestial room (photo from Church's website)

After our temple session, we were able to visit with Bobby and Lynda who are living in Salt Lake while Bobby undergoes cancer treatments. Bobby used to be one of Alex's youth leaders at church. He is very upbeat and it was wonderful to visit with them.

We then continued on the Pleasant Grove where we spent the night at Jacob and Susan's house, which is where Hannah and Kaellen live. The local missionaries were also there for dinner (which was a DELICIOUS spinach and cream cheese stuffed chicken breast recipe that Hannah makes). Alex got to help the missionaries share a message, so we were actually able to hear Alex give his first message as a missionary. It was so thrilling.

It just so happened that Ryan and Angeles were spending the night in Pleasant Grove at Angeles's cousin's house on their way down to San Diego, so they were able to come over that night and play games! And come over Wednesday morning with time enough for one more game.

Ryan, Alex, Jacob, Angeles, Hannah, and Eric playing "Wingspan"

Owen, Eric, and Alex 

Siblings!

Glen, Eric, Alex, and I then drove to Provo where we bought Alex another pair of church shoes (hard to find in Fallon) and then met up with Joseph on BYU's campus.

It was then time to drop Alex off (1 pm), which went very smoothly (after I figured out that Alex's missing wallet was in the church pants he had worn to the temple the previous day).

and he's off...

We drove home uneventfully and when we got home, we found waiting for us this email, titled "I'm alive" and sent 16 minutes after we dropped Alex off:

And they told me to send a message saying so.

I don't know what else I should say 

To email Alex use the following address: alexander.perazzo@missionary.org

He will only be answering emails once a week, but I think he can check his email more often than that. 

I thought I had photos of each boy walking away to go on their missions, but apparently didn't post the photos of Andrew and Eric walking away, so I will have to end with Ryan's, which was taken April 2013.