Finally in Africa    

We departed Salt Lake City and flew to Atlanta which was about a 3 1/2 hour flight.  In Atlanta we met Elder Jacobs from South Africa who was returning home from his mission in the United States (Texas).  Ironically his father works at the Area offices.  We also met a number of LDS members who were headed to Africa for a short term humanitarian project.  When you are traveling in missionary attire with your name tags on it is easy for people to identify you. 

We boarded the Delta flight for the 16 plus hour non-stop flight to Johannesburg.  Lynn watched a movie and tried to rest as much as he could, but the seats were not very comfortable or spacious. Sherry was not very successful resting and managed to work on some of her nursing continuing education courses to pass the time away. All in all, we are happy to say we managed quite well.  We truly felt many prayers were answered in Lynn's behalf. This trip would have been impossible to manage in October when we were initially scheduled to depart on our mission.

Knowing Lynn's lifting restrictions from his back injury, we were concerned about how we were going to manage getting our luggage off the baggage carousel and then dragging them through immigration/passport control and then through customs by ourselves (as we had 5 large 50 lb suitcases as well as our two carry-ons).  Lynn and his brother Keith devised a system so they could strap all of the suitcases together and they would roll on their own wheels.  Needless to say, a lot of people stopped and watched in amazement as Sherry was able to easily handle over 300 lbs of luggage by herself.  We recorded it so everyone could see her with her Luggage Train. The skycaps were especially fascinated and cheered us on!