On July 24, 1847, the pioneer saints rolled into the Salt Lake Valley and Brigham Young proclaimed: “This is the place. Drive on.” Sister Cassinat and I rolled across the salt flats, and over the hills and high plains of Nevada until we arrived in Reno. Whereupon, I proclaimed: “Siri, this is the place. Get me directions.” Our first order of business was to buy a new car to replace our gas guzzling Toyota Tundra and Jamie’s Rav4 since she’s deployed to Somalia. So, yes, we drove two cars to the mission field. It feels like we came all the way to Reno to play “The Price is right.” We traded our two cars for what’s behind curtain number two that turned out to be a Toyota Highlander. This week I’m picking up a second Highlander for President Saxton and his wife, along with 17 new Toyota Tacoma’s for the missionaries. I have a fleet of about 100 cars and we keep Toyota’s for two years and then trade them. Every other make and model we keep just one year before trading them in. Next week is transfer week, so I have to bring in all the high-milage Tacoma’s from the most remote parts of the mission to trade them in. It’s going to be a busy week. We were told repeatedly in the MTC that we would see many miracles while on our mission, and its already come true. We arrived in the mission two Saturdays ago at about noon. We unloaded our two cars (including many female clothing items) and spent the next five hours shopping for, and buying, the aforementioned Highlander. We went to a senior missionary barbeque with the mission leaders and then returned back to our apartment with the help of Siri (agaaaain). We pretty much collapsed into bed. Keep in mind that we changed time zones between Provo and Reno, so we’re also suffering from a one-hour jet lag. So here’s the miracle. We got up the next morning for 9:00 AM church and we actually found all our Sunday clothes and made it to church on time. Now that’s a miracle. Work in the mission office has been a bit of a blur. We only had one week to get up to speed with our trainers‒Elder and Sister Wilcken. However, those five days were broken up with a Zone Conference in Elko. Hey, didn’t I just come through Elko and now I’m going back? Yup! So, on Wednesday afternoon we drove the 3½ hours to Elko and got checked into a hotel for Zone Conference the next morning. After checking into the hotel we went to a Chinese restaurant. Now, I’m a bit of a Chinese food snob, and this was really good Chinese. Much better than anything I had been able to find in Provo for the last three years. So if you’re hankering for good Chinese food, you should check out Elko, Nevada. Don’t ask me the name of the restaurant‒I’m still in a fog. Zone Conference was great. We used the opportunity to drive three separate vehicles from the office to missionaries gathered at the conference. I drove one mission car. Elder Wilcken also drove a mission car, and then Jan rode with Sister Wilcken in a third mission car. After the conference we drove back three different cars that had been traded. I think I’ve finally found my calling in life. As my professional life as a bottom-dwelling lawyer comes to an end, I have now risen in the ranks to being a used car salesman. Now, I’m not saying that I’m a good used car salesman, I just look good trying. That’s true, except when I had to send out a message on the mission Facebook page a couple days ago. In my mission-wide message, I had to confess that a mission vehicle had gone missing like a lamb that had wandered from the fold. I asked the missionaries to please tell me who was driving the car with license plate number 204A03. Good news. The missionaries with the car texted me with their identity. Unfortunately, my situation was not improved, because they were listed with a different car. So I found one lamb only to lose another. I haven’t worked up the courage to send out another message to the mission about my other lost lambs. This situation reminds me of “The Hunt for Red October.” In this movie, you’ll recall that the Russians had told the United States that they lost their submarine called the Red October and they wanted the US to help find it. Of course, the Red October and her crew of officers were defecting and the Russian’s wanted to sink her. At the end of the movie, Captain Tupolo tried to sink Red October, but his submarine was sunk by one of his own torpedoes. The Russian’s were led to believe that Tupulo’s submarine had gone missing. When the Russian ambassador sheepishly mentions this to the White House Chief of Staff, he sympathetically says: “Andrei, you’ve lost another submarine?” I can already hear the mission president saying: “Elder Cassinat, you’ve lost another mission car?” So, here’s a funny story. I got a call from a sister missionary, who had put her foot up on the dashboard of her car (don’t ask me why), and she knocked off the “Tiwi” located on the inside of her windshield next to the mirror. The Tiwi is the device that monitors the driving practices of the missionary logged into the system. It tells the driver with audible voice commands that he or she is speeding, braking too hard, etc. So when this sister missionary kicked the Tiwi from its place on the windshield it started swinging from the cable that goes from the back of the Tiwi along the top perimeter of the windshield. The whole scene looks like a Tarzan Tiwi swinging back and forth above the dashboard. As the Tiwi is swinging back and forth, it’s audibly warning the sister that she’s driving erratically even though the car is parked. She called me in a panic, not so much concerned with the Tarzan Tiwi, but the fact that she’s now been labeled as an erratic driver and could lose her driving privileges. There’s never a dull moment! On Thursday night, we worked with the young missionaries at the family history booth. This is a booth set up at various festivals, gatherings and public attractions. As the name suggests, the booth is used to attract people that might have an interest in family history and is a good source for referrals. The booth was set up at “Hot August Nights,” which is a major draw for people with vintage cars (and others) at a number of the casinos for most of the week. There were some pretty crazy cars, including a push me-pull me car. I took some photos of this event and other sweet pics from the last couple weeks which you can see if you CLICK HERE. Our family history booth was located near a parade route for cars to drive by. There were so many cars that they invariably had to stop briefly in front of our booth. I had a lot of fun with the drivers. One guy was stopped and all alone in his car. So I approached him from the passenger’s side and said: “I’m looking for a sweet ride, can I hop in with you?” He smiled and said, “you’re the wrong gender.” Last night we went to a ward dinner in our new home ward. It was a cowboy-themed hoe down. It was a lot of fun. Jan donned a stylish mustache for the evening. She slugged me when I used the mission chat to post the picture that I’ve included in montage above. There’s a lot more going on, but I’ve run out of time to tell it all. The missionaries are great and some of the names and faces are beginning to sink in. Thanks for all your support and prayers. Our mission can really use your prayers if it is to survive another week with sister Cassinat and I in the mission office.