Today was missionary suit day. Good 'ol Mr. Mac and his two-pant suit. O (the name I call Ercell--it'll be Elder Blain soon) looks very much the fine gentleman in his new suits. He cuts a fine figger, as they say in Sanpete County (where he is from--he HAS tried to lose the distinctive dialect from that corner of Utah. It didn't work, since he still uses, "sqooze" with the ''oo' being pronounced like "oh"). He wanted a yellow tie because he said that is one color he hasn't had and can't find. True to history, we couldn't find one, but he did find a pretty shiny gold one. No smilie face tie this round.

Got a missionary tip today: buy wool because it doesn't wrinkle as easily. The clerk in the store told us, believe it or not, younger missionaries don't always hang up their suits and wool can shake out even after it has been in a pile of stuff for a while. I didn't know either one of those tidbits of information. You mean to tell me the younger missionaries aren't fully trained? Guess it'll take a wife to do that someday. Judging by some of their apartments shortly before and after inspection, they're lucky to even find their suits.

While on the subject of suits, can you imagine women wearing only two suits during their mission? Actually, can you imagine only owning a couple of suits at a time throughout your whole life? Men try to make up for it by changing tie color and patterns, or maybe mixing it up a bit with a sports coat or colored shirt. On a mission, of course, they don't have the option of mixing contrasting coats and pants, though while in Georgia, Elder Blain did it accidentally a few times and it was rarely noticed unless he or I caught it. I think the mix up was usually a navy blue coat with black pants, or vice versa. It WAS dark in our closet in the apartment. Sometimes there were interesting shoe and sock combinations because it is hard to tell navy blue from black unless you're in the sunlight. To his credit, though, he didn't freak out about being mismatched like a woman might. The other Elders that accidentally did it never let it ruin a day either. They know what I discovered at work by intentionally wearing two different colored shoes and a blouse wrong side out--few people notice or care about what you're wearing, the majority of folks are too absorbed in worrying about you noticing or caring about what they're wearing. And we think people are looking at us? As it is said on a mission, "Forget about yourself." Amen.

No, I'm not done beating this subject to death.

Ah, to be a man and able to walk into a store, get eight white shirts without trying them on and you're done. It probably has taken my husband all of three hours to get the clothes he needs for this mission. He doesn't have to think each day on what to wear--just rotate. He loves it that way. It takes him back to his military days when he opened the closet and the uniform for the day was always there. No worries for 24 years on what to wear. How would that be? There is something to be said for uniforms and having no choice.

Somewhere I read how much time a woman takes each day in choosing what to wear. It seemed like around twenty minutes a day from thinking about it, to trying on and looking, to switching outfits, to looking some more in the mirror . . . That was calculated into years spent in a lifetime deciding what to wear. The study didn't even address the actual shopping and taking care of one's clothing, or exchanging what didn't work when you got it home. My, I'd better stop right here since it is starting to sound like a huge waste of time and a bit of a living nightmare from which you never wake up. Give me those white shirts and we'll leave for England!