The Costa Rica Mission Reunion is only five days away – this Friday October 3^rd 2003. The location has not changed. Here’s the address: 10375 South 630 East, Sandy - 15 miles south of downtown Salt Lake. Take exit #297 – 10600 South on the I-15. Go east 1.5 miles to Leilani Dr. Turn north 3/10th of a mile. The schedule for the evening has been modified slightly. We will be prepared to receive you at the registration tables as early as 4:30pm. Please be sure to get your pre-printed nametag and complete the address book. The reception for the presidents will start somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30. We will start serving dinner at 6:00 and move to the chapel at 7:30. There will be desert and open visiting back in the cultural hall after the presentations in the chapel are completed.

RSVP: Today is the day that we need to give a final number to the caterer. As of this moment we have 400 RSVPs. That’s counting 30 who have registered with a status of 2 – ‘probably’ will be there. If you are a 2, now is the time to commit to a 1 – ‘definitely’ will be there. Please check your status online. If you have RSVP’d and have not paid, you may pay at the door. Do not send any more checks to Brent Romney. If you have RSVP’d and find that your plans change at the last minute and you will not be able to pay, please call or send an email no later than Thursday to cancel. The cost of the dinner is $15 per person. You are welcome to attend the reunion and not eat, but if you have RSVP’d with a 1 or a 2 status and do not intend to eat or pay, please, please let us know now so we may adjust our count accordingly. With this large a group, we want to have enough food for all and must be sure that the cost of the caterer is covered.

Picnic: The picnic is Friday at noon. The location has changed. It is not up Little Cottonwood or Big Cottonwood Canyon because of the admittance fee. We will be meeting at Buttercup Park in Sandy, located at 10075 South and 1550 East. It's just east of the Sandy Library, which is located on 10075 South and 1300 East. 1300 East is a main artery running through Sandy and 10075 runs off of it. The picnic will be very informal. It is simply a designated gathering place to eat and visit. You are on your own for food, drink and play items (footballs, Frisbees, etc.) at the picnic. Look for the sign and sign-up sheet at the pavilion. You can stay for as long or as short as you want. Most of the organizing committee will all be there. Everyone is welcome to join us. The park has covered picnic tables and a play area for kids. If the weather is unseasonably cold or in the event of rain, the golf and the family picnic will be postponed until the next reunion in ten years (October of 2013). However, rain will not keep us from our informal breakfast on Saturday morning.

Golf: We now have four tee times at River Oaks. Golfers must sign in at the golf shop by 7:10 am. Cost for 18 with a cart is $38. The address is 9300 S. Riverside, Sandy, UT. Phone is 801-568-GOLF. The directions are west on 215 (from I-15) take the 98000 South exit. The course is visible from the junction of the two freeways. Current golfers are, listed by handicap: Kevin Neely 2, Scott Peterson 13, Mike Lacey 15, Bruce Call 20, Joel McIntyre, Forrest Williams, Forrest Williams partner, Don Allphin, Don's wife and Brent Romney. Still need six more golfers. Please contact Mike Lacey (mlacey@pclient.ml.com) if you are golfing. He also needs estimated handicaps for everyone and if they would prefer to join any particular members of the group. This should be a fun event, and combine with the picnic perfectly. The winning golfer gets his meal or tee time paid for. Mike Lacey will decide if it will be a gross or net score (depending on how Mike does!). We will recognize the top golfer with an envelope of cash or an appropriate wrapped gift - maybe a putter or expensive box of golf balls.

DVD: There has been such an overwhelming response of material sent in for the DVD that we just are not sure yet that it will all fit on one DVD. We have also not yet finalized the decision to distribute the DVD at the reunion or in a mailing within a few weeks after the reunion. At this point in time we are leaning towards distributing the DVD later. Be sure to complete your address information at the reunion. The cost for the DVD is $6.00 and must be paid in advance. If you have not already reserved your copy, please send me an email. If you have not already paid, please do so at the door. If you have signed up for a DVD, please make sure you have emailed me your address. We would like to encourage you to bring your digital cameras and take plenty of photos at the reunion. Also bring your download cables – Loren can download the pictures right to his computer after the reunion. We also want to include pictures from the golf game and picnic.

Setup: For those who have contacted Shauna to help with the setup please meet Thursday evening at 7:00 pm at the building. We will need to get about 17 tables from the other ward up the street. The food will be set up in the multi-purpose room with four lines. That room is right off of the cultural hall and kitchen. Then in the cultural hall we will set up 30 tables. There will be 5 rows of 6 tables, with a split down the middle. That will fit up to about 320 people if we put people on the ends. Then in the overflow area we can set up 3 rows of 2 tables. This should just about accommodate everyone. The chapel is small so we will definitely need to have the overflow, which means before we go into the chapel part of the evening, we get tables down and chairs in there. We can put chairs around the cultural hall at that time for afterwards when we have dessert and chatting. Shauna can use help moving tables and chairs during the evening. We can also use a little help with general last-minute arrangements at 4pm on Friday. Do you have children that are coming? Perhaps they would like to help.

Thanks: On behalf of the organizing committee, thank you to all who have helped make this reunion possible. Many of you (especially Phil Wing) assisted in finding and contacting companions that haven’t been heard from in 25 years or more. Thank you to Pres Muren and Pres Eager for agreeing to join us (by the way, Pres Hunsaker has also been invited). Thank you to all who have written and submitted their bios to the web page. 172 have been received and posted so far. Your stories have renewed our faith and reminded us of how blessed we have been and still are for having served as missionaries in the Costa Rica San Jose mission. If you haven’t already submitted yours, you may use the online form. If you haven’t read them, please take the time to do so before the reunion. We will also have a printed copy of the bios at the reunion to browse through. Thanks to you all for responding and agreeing to join us for this memorable evening.

Contacts:

Brent Romney – (214) 564-5484 or (214) 448-7088

Phil Wing - (858) 459-0581 or (858) 274-3356 email: pwing@cmkr.com

Tom Cavanaugh – tccav@msn.com

Loren Ashcraft – (801) 599-1784 email: ashcraft@uswest.net

Mike Lacey – (505) 325-1940 or (505) 327-5363 email: bromney@uici.net

Tim Malone – (805) 217-4019 or email Tim@3tcm.net

Shauna Hooper - (801) 763-1577 or (801) 979-2182 email: Shaunahooper@cs.com

Links:

CostaRicaMissionAlumni - Master list of all missionaries who served in the mission between 1974 and 1980.
SortedAlumniList - Same list as above except sorted by date returned home.
MIAList - List of all missionaries that we have not yet found – US missionaries only.
MIAList1 - List of missionaries from other than the US who we have not yet found.
Bios - Launch page to all bios collected so far (172) – many with current photos.
WhatsNew - History of daily updates to the web site from Dec 2002 to present.
Location - Address and map of the location of the reunion – includes directions & schedule.

The weather forecast has improved – there is now only a 10% chance of rain – keep praying. See you Friday!