Around the end of February Michael got his mission papers finished and turned them in to his bishop. This has been a long, long time coming—Michael's been thinking about a mission, and changing his mind back and forth for a couple of years now. He's said before that he definitely is going on a mission, and I've gotten excited and told family and friends, only to have him stop working on it at all. So after a while, I just kept it to myself. Even this last time, when he was undoubtedly working on the medical/dental exams, and getting all the paperwork finished I tried to keep it all very hush-hush and low-key.
Anyway, he got his papers turned in sometime at the end of February/beginning of March. He had his interview with his bishop, and then with his stake president. But the stake president felt that Michael needed a little more preparation time; he thought they should wait a few months to turn the paperwork in. Then, out of the blue—a couple of weeks into March—the stake president had a change of heart; he said he felt inspired to put Michael's papers in right then. So we took to haunting the mailbox on Wednesdays. Ten days after the papers went in . . . nothing; the next week . . . nothing; the next week . . . nothing.
But we weren't sitting around doing nothing while we waited. No, sometime in March I had started painting the entire house; then we broke and removed the upstairs toilet; since the toilet was out, we removed the badly chipped bathtub and the rotten floor too. On March 20 I drove to Ephraim (2 hours away) to bring Lindsey home for her spring break. (Yay!!) And on March 29 I drove her back. (Boo!)
On April 2 Bruce and I drove back to Ephraim to buy a new van. (Yay!) And that night we got a call from our stake presidency asking to see Bruce, Michael and me that Saturday evening (April 4). Well, that had to be about Michael's mission call, but we were all puzzled as to why President Denison got it instead of Michael or even Michael's own bishop or stake president. Oh well.
On April 4, 2015 we found out that Michael had been called to serve in the Provo, Utah mission! How exciting! And we also found out that he would be entering the mission field on April 28—three weeks later. That was also exciting, but in a different way. We had four months to get everything Jason needed; only three weeks of preparation time for Michael was kind of a shock!
So it was a whirlwind of running around shopping, shopping, shopping, and planning a farewell/open-house for him—all while attempting to rebuild the bathroom at the same time. (Imagine planning a party in your home with a bathtub in the living room, a toilet on the back deck, and tools everywhere. I was a little stressed.) Oh. And my father-in-law got remarried on the 20th, So on Monday (the 20th) I was frosting a wedding cake, and on Thursday (the 23rd) I was frosting the bathroom wall (I've had a little more experience with cakes, but the wall was more forgiving).
Truly, all the activity around here was dizzying.
Michael also went to the temple and received his endowment on April 25 (last Saturday)—that was awesome.
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| At the Jordan River Temple, April 25, 2015 A great day |
And yesterday, the 28th, was the Big Day. Actually, it was a pretty quiet day—at least at first. Bruce is in Vernal, and I'd sent the kids to school, so only Michael and I were home. Since he was set apart on Sunday (so Bruce could be there) I was Michael's mission companion for Monday and Tuesday. On those two days Michael (who usually sleeps in until 10:00, 11:00, or later) got up at 6:30 and went with me to take kids to school and get last-minute shopping done.
Yesterday morning we drove kids to school, then came home and had breakfast. I hemmed his white pants; he did laundry. I cooked lasagna (his favorite) for lunch. We remembered that we forgot to get his tetanus booster and ran to the clinic, but they were too busy to take him. Hopefully he can still get that taken care of. We had lunch and then packed his suitcases. It was a quiet day. (Quiet; pensive; slightly nauseous.)
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| loading up the van |
At 2:30 we picked the girls up from Entheos, got the boys from Paradigm, and we were on our way to Provo, Utah. Things livened up then. :-)
We got there an hour early (as I'd wanted to), so we took pictures.
We were all laughing and teasing, and it was fun.
Then we drove to the mission home, where we would drop Michael off. It was still playful and fun. We took him in, met Sister McCune (the mission mom) and a couple of other missionaries—Elder Johnson from Midvale (?), and Elder Banks who had just gotten in from Scotland.
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| on the front porch of the mission home |
At last it was time to say goodbye. More pictures, hugs all around, and then I started crying. Well, maybe just tearing up, kind of a lot. I wasn't weeping anyway. President McCune came out to meet us all, so the tears were short-lived.
A final "goodbye," and "good luck," and "be good," and then we all stood by the van as Michael went back into the mission home.
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| And Michael walks away from us, through the front door of the mission home. He had dinner and spent the night there. Today he's got some training, and then he's off to the work. |
Wow. Just like that, my oldest boy is out on his own.
I was pretty melancholy all last evening. Even though we watched the latest X-Men movie. (Distracting, but not fantastic.) Moms are strange creatures: All this time I've been waiting and watching and wishing for Michael to make a move forward and do something with his life, and now that he's doing it I felt a little . . . bittersweet. A good-sad, because he is really doing something great.
But today I feel good. My son is on his own. He is serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And he will be awesome!
