This & That

Watching and Waiting

I was chastised by my son Marc yesterday for my lack of blog posts recently. He said, "Mom, it's been four days with no blogging!" I had no idea anyone was keeping track, but he was right, it was time to get going again. We have been having a good time celebrating having my daughter back home. My son Collin's family arrived the next day and then on Sunday we had my daughter's homecoming church service and the accompanying extended family/friend dinner afterwards. 

I have taken some pictures. OK, a lot of pictures over these past few days, but I probably should just start with when she came home. She flew directly into our small regional airport. As you can see, my mother and I may or may not have had our faces pressed against the glass, looking for airplane lights.

But we weren't the only ones.

A little earlier my husband looked much more relaxed about the whole thing.

Edward and Frederick were assigned to hold this poster. There was a whole demo on how they were going to hide it and then whip it out to show her.

Finally, finally the plan landed. She had flown this last leg of her trip with one of her good friends who was also coming home from a church mission, and wouldn't you know that they waited and were the last ones off the plane? One of her other friends caught this video of us. Disclaimer---the wailing is not me....it's the other mom.

 

I can tell you that these moments when I've been able to finally hug each of my children as they came home from their missions rank as some of the most precious moments of my life. 

It's Today.

Nearly a year and a half ago this girl left for the midwest to do something she believed in.

She coming back home to us this evening providing she can make all her connections. Say a little prayer for that, will you?

This was among the group of pictures she sent home in her last email. I have missed her. A lot. And I'm really looking forward to giving her the biggest hug I can muster.  

Missionary Check In

It's probably time for a missionary check in with my daughter. 

She was made a Sister Leader Trainer soon after her transfer to Kansas. Basically she gives trainings to the sister missionaries in her area and goes on companion exchanges. Here's one of the other sisters in her area.

She is so good to send me pictures almost every week. This little gal was recently baptized and my daughter loves visiting with her.

The missionaries do service at a place called the Farmstead. She loves this because she gets some outside time and there are sometimes animals involved. She said she's held a baby goat and has fed a calf with one of those big milk bottles. On this particular day, she and Sister Kang manned the General Store for a while. She says she was only mildly embarrassed to be walking around like this. I thought the tennis shoes were a nice touch. She tells me that after this, she went out to collect eggs in a basket. Maybe I'm going to have to get the trendy chicken thing going here, since she already knows how to get the eggs.

Finishing up with a picture she took of the Kansas City skyline.

Hump Day!!!

 

Yes, I do know it's Thursday....and that it's not really Hump Day when you talk about the week. But it IS Hump Day when you're talking about the halfway point in an 18 month church mission. It's all downhill from here, people! Hey Mikemikemikemikemike.....guess what day it is????  HUMP DAY!!!! But I'm not excited or anything.

The Face

I mentioned recently that my daughter's birthday is coming up. I have spent a fairly good portion of time getting things together in a box to send out to the midwest for the occasion, things like her special-order granola. My favorite thing, though, is a collection of photos that the whole family helped put together.

We noticed early on that in the "selfies" she sent home to us, she always had the same expression, shown in the picture above.

And here....

Oh, and here, too...and in lots of others. We decided (ok, I decided), that it might give her a laugh if we all sent a group of photos with each of us making that same expression. So, scroll on down and see how they all came out, starting with my eldest's son's family and moving through the ranks:

The objective is to make her laugh. I'm thinking it will. 

 

Presents

I get to talk to my daughter today, and if I'm really lucky everything will work with Google chat and I will get to see her face. I am really looking forward to this and as a missionary mom, this is one of those really great presents. 

Missionary Check In

It's time for a check in with the missionary again. My daughter has been gone for just over 5 months now. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this has been the longest 5 months of my life. I have friends asking all the time how long she's been gone and when I tell them they say, "Is that all? I thought she'd been gone longer." It certainly feels that way for me.

That said, she is really, really good to send me pictures every, single week. I've gotten more pictures from her in these 5 months than I got from all my boys....combined. She has been made a trainer, which means that she has a new companion who is straight from the mission training center, and she is responsible for teaching her the ropes of how things work. 

She is still getting used to the wildlife. That grasshopper there is absolutely HUGE!

She also has a thing for opossums. I'm not sure if she didn't really believe they existed, but they are definitely fascinating for her.

She took this picture for the males in my family. When they see this, they will immediately start to shake and sweat....all those geese just running around loose.

She and her companion have gotten to do some decorating at the visitor's center where she's assigned.

They have several nativities set up in one of the visitor's center rooms. I would love to see those.

The tree at the visitor's center. 

And this is the tree in their apartment. She calls it her literal Charlie Brown tree. :)

Checking In with the Missionary

My daughter and the rest of the visitor's center missionaries went on a field trip this past week to a couple of church history sites nearby. 

She got to see her mission training center companion.

This one was taken at Far West.

And this is near Adam-ondi-Ahman. She says she misses being out in nature so this was a special treat for her. I believe it. As much as she grumped sometimes about going to the cabin instead of being with friends, she is a nature girl at heart.

I think she'd also like to get more mail maybe? Overall, she is loving what she's doing, although transfers are this week and she thinks her trainer might be moving on to a different place. She has loved her trainer and will miss her. She's great about sending chatty, newsy letters and lots of pictures, and I love hearing about what she's doing, but let me be a mom for just a minute and say that I miss her...a lot.

 

A Missionary Check In

When my JAG son and his wife were making their way across the country back to Nebraska, their route took them, coincidentally, through Missouri, and the place where my daughter is on her mission. Since she is assigned right now to a church history site visitor's center, they decided it would be a great time for a tour. 

And a picture. I miss all of them, but wow...look at what the humidity is doing to my daughter's hair! Curly, curly!

This is where she is assigned right now.

She says that tour traffic has slowed down quite a bit with school starting and all. Still, I manage to be the recipient of the kindness of strangers...random church members who stop by for a tour and send me a picture of their cute tour guide.

 It will inevitably be accompanied by a text that says something like, "Your daughter did a great job taking us on a tour of the visitor's center! And here's a picture...."

This is her BYU home teacher. His family stopped in for a tour.

So some positives and negatives for the past little while. She slammed her finger in the door of the car she's has been using. It's made it hard for her to play the piano for any meetings.

She did get to see her MTC companion at a recent gathering.

Some local wildlife. Anybody know what this thing is??

And in case you were thinking it's all serious, all the time, there was some dress-up using some vintage-type clothes at the historical site.

And for one of the sister missionarys' birthdays recently, they decided to have a hobo party at 6:30 in the morning. Her description was that since they had all just rolled out of bed, looking like a hobo wasn't too difficult.

They washed out tin cans and put pudding in them for breakfast. "Pudding for breakfast is always a good idea."

Missionary Check In

Last week's letter contained some surprises....several of them as a matter of fact. First off, I had no idea that I had a budding architect, or that you can build temples of a sort from Lego candy.

She says while it is fun to build with them, the candy itself tastes terrible.

She is also getting used to her encounters with the local wildlife. She said this bug was as big as her two thumbs put together. Hard to gauge without something, like her two thumbs, for comparison, but I guess she wasn't thinking about that.

And finally, here is my daughter. And yes, she's holding a snake. She's at an investigator's house and sent this one home specifically for her dad, who hates snakes. Actually, we sort of thought she hated snakes as well because I have distinct memories of her last summer with two of her friends trying to catch tiny, tiny water snakes and picking them up with sticks because nobody could stand to touch them. "Fresh courage take...."