Johnathon got his mission call! He is in Kennewick, Washington. He is loving his mission. I love that he is loving his mission but not that he is in an area where there are "gunfights" so they try to be in before dark. John got his mission call six days after he turned in his papers. It was amazingly fast. Then he had to wait for a little over three months before he entered the M.T.C on May 28th. Those three months went by so fast and yet so slow. He continued working for the bricklaying company until about April. He got layed off which ended up being a great blessing to me. I was substituting at the library a lot during that time and he was very willing to keep things running at home. He really bonded with Jeremiah and Corban during that time. He drove Sydnee, Caleb, Autumn and Amanda places that they needed to go and ran errands. He kept Corban at home with him on Thursdays when the rest of us went to our home school co-op which made it possible for me to be a more focused teacher. He pretty much became my right hand man. It was a good time and when he left there was a void created that I like to refer to as the "Johnathon gap". I get hit with it on Tuesday nights when I am supposed to be at work but Sydnee, Caleb, and Amanda all have other obligations. Or when I could really use a couple of things at the store but I don't want to go there myself. Or when we all get in the suburban to go somewhere and there is plenty of room. Or when we go to church and we all fit on the bench with room to spare. I especially notice it when we gather together as a family--that head count thing. The numbers are going down and I'm not really sure that I like it. And yet they have to grow up sometime and he is in a good place, doing good things. I can already feel the growth that he is experiencing and that is exciting to watch even if it is from a distance.
The day we took him to the M.T.C was a great day. He was supposed to go in at noon but I called and asked if we could move his time up an hour because Amanda's high school graduation was at 2:00. So we took him in at 11:00 instead.
Samantha couldn't be there that day because she had just started working at Trefoil Ranch as a girl scout counselor. But the rest of us and Grandma Gay were all there.
Really, it was a great day. Johnathon had always planned on a mission and it was just what came next for him. I love this picture of Corban helping John with his suitcase.
That night I was discussing the day's events with Jeremiah. I told him how glad I was that John was in the M.T.C he said, "John is dead." I said that he wasn't dead that he was in the M.T.C. Jeremiah said "No, he is dead" I asked him what in the world he was talking about and he said, "The sea is empty now, but it will fill up again and then the sharks will come back and they will eat John and he will be dead." Oh Jeremiah. He's a thinker. We just have to check in with him very frequently to keep tabs on what he's thinking.
That smile will take him far.
