It is July and I gave haircuts to the missionaries. In return they set up a blog for me. What a great trade. Even though it is 7months in the mission I will enter journal entries and letters to catch up to July. So here goes.
December 10, 2014
We are so excited to serve a mission. We traveled to Utah for Thanksgiving to say goodbye to our children Josh and Whit, April and Glenn and Bil and Katie. April sent us off to the MTC on Dec first. What an exciting day that was.
The group of seniors was small, about 60 of us, but the spirit of the MTC was magnificent. We met so many wonderful people with stories similar to ours. Many had experienced the drama of cancer. One man had experienced a stroke which left him somewhat paralyzed on his right side. This was their second mission. One couple were on there fifth mission. They had served all over the world, but he had a heart attack last year so they were keeping them stateside this time. Elder Hasler found a mission companion from his first mission, Robert Williams (South German Mission 1966-1968). What a joy the reunion was. He too had significant health issues. They were serving a second mission in New York and they have a handicapped daughter they take with them. I guess what I learned is that there are valiant saints serving with significant health issues and other complications. I was inspired by their stories.
Although our mission call was December 1, 2014, President Kohler asked us to delay our arrival to January 1, 2015. After the MTC, the church allowed us to spend Christmas with our children, the Rachael and Marshall McCauley family in Portland. Above is a fake snowball fight with extra large marshmallows between the McCauley kids and the Nakos cousins. It was a great memory so I included it. It is in contrast to the huge snow storm we flew into in Munich just a few days later. Below is the Mccauley family. They were so good to us. Finally on December 29 we said our final goodbye and it was off to Munich, Germany.
