First Day of Home MTC

Its Miles's first day of his mission!  I am so proud of him.  So many mixed up feelings inside today, but the prominent one is that I'm really excited for him.

last game of corn hole with Josie before getting set apart as a missionary

First day of home MTC is p-day!  So lucky!  So he woke up early with Jared and worked out with the bands Jared has been loving this past year.  They bought some for Miles's mission so he needs to learn how to use them.  Then he read his scriptures, and instead of his Kanye, he is learning "Praise to the Man" on the piano.  

Then his friend Luke came over.  Luke is also going to Brazil and they will be in the MTC together.  They went to play basketball.  

Yesterday Miles gave a very heartfelt talk.  I loved hearing it.  He didn't want our help at all in organizing his talk.  And wanted to do it totally on his own.  Which was great!  Although I love to help where needed, I love even more hearing my kids ideas and thoughts unfiltered.  Miles isn't the kind to pour his heart out to me.  Usually he's making a joke when we try to have serious religious conversations.  Covid at-home church was a struggle.  Haha.  

Miles expressed first how he wanted to serve a mission because of Jared's example.  I loved that.  I looked at Jared and asked if he was crying yet when I heard that.  Our kids have grown up surrounded by the best men.  ALL of them!  I'm grateful for their examples of loving one another and being committed to family and their kids!  They say that people are the average of the people they spend the most time with.  And I HOPE I am the average of my family members.  I love them all and are so grateful to have these incredible people in my life.  

One example I shared with Elise yesterday.  When she was born I had not attended many baby blessings at all.  Maybe just one.  And I didn't understand how it worked that people usually come over afterward for food and visiting.  So when we got to church my sisters asked me if I was going to have people over after, and I was like a deer in the headlights.  So Angela and Michelle went to Costco and bought a bunch of fruit and muffins and set them up behind our apartment complex in the pavilion.  I mean who has sisters like that?  I'm so lucky.

Several years ago Jared and his brothers and dad went on a fishing trip to Alaska.  Miles went along as well.  And when they got home all the uncles said how much they loved being there with Miles.  He was making them laugh and they all enjoyed being together.  Yesterday Uncle Cal (Nana's brother) came to Miles's farewell and said how much he loved Miles.  I thought that was so cute.  We have an enormous blended family and I know it isn't possible for everyone to make it to every event, so I feel so grateful for when people like Cal (who has a big family of his own) showed up.  

I love that Miles shared his process of how he decided to serve a mission.  It sounds like his friends were also a big influence on him.  I loved hearing his experiences and feel like I had some similar ones when I was his age.  He talked about his fears and concerns.  Two years is a long time.  And how he resolved them to make the decision to go.  He always says he is excited when I ask him how he is feeling.  But I know that everyone is nervous about it to some degree.  Its normal to have those feelings when you are leaving everything that is familiar behind.

But he is excited to grow spiritually and to be able to do the Lords work!  One of the things I loved was seeing how when Elise served a mission she was able to really hone that ability to see the Lords hand in her life and to learn to live by the spirit.  I think of spirituality as a sort of sixth sense one that can be developed greater as you use it.

This year I've had some pretty remarkable experiences that woke me up in the middle of the night and impressed me to take urgent action that was needed with my kids.  I still am so grateful for that impression and how important it is to have that when raising five children!  I really don't know where we would have ended up without that middle of the night impression.

This week we had our neighbor family over for dinner.  The mom is from the city where Miles will be serving.  It was so neat to hear about her conversion and how it impacted her whole family and also to hear about the friendly and warm Brazilian people.  We just love their family and it made me happy to think of Miles being in this city that she loves so much!

Something funny is that Soren and Miles have always followed the same growth patterns.  Like at 11 years 3 months, they are at the exact same height.  So we sometimes look at our markings on our wall in our garage and see where Soren will be at a certain age.  We looked to see how tall he'll be at 13 years and 4 months when Miles gets home and if he follows that same pattern he will be 5'10"!  So crazy to me. My little guy isn't so little.  He hasn't passed me up yet but he's having a growth spurt for sure.

Yesterday we did another round of family photos so we could have cute Soleil in them!  I just needed one photo of all of us to last two more years!  And we got a few of Miles for his plaque.  He doesn't love doing pictures and wouldn't agree to senior photos or anything so this is our work around haha.  A few phone pics of the other kids.

I've got to update my photo wall with Elise and Ethan, Monet and Carson, and new ones of the other three!  We have been nearly three years since the others that are currently in the frames!