MTC

This past Wednesday the whole Garrity family, minus Sawyer, took Kessler to the LDS Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT. The Oregon Garrity's (Mom, Dad, and Kess) flew in Tuesday and the Utah Garrity's (Keegan, Me, Nolan, and Amber) met them in Provo that night after work. We were all able to take Wednesday off for the grand farewell.

We went out to eat at Red Robin which is one of Kess's favorite places to go with his friends... they went once a week (at least) and he'd always get the same thing. He had told me before his special order but it was pretty funny to actually witness this. I got to sit on the end with Kess and Hailey his girlfriend. It was fun to hog them for awhile. I was able to get in a few words of sister-in-lawy advice ;-) Not that he really needed it, but it was fun for me to reminisce about my mission and MTC days. It was good to hear his perspectives and attitudes on different things as well. He really has a positive outlook, and more than anything else, that will help him to be successful over the next two-years in Albeuquerque, NM.

One of the highlights of the evening was when Hailey slipped off to the bathroom and I got to have the "so what's going on with that relationship" talk with Kess, and then the same with Hailey when Kess went to the bathroom. They've been close friends for about 2 years and it's going to be tough to not talk on the phone to each other every night and hang out during the Christmas and summer vacations. Ahhh....the withdrawals .... not fun. But again, they both have a good attitude and perspective about things, so they'll be fine. There's a lot more I could say about that, but I'll move on.

The next morning we met the crew at the MTC at about 11am. After repacking suitcases and taking pictures, we headed into 12 o'clock orientation. While still outside Keegan spotted a familiar face and started chatting with him. It was his old mission president, President Rowe. He now has a calling at the MTC as a Branch President over groups of missionaries. Keegan and Pres. Rowe hadn't seen each other since Pres. Rowe left the mission in June of 2003. Later when Kess was checking in, a nice sister was giving him his name tag and said, "Elder Garrity, hmmm, we had an Elder Garrity that served with us in Omaha." To which he responded, "Yep, that was my older brother." :-)

We got inside a big room with a lot of other families with missionaries and listened to a few different speakers which were all very good and then watched part of the classic video, "Called to Serve." I used to have that thing memorized before my mission so it was entertaining to watch it again. After the video we gave our final hugs and said our goodbyes. The last time I was in the MTC was five years ago to the day- but I was the missionary leaving! It was interesting to notice the different perspective this time around. I was able to look around a lot more at the other families saying goodbye- it was an absolute ball-fest! It really is such a huge mix of emotions that it's hard NOT to cry! You are so proud that someone you love so much is willing to go out and serve for so long, but so sad that you won't be able to be there with them or see them for so long. One of the speakers used the term 'bitter-sweet' and it's so true. That speaker was also correct when he said that sometimes saying those difficult goodbyes are best done in how you would take off a band-aid. The slower it is the more painful and drawn out it will be. So it's best to just rip it off all at once and get in over with. Still painful- but better.

Our goodbye was an emotional one. Kess was at the end of seven different people and he slowly made his way to the other end, hugging us one by one. All of us were crying! When he got to the other end he was supposed to go out one door and we were supposed to go out another, but there was such a big crowd of people that he just had to stand there with everyone he had just said goodbye to. It could have been really awkward but it wasn't bad. We just all gave another round of hugs and then headed on our way through oir separate doors.

We took it slow going back up to Logan after wards. We ate lunch with everyone in Orem, took Hailey to her apartment in Provo, stopped in at Hannah and Karls again in Lehi, got some go-ped parts in Draper, picked up Nolans snowboard that had come in at the airport in Salt Lake, stopped in to see my classroom in Brigham, then headed to Keegan's office in Providence, and then finally home.

It was nice having Keegan's parents here the next couple of days. We went mini golfing at a place all decked out for Halloween, went out to eat, and just hung around Logan- it was great.