Opening It

The plan had always been to complete a semester at BYU before serving a mission.

Plans change on a dime.

Ben decided to submit his papers--and two weeks later, we were waiting for a letter from Salt Lake City.

We waited and waited and waited.

We waited so long that our stake president called SLC to see what was the reason for the delay.  He was told that a record number of applications had been received in those two weeks, but that all calls should be assigned by the end of the week.

When Brad checked on May 20, Ben's application status had switched from "Ready for Assignment" to "In the Mail."

Ben texted me, "I'm doing a happy dance right now."

So was I.  I was a little worried that we would receive the letter two days later--on graduation day--but I was pretty certain it wouldn't.

Fast forward to 11:15 am two days later.

I just happened to walk outside as the mailman drove up to our house. He handed me a stack of paper, and I could see a big white envelope with its return address "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Before I even got into the house, I text Ben--"Guess what I'm holding right now??" He was in the final awards assembly of his final day of his high school career, and all he could think about was that white envelope waiting for him at home.

The texts flew between us, and I've never seen him like that.

When was he going to open it?--ASAP.

Wait for Tucker and Karli. They will be home at 4:30.--No way, Mom. I'm opening it at 1.

Well, you may not be able to wait for them, but Dad won't be out of court till 2, so you have to wait till then.--I don't know if I can. Sorry, you have to wait for your dad.

He walked in the door just after 12:30 with a gaggle of friends who had already planned to celebrate the last day of school in our pool, gorging themselves on pizza, nachos, and soda--and all placed a fluorescent sticky note on our big map of the world guessing where in the world Ben would be serving. He has the best group of friends I've ever seen, and I love all of them. I couldn't disappoint them and make Ben wait until after they'd all gone home to prepare for graduation that night.

I succeeded in holding Ben off until 2:15.

Tucker and Karli pulled over in Flagstaff (just two hours from home) and FaceTimed. Heidi was on FaceTime in Idaho, and Grandma T was on speaker phone.

Wet friends leaped from the pool to see whose guess on the big map would be correct.

Peru--Lima South. October 8, 2014. Mexico MTC. Aunt Nancy guessed right.

It was one of the best days ever.

Here's the funny thing.

When I got that big group of kids together for one final picture, one of Ben's friends shouted, "Everyone say, 'We made the blog!'

Duh. Of course they did.