There She Goes!

June 23, 2014

Early Monday morning, McKenna said goodbye to Panguitch valley for 18 months.  We left at 8 am, arrived in Circleville to get set apart by President Mike Dalton and traveled up to Salt Lake City.  Enough time for lunch McKenna picked her favorite restaurant - the Garden in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  We love that place!  All the flags were hanging from the ceiling for the soccer world cup.  We were seated under the Spain flag and our waiter served a mission to Spain!  I considered this all a good omen!  They displayed a card on our table, "Called to Serve".  A woman from Africa approached McKenna and asked if she could have her picture with the future missionary and wished her luck.

After lunch, we headed to Salt Lake International Airport.  McKenna received help at the kiosk to check in from a true Spaniard!   Even more good luck!  Next she checked on her suitcase and we headed up the escalator to security.  That was it!  When we got up to the top and saw how close we were, there were a few tears and a few more pictures.  I can still feel her hug!  It felt that good!  A few more tears and goodbye and she bravely set off for her new adventure as a  missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints!  There has been such a peace since that day.  I wouldn't ask for her back even if I did want to be with her.  She is where she needs to be, doing what she knows she should be doing, and she will be blessed for eternity for her service.  We love you McKenna!  You will be a wonderful missionary!

As soon as she went through security, I really wanted to text her to tell her to be safe, be careful around strangers and to have a safe flight...nope, not going to happen!

Typical McKenna - already making friends!

 I put an app on my phone so we could track McKenna's plane to Spain.  Needless to say - we followed it all the over.  By the time we went to bed it was just heading out over the Atlantic.  And yes, I woke a few times in the night to check on her progress!