Missionary Farewell

 Jason had his missionary farewell in the Creekside Ward Sacrament Meeting on March 17, 2013.  Over 40 friends and family showed up to wish him well and then gathered after at our home to spend some more time with him before he leaves.  Jason isn't leaving until April 16 so this was kind of an early farewell for him but he has requested to attend "one last Cincinnati Reds game" before he leaves so we are taking him down to Phoenix for a Spring Training Game this weekend and after that, other missionaries have their farewells so we decided upon an early farewell.

This is Jason in the chapel after sacrament meeting, I think that might be a look of relief upon his face!  This was the first time I ever looked at him and thought, "Wow, he really DOES look like a missionary!"  Must be the Mr. Mac missionary suit, huh?  :)

This is the front cover of the Sacrament Meeting program and below is a copy of the talk he gave.  He did a GREAT job and had most of us in tears as he talked about his Grandpa's and how thankful he was for the atonement that will allow him to see them again.  For weeks before he spoke he said, "I just dont want to cry when I get up there" and he held it together until the very end when he spoke of his family and beat a hasty retreat from the podium forgetting to bear his testimony in order avoid a total meltdown.  But we all did the meltdown for him in the congregation.  He did a great job speaking though and we all were quite proud of him, of course!

Jason has 5 cousins (including two sets of twins) from Linda's side of the family that are all preparing to serve missions, two of which have been called to serve in Bogota, Columbia and Manchester, New Hampshire and the others will be submitting their papers soon.  In six months all these in the picture below will be out serving somewhere in the world (assuming they have room in the MTC's for them!)