First week

Just an update on Jeshua:

Last week we drove down to Provo and dropped Jeshua off.  When we got about to Salt Lake City, he exclaimed, "Crap!  I forgot my insulin."  Well after some debate about transferring the prescription quickly we decided to just overnight his current prescription.  So after we dropped him off we drove straight home and arrived in time to get it boxed up (along with some candy and treats) and got to UPS about 10 min before they closed.  It's been an interesting transition to not having him around all the time...all those little things that he did to help out added up to A LOT!  also just not being able to talk to him and tell him this or that, or listen to him torment his sisters.  I miss talking to him the most.  Love that boy of mine, but I can tell reading this that he is having a good time.  

He gets email time once a week and mentions below that he would prefer mail to email.  His mailing address is: 

Elder Jeshua Aaron Harker

DEC 14 TX-MCAL

2005 N 900 E Unit 137

Provo, UT  84602

He should be in Provo until the 14th of Dec.  It's nice to hear that he is meeting the people...if you know Jesh you know how shy he is, as well as how bad with names he is.  So it was really unexpected to see that he has names down already ;).  

I just copied and pasted so all of the grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc errors are all him. The English teacher in me just wants to wap him across the head!  But since I love him so dang much I will disregard (for now). Here is his letter to us:

Hey so today is our first p-day and we finally can write home. Even writing letters is hard because we hardly have any time to go to the bathroom in our spare time. We get up at 6:30 and are in class/meals til 9:30pm and then our personal time is til10:15. My companions are Elder Clayton from Boise and Elder Stuart from Roosevelt Utah. Our district is funny though. The elders in the next door over rearranged their room and well.... it exploded. 

Thanks for sending the insulin and the candy. Thanks for my camo bandana. I've had to use it as a hanky cause its been so cold. But first i met a few cool people! I met an Elder Clukey from Edmonton, Alberta who said he knew several Harkers, and a specific name came up as Lance Harker. Elder Brobinski and a very pretty Sister Ohlwiler both have T1D. I met Elder Hernandez-Reyez from the jewell, Texas(McAllen) who was going to Poky. so we were all like "Whoa hey thats cool" 

We've all been getting up on time, the elders next to us "Elders Marsh,Moss, Gold, and Gustaveson" don't go to sleep so its always funny the stories they tell in the mornings.  please have everyone send letters to me for the weekly email. we only get an hour so its best to read everyone's letters before hand and spend the hour replying. since we didn't get p-day our first week they email to say we were alright. ill try to send pictures but i still am trying to figure out the camera and computer interface. One sister in our district looks sounds and acts just like aunt Camille, but shes been really sick so we been praying for her. i been writing in my journal everyday. 

Our teacher observed our lesson to an investigator(situation is fake but its to help us learn) and she thought i talked too much. ya let that sink in.

It is honestly better to send letters as a missionary cause an hour isn't much time so send letters. I am wondering if you could send me in the mail the lyrics(and for the cause of elder clayton the sheet music if its possible) to some of my favorite songs like Scotland the Brave and Christmas 1915. songs like that. send pictures in the mail of you guys. been tellin all the guys huntin stories. 

In my interview with our district president we said that its good to have me out here cause Idaho farm-boys are notorious for working hard. we got a little snow but it soon turned to rain then snow then rain then sun. Missing being able to have a good calendar on my ipod. The days seem to morph into one here. I've heard the comment "its like prison but with more work, we can go to the temple, and there's no visitation" so we all thought that was a hoot. we met our first greeny yesterday. he was from montana. well tell everyone i love them and keep $100 in my checking. ill be back before ya know it. 
-Jeshua 

The MTC

Elder Jeshua Harker @ the MTC

Bags were packed and loaded.  We loaded up the family and headed down the road.  Just a mere three hours left with the oldest child in the family.  And he slept most of the way there.  I'm sure that this was his coping mechanism to deal with the stress and nervousness of the past few days weeks months.  You know, preparing to serve a mission has a lot of steps.  A lot more than one would realize (especially for a T1D missionary).  Multiple medical exams, dental exams, vision exams.  So much paperwork to fill out and submit.  So many personal interviews with leadership.  Wow.  Just such an intense process.  And then there's all the other preparations: packing, shopping, and more packing.

So we drove down the road with a carload of goodbye tension.  The oldest daughter wanted to play car games to ease the tension, just nobody else seemed to be into that.

Two hours into our three hour drive Jeshua exclaims, "Crap!"  Since I happened to be driving through mid-morning traffic in Salt Lake City, Utah at the time this was more than alarming.  "I forgot my insulin."  Well.  Now that presents a difficulty.  It's one thing to forget a minor object left behind, but the one thing that actually keeps you alive, well that's a whole other story.  Good for Jesh he had refilled his pump the night before and had three days worth of insulin on him.  We decided to just overnight his medication to him.  

Arriving in Provo we went to lunch at the Brick Oven.  Yummo!  Awesome place to eat AND they comp'ed Jeshua's meal (in honor of his missionary service).  I think it's a typical missionary send off restaurant, cuz there were lots of missionaries there having their send off lunch.  Jeshua has a friend from the neighborhood that moved to Provo, and John met us for lunch.  At first I was a little peaved about sharing my last few hours, but it ended up being such a good thing for us.  John being with us helped to relieve some of that good by tension.  

I had a schedule worked out

11-12 lunch

12-12:40 pictures at Provo temple

12:45 MTC

but lunch ended up taking longer than planned (12:30!) and so we had less time to take pictures at the temple...this I'm sure did NOT bother Jeshua (the boy hates pictures!)  but I told him I was gonna get a few, even if we had to be late to our 12:45 MTC appointment.  So we got over to the temple (12:40ish), parked across the street, ran through the parking lot, snapped a few (maybe 5) pics of the boy, the boy with his sisters, the boy with his dad, and the boy with both parents.  Then we ran back across the street, jumped back in the car (this is when the sisters gave him their g'bye hugs) and pulled onto the MTC property AT 12:45.  Ha!  I win the time battle.

As we pull up a flock of missionaries come out to help (we weren't the only arrivees) and a certain elder comes to our car to assist with our luggage.  I pull the luggage out as Jesh and his dad hug good bye.  Then I get a hug from my boy--the last one for TWO years, mind you.  And then he starts to walk away.  I ask Aaron pull out his phone and make Jeshua stop and turn for one last picture. And then he's gone.  He walks away, without even looking back. (as it should be, but still!)