Goodbyes and Goodbyes

So many goodbyes these past few weeks! 

Goodbye to friends, goodbye to schools, and teachers, goodbye to our ward, to our youth leaders, our neighborhood, and our familiar roads. Goodbye to my running routes, our favorite trails and parks, and goodbye to our home of fourteen and a half years! 

AND, in the midst of all of this goodbying, our Goldie managed to slip, rather quietly, off on her mission! (I wonder, will we ever have a child leave on a mission during a time of stillness in our lives? Abe left just as we were adjusting to a tenth baby in our home. And Goldie chose this wild time to make her departure.)

I say she left "rather quietly" because she really did just do all of her shopping and readying on her own. All of the fussing and prepping that feels a part of readying a missionary ... appeared to just happen by magic. Every now and then, amidst packing our house, I'd anxiously recall that I had a missionary about to leave and frantically question, "Wait? Don't we need to get you ...?" or, "What about making sure you ...?" But no. She'd already taken care of it. Who knows when or how. She's an independent little soul who seems to function quite well without too much of our interference. In fact, when we went to her setting apart, our stake president was telling us how, when he called her in for her interview, rather than feeling impressed to give her lots of counsel, he just felt, "Just get out of her way and let her do My work". I've occasionally kicked against that with our Goldie. (As her mother certainly I should be running some of the show, I've felt.) But she seems to prefer we stand aside while she just goes "about [her] Father's business".

And she's off on his business now. (For her mission letters, click here.)

Here we are on her farewell Sunday. We'd already moved up to Logan the weekend before but still had her farewell and a small gathering back in Pleasant View (despite our mostly empty house not being ideal for hosting). This was the last time all of us were at that house together, and we marked it with a few quick pictures on the front porch:

And here she is with a few friends who came to hear her speak in church and afterwards, with her grandparents, at her setting apart.

After she was set apart we brought her up to Logan for a week and a half of home MTC. I'd been a little worried over how that would work in this tiny rental, but she determined to set up her little card table and kitchen-table chair in the well house out back, and it worked perfectly. She'd just come back inside between classes and be with us and then go back out where our noise couldn't bother when classes or companion study began again. 

Here are a few pictures taken during that week of her here with us:

An evening over at the farm. (Goldie was not interested in being in any photos that evening, but she was in fact with us! :))

There have been so many frogs this year! I wish we could hear them chirping year round! I love their sound even more than the sound of crickets. (Sorry dear crickets! I do love your sound!)

Can you believe I'll be able to take pictures with the farm as a backdrop for the rest of my life???

Aunt Sarah brought over crafts one day. I have been thinking about my father-in-law's three sisters and wondering how it is that all of them had/have it in their very souls to be just ceaselessly thoughtful and loving. Leisa was just the same. And already Carol has brought us down goodies from Preston (where she lives) and called me to let me know I can call on her for anything. And it is seeming an unfair wonder to have not only gotten to be neighbors with Leisa, but now with Sarah too! I feel like I need to make it a study to become what is just wholly natural to them.

Not a great shot, but, while Goldie was here for home MTC, she and I ran together every other morning (which we haven't done together since she was nine and wanted to run a 5K with me). I really loved that. Below we caught a distant photo of one of the two camels that live nearby. 

We went to Willow Park one day. (Officially they are now called Zootah.) It's a pretty place, but I think they really could up their animal game a smidgen. Even just ... one small bear? What do you say, Zootah?

Somehow, in a conversation with Aunt Sarah, it came up that I still had several enormous tubs of honey from our bee days, but that I never broke into them because it was too daunting. Sarah insisted on taking them, heating up the hardened honey (by putting the tubs in the back of her car in the sun! clever girl), and putting all of the honey in jars! Can you imagine just insisting on doing that for someone? And even making them feel like it's the thing you would most love to spend your time doing? Here Goldie, Pen and Jesse are with some of our jars of honey.

Penny left a number of cute treats and notes around for Goldie before Goldie's departure.

And then ... it was time to drop her off in Provo for the rest of her training before she flies to AR. Mike and the older kids were all down in Pleasant View (as you recall, Mike is staying down there fixing the house to sell after work most days, and Abe and Dais are still working before heading back to BYU). So here the eight Logan kids are on the porch of our little rental as we left:

Stopping at Al and Gayle's for Mike and Alma to give her a blessing:

And a tiny few from the MTC. She didn't appear to have even the slightest hint of hesitation as she walked off towards those MTC doors. And if my arms felt some hesitation in letting her go, well, I don't think my spirit did. I'm sure it was a hard goodbye when we left one another at varying points to come to this earth, and it will be a hard goodbye when death comes, but this goodbye? Well. It's a small one. And we can make it knowing with confidence that none of our goodbyes will ever ever be permanent.