A New Kind of Labor

 I think I already mentioned that Junior got his mission call to labor in the Las Vegas Nevada Mission, spanish speaking. Well, he left this morning. All of these pictures are from last night at the church where we went to be a part of him being set apart as a missionary by our stake president. The next time we see him will be 2 years from now. Except for Nicholas who will not see him for nearly 4 years. I have woken up the past 3 mornings between 3-4am and haven't been able to go back to sleep and I feel like I have been through emotional labor in the past few days. It's like you're doing ok one minute and the next your heart is swelling with grief and the tears are falling and then you calm down again. Yesterday was particularly hard for me. It must've been the final stage of labor. :-) I was definitely feeling the urge to cry every 2-5 minutes or so.  I nearly stole something from Walmart yesterday I was in such a fog. I saw a little container of Tums breath freshners and thought how perfect that would be for Junior this morning as he travels and has a nervous tummy and I started to put the package in my purse without realizing I still needed to pay for it. I caught myself though. We checked Spencer out of school so he could go see Avengers again with his older brothers and Jer was supposed to be home but all of a sudden I was home by myself and Isaac was taking a nap. I am really glad Junior was not here to see me sobbing my heart out. Thank goodness by the time he was home and we finished up everything last night, I was back in control. I just had no idea how hard this was going to be. I told Sarah not to have any more kids yesterday because of the pain of saying goodbye, then I took it back this morning and told her to have lots of kids because it actually helps. I just wish someone had prepared me for how unbelievable sad I would feel. I am supposed to be all excited for him and I am, but it still hurts very much. I know that also means great things will come out of it because anytime something is this difficult--such as giving birth to a baby--there is unbelievable joy in the end. I am so thankful Heavenly Father sent the Potters to live here and that Sarah was kind enough to come over today. She was like my own personal epidural and kept the pain away by keeping me distracted all day. I don't envy anyone that has to say goodbye to their children and Junior being a really good young man just made it all the harder. Even his sisters cried at different times because "he's the nice brother, he's never mean to us". I think we all cried during his father's blessing on Sunday during our last FHE with Junior (for now). All day I have been thinking about where he is in his travels but I feel a great calm because I know he is in the Lord's hands. And I totally just called the MTC right this minute to make sure he got there and he did!! Yea!!!!!!!!

We are going to miss you so terribly much Junior but we love you so very much and are so very proud of you! Now on to me being better at blogging so you can catch up on everything when you get back!