The day before leaving

Jadon, Gladys, me and Dale

 The night of Jadon's farewell he was very quiet and seemed kind of down when he went to bed.  When I got up in the morning, I had to pick up a few more things for Jadon from the store.  Before I left, I asked Dale to chat with Jadon and figure out what he wanted to do.  Jadon was feeling the stress of everything that still needed to be done before he left and he also wanted to do something fun before he left.  So they made a list of all the things he needed to do and we decided that we would get all those things done on Monday so we could play on Tuesday, the day before he left.
Tuesday morning we got up early and went to the first session at the Oquirrah temple.  It was a great way to start the day.

Katie was so excited to ride with Jadon

 Before we left for the temple, we told the kids to be ready to go when we got home.  Dale had just found out that there was a new family that just moved into our ward.  They moved here from Venezuela.  He thought it would be a good idea to go visit them so we all headed over there.  They don't speak very much English but we could tell they are a super neat family.  After that we all headed up to Park City.  We were thrilled that Gladys was in town and was able to come with us! It was a beautiful day and not crowded at all.  We walked right on to the ski lift for the Alpine Slide and didn't have to wait too long for the coaster.  We had so much fun riding both of them.

 After we were done with the slide and the coaster we went out to lunch at the Mexican restaurant we have been too several times in Park City. 

Katie and Jadon in line to get tickets

Jaxon, Dale, Kyson and Jadon riding up to the Alpine Slide

Everyone walking to the slide

Everyone excited to go down

 We love being in Park City.  We try to go every summer.  We had such a good time together!

Jadon in his CMC tie that all the missionaries in our ward, for the last 2 years, have signed

 After lunch we came back down to our house and spent an hour or so at home before Jadon was going to be set apart.  He was getting some things down on the computer before he left.  At 7:00 we headed over to the stake center.

Jadon giving his Dad a hug right before we left for the Stake Center.  He knew he was giving up his phone right after so he was taking one last look.

Our missionary son, Elder Byers

The setting apart was very emotional.  The stake president started out by asking me to bare my testimony.  I had been told this would happen but I still wasn't prepared.  I was overcome with emotion.  The day Jadon was being set apart was also the one year anniversary of my mom's death so she was on my mind a lot that day.  It was very hard for me to talk and express myself.  I shared with my family how thankful I was for Jadon and his decision to serve a mission.  I talked about how he just came good.  He has always wanted to be obedient and do the right thing.  I also talked about how thankful I am that families can be together forever so that I will be able to see my mom again.  Dale followed me with a beautiful testimony.  He talked about how envious he is that Jadon gets to go serve the lord for two years and how happy he is that he gets to do that.  The Bishop and the Stake president said a few words and then they set him apart as a missionary. 

Jadon and his sisters

 After He was set apart, we decided to go to Macey's for an ice cream cone.  We just wanted to cram as much as we could into one day and didn't want it to end!

I'm coming too!

 When we got home, we packed his clothes.  Dale found a video online teaching a missionary the best way to pack his clothes.  We watched that and ended up having a lot of room left over.  We thought we might be missing something but went over the packing list several times and we had it all.

watching the packing video

Jadon was very quiet most of the time that we were packing.  Towards the end he started to get very cold.  He never gets cold.  I was worried that he was getting sick.  He took a shower and came up and layed down on the floor and fell asleep.  I felt so bad for him and really had no idea what was going through his head.  What a scary thing to leave home and know you won't be coming back for two years!