Where in the World is June Serving?

I realized that posts are going to be all over the map (pun intended) for a while, as I try to catch up and get important things on here. I also realized that I wanted to put June's letters on here because then they will be saved forever for the family to read. 

But it doesn't make sense to put letters on here when the blog hasn't even documented the events leading up to her departure. So let's get on that right away.

June opened her portal in the summer and dutifully started working on getting all her info on there and her medical records up to date and whatever tid bits she needed. She really wanted to serve foreign. You can't pick that, but there was a question asking if she wanted to stay in the states to which she responded with an emphatic NO.

Her plan was to go to one semester of BYU and leave for her mission in January. So she turned her papers in just before her birthday in September. In fact, Tyler and I were on a cruise when she submitted them. (Alas, also not documented yet.) 

We were not prepared for how fast her call came. Long gone are the days of waiting at the mailbox every week. Instead, June's call came back the following week. So fast. I ordered a map and I wasn't sure it was going to come in time. Calls arrive on Tuesdays, but June decided to wait until Saturday to open her call. That takes some serious patience. And meanwhile, the map showed up. Where might she go in this big world?

Saturday arrived and the house slowly filled with friends and neighbors. And the map slowly filled with guesses of where June might serve. 

Then it was time for her to open her call. It's sent over email, so she read it off her phone. It used to be that the location was at the beginning, but now they have the important reminders before everyone gets lost in the geography. I loved hearing the importance of serving a mission.

In this picture, you can see she just announced the location. Smiles all around.

Now, if you want to listen to it yourself, go ahead.

There you have it. The Dominican Republic, commonly referred to as the DR. Who would have thought? I'm not sure I even knew where that country was until she opened her call. But I sure will never forget where it is now. 

No one guessed the right place. Jasmine, one of Sharon's roommates, was close with Puerto Rico, but she missed by a few miles.

We later have learned that the Dominican Republic has three missions. June will serve in the north in the Santiago mission. And down south is East and West Santa Domingo. We are so excited for her. June has so many good friends. You can even see here that at her mission call opening, some of her friends had already donned their tags and were soon to hit the MTC. 

June Graduates 2021

Graduation was a great day. It was back to a big stadium and was mostly what I expect graduation is supposed to be. As usual, I'm going to combine a couple days, so let's jump back just a little for Seminary graduation. 

I'm so proud of June for going to all her years of Seminary. The curriculum changed part way through, so she didn't get to do all of the books of scripture. They missed the Bible and she did the Book of Mormon twice, but she read the Bible anyway. Good job June. They had a lovely night where they honored all the graduates and June even spoke at graduation.

Then the big graduation day!! Are you ready June? This is it. Your high school days are closing and new chapters are opening. We had fun making her Grad Announcement. I think it turned out really cute.

June had her phone with her, although I think Eve had it most of the time. So on her side of things, there were a lot of selfies and lots of Seniors milling around. You could tell that everyone was having a good time.

On our side, we sat in the stadium and watched the kids slowly move across the field. Graduations are not super exciting. But it was fun to see all these great kids and know they have accomplished this important step. We had seats that were a little too close to the front, so we couldn't see the Jumbotron very well. Note to self, get there earlier.

We met up outside afterward where they were hardy congratulations and lots  more selfies.

 We celebrated by taking June out to dinner at Red Lobster. (Yes, we were missing Robyn)

That same night was Senior Grad Night. The kids stayed up late and played hard. Tyler and I came to help give out pizza. June played Spikeball all night (go figure), but she also rode the bull. Nice job June! (I always snuck a picture of June's Sterling Scholar photo)

Then she finished out all the craziness at Lagoon the next day. Those Seniors must have been so tired. But what a great week for them.

June has such good friends. They all support each other and are really great people. I imagine they will go on to do great things, but most importantly, I think they will be amazing humans. 

Sounds of Silence

It's the New Year!! Hello 2022. Covid is worse than ever before. The new Omicron virus is super contagious and everyone seems to be sick. Things are shutting down again and I'm hoping we can still stay in school, even if it means masks. 

The world continues to be in crazy upheaval and we continue to try to keep things as normal as possible. Well, as normal as things can be with June leaving shortly for her mission. But it is pretty normal for me to be ridiculously behind on blogging. I have noticed a marked difference with working. I don't have the same amount of time as I used to and it affects so many of the small things. So with the new year, I'm going to give myself some more time to blog. It needs to happen. 

So today, you get a bit of a hodge podge of last May. There are always so many performances and part of what is slowing me down is trying to get things into video format. (Which is ironic, since you can't see videos in the blog books anyway.) So to speed up the process just a tiny bit, today you get some highlight pictures and NO videos. You can just imagine singing and playing and we'll move on with life. 

First up was choir at the Junior High. Ivory and Daisy both sang and did a fantastic job. Ivory had some duets where she got to sing at the microphone. She did such a splendid job. She is becoming such a good singer. She is starting to make up her own songs and sing them while she plays on the piano. Daisy also is growing in leaps and bounds. She did her first solo this last December. I'm so proud of both of them. 

Robyn continues to play amazing on all the instruments she does. This was her end of year band concert and I can't remember which all instruments she played for her concerts, but you can see her on the left, playing Marimba in the second picture. 

As usual, we all try to come and support. It isn't always all of us, but it's always some of us. 

June had her final choir concert. I'm so glad she took choir her last year. There is something special about participating with Mr. Taylor and I'm glad she got to have the experience. They recognized the Seniors, but the pictures I took were so bad, I didn't include one of those. It was a wonderful concert.

Since we're on a roll, I'm going to include 9th Grade graduation. Depending on the year, it is a weird event. They didn't have it in 2020 obviously, so this was an attempt to get back to normal. The choir sang, so Ivory got to do that again. Mostly it is a recognition of students that excel in certain classes. Ivory excels in all her classes, but wasn't picked as a stand out student. That's fine. We know she is the tops. It was fun to see her with friends and celebrate the end of Junior High.

These kids are so awesome and I love all the concerts and performances we get to attend. Today was a silent tribute, but don't worry, we'll make some more noise soon!