Leaving for Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 30, 2013

The departure day arrived!  We said good-bye to Tyler and Todd and headed to the airport with Ryan who was departing for San Antonio at about the same time as Hannah.  Before we left for the airport, Mike had the wonderful idea of having a small family testimony meeting just standing there together in the kitchen.  It was beautiful to hear the boys talk about their own missions and to hear their testimonies of the truthfulness of the gospel.  It was the start of a very special morning.

When we got to the airport and were in the line to check Hannah's luggage, a very tall young man came up in line behind us with his mom and dad and we knew for sure he had to be a missionary as well.  It turned out that Elder Wood from Golden, Colorado was also going to the Sao Paulo MTC and was seated next to Hannah on the flight to Detroit where they met up with several others who joined them on their flight to Brazil.  I was instantly relieved knowing that she wasn't going to be alone for any part of her long journey to South America.  It was a very big tender mercy for me!

Another tender mercy was that Ryan's flight was a little delayed and it was just a couple of gates down from Hannah's gate so he was able to stay with her right up until it was time to board.  That also gave me a lot of peace!

We stayed with them in the security line for as long as possible and then we finally had to give her one final hug and kiss and let her go!  Man of man, that was one of the hardest moments of my life so far!  How does a mom let her baby girl go to a foreign country for 18 months?  The only way I could was to place her in the Lord's Hands, which is what we did!

Elder Wood's family told us that we could watch and wave good-bye through this glass window above the escalators leading to the train.  So we got one final glimpse of the two of them as they disappeared beneath us.  It was tough to keep from bawling at that point!

One last kiss goodbye and off she goes to one of the greatest experiences of her life! We are proud and pleased and we are going to miss her like crazy!  We look forward to 18 months of awesome emails and lots of great adventures in sharing the gospel with the great people of Joao Pessoa!