Well, we actually did it yesterday - we dropped our son CJ off at the LDS Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. It was every bit as bitter-sweet as we were told to expect - bitter to give up our big boy for two years, and sweet because he's doing exactly what we would hope he would do. Yes - it was an emotional time for us, but we weren't the only ones in the room wiping away their tears. In the back of my mind this was all kind of funny, because I remembered when I was the missionary and my father was dropping me off - I couldn't understand why he was being emotional - now I know. Anyway, attached is a photo that I took after he picked up his name badge - note the new alphabet, on top of the new language, that he gets to learn in the next eight weeks. Of course, Bulgarian is just one of the over 50 languages currently being taught at the MTC, and CJ is just one of the 52,000 missionaries around the world right now - it's all amazing to me.
After we dropped CJ off and said our good-byes, we stopped in at one of the local stores there in Provo before driving back home and bumped into a young lady that we knew back in La Paz - she didn't recognize me at first, but when I started talking to her in Spanish I caught her attention quickly. It turns out that she and her sister are in Provo attending BYU's summer English language training program and are working in the MTC cafeteria - I wonder if CJ will recognize them if and when he sees them.
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