Farewell & Goodbyes

(written in Holly's perspective)

Cory is now officially a full-time Missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We dropped him off at the airport Wednesday morning & said our goodbyes for two years.

Early Morning Yawns:

Siblings:

Parents:

Nephews:

Staged hug goodbye:

(I was too busy wiping my tears to take pictures of our real goodbye hugs...)

It was really hard to say goodbye, but it made it easier knowing that he's serving the Lord & that he's where he should be. We're all anticipating his first email to hear how things are going!! He will be at the Provo MTC for three weeks (probably until July 31), and then he'll go down to the Guatemala MTC for six more weeks before entering the field mid-September.

His "farewell" talk in church was this past Sunday, and he did really, really well. He has such a strong testimony & is going to be an awesome missionary. He had lots of family & friends there to support him--some of which are pictured below:

Matching Ties for one of the last times:

Sunday night we had a little open house at my mom's house for people to come visit and say goodbye. There was a huge turnout!

Cory was set apart as a missionary on Monday night. He was given & promised some amazing blessings, and the Spirit was very strong. He will be a true blessing to the people of Guatemala.

After he was set apart, we went as a family for one last outing together to YoYogurt. Fun times!

It's hard to believe he's already gone--and that it will be TWO YEARS before we see him again! We're excited to watch him grow & mature through his letters, and we're already looking forward to being reunited in July 2014!!!

Final wave goodbye as he got on the plane to leave:

We love you, Elder Henderson!!!