This has to be the strangest mission!
After arriving home on March 30 from Tahiti due to Covid, Zach quickly adapted to being “Zach” again!
I have to say, it was kind of nice having everyone quarantined together for so long. Lots of good family time, and we got used to having everyone around again.
Zach was pretty apprehensive about heading back out on a mission, but he accepted his call to be temporarily reassigned to the Canada Calgary mission.
He was supposed to leave May 26th, but as mentioned in a previous post, Josh decided to have an ruptured appendix and so we delayed Zach’s departure.
He was reassigned to leave June 17th.
We got to have one more family church (this has been such a special part of quarantine times):
It was nice we were able to celebrate Rob’s birthday first too before Zach left.
But the day snuck up and he was ready to head off again. We had some tears the night before (we are criers)
It was a very very tough goodbye.
When you first set out on a mission, there is a lot of unknown. And you can idealize how it will be.
When you head back out you know how hard it is – to be away from family, and to work, learn, serve, live with companions and follow mission rules. It’s not a vacation – as Zach found out. There was a part of Zach that really wanted to get back out, and a part that really wanted to just stay home.
And so early on the 17th , we took him to the airport. His dad and girlfriend met us there:
Everyone said their goodbyes:
It was super sunny. And the picture of Rob and I with him turned out terribly bcs of the sun (so bad I couldn’t even include it, lol). The sun was hard on the eyes as you can see, lol:
We couldn’t go in the airport with him due to the rules, but they let us walk him to the door:
We facetimed while he waited for his flight:
Then of course I tracked the flight:
He did some documenting too:
We heard from him when he arrived and got to “meet” his mission president over FaceTime too. So, so, so nice and kind and loving. This is the announcement they made on their missionary facebook page:
The first night, not gonna lie, was rough. It was P day for Zach so we were able to communicate with him. He was homesick and worried that the anxiety monster would rear his ugly head. But he said it was beautiful, everyone was kind and he liked his companion. All great things.
He got to check out his first area, 2 hours south of Calgary – Lethbridge and took a bunch of pictures of this amazing bridge!
We spoke with him again on Father’s Day and were relieved that things were going really well. He was adjusting well and was feeling good about being back out and was enjoying all the service he was able to render so far.
Excited to hear the stories of this part of his adventure!
