Over the years, Rachael has gotten a lot of coverage on my blog. And if you know us well, then you know all the ins and outs about her.
If you don’t, then I’ll give you a bit of a low down.
Zach and Rachael met at a Church Leadership conference – Zach’s first one – so back in 2015. They became fast friends. We have a no dating policy until 16 which meant friends they would stay for a while.
She lived about an 1.5 hours away – and so they would see each other at church events and then they occasionally would come to each other’s homes and spend time with each other’s family. There were ups and downs in their friendship along the way, but we got to know her quite well. When they got older, they decided to date – although the distance still meant they didn’t see each other frequently and led their own lives with their own group of friends – which I kind of liked as I wasn’t crazy about the idea of limiting building bonds with other friends which tends to happen when kids are young and they see each other all the time or go to the same school (or live in close proximity).
Anyhow, last year, Rachael headed off to France to be an au pair (she is a year older than Zach) and so they officially broke it all off. They both wanted the freedom to explore these new lives independently (her in France and Zach in his last year of high school), plus they knew that after high school Zach planned on serving a two year mission and she wanted to serve one as well. So it would be at least 3 years before they would be together and that was way too long to try to keep things going especially at their age and with all the adventures ahead of them.
They stayed good friends and Rachael has always stayed close to our family. She developed a good friendship with Zandra and was also close to Josh and Sam. And then I have also kept up a friendship with her and nagged her like a bit of a mother hen too (that’s just my nature:)). She came home from France at the beginning of the summer and we saw her a bit for some key events, mainly a little shopping excursion for her mission with me and Zandra, a mission photoshoot that her sister (who is a professional photographer) did for Zach, and then of course, Zach’s farewell.
As I mentioned, she always wanted to go on a mission too and she was called to the Bangkok, Thailand mission shortly after Zach received his call. She was set to head to the Provo MTC training centre three weeks after Zach. Which meant her farewell would be three weeks after his too.
We first went to the temple with her and her parents.
We then went to her farewell church service. After the service, we had some time to spare between the church service and the party, so we went for some yummy schwarma poutine. (I loved that Josh changed his shoes but still had his suit on, lol)
We hung out with her Dad and Stepmom that afternoon (whom we had met before and spent time with them before) when they invited us over. Josh and Sam headed over to a friend’s house to hang out (Rachael was with them for a bit there too). We then went to Rachael’s Mom’s home which is on a beautiful conservation park. They had a great party – serving all sort of Thai food.
We got some cute pics of some good byes:
They ordered up a spectacular sunset for photos too, lol!
The boys were enjoying being pretty goofy too.
Then some good bye photos (the sunset was crazy and the camera kept capturing different lighting – no filter on these!)
The next day, we were able to be at the setting apart of Rachael to be a missionary – and were able to give her a package of things to take to the MTC for Zach (he had sent me a list of what he was missing). She was also going to take with her his original passport which we finally got back with his french visa in it – until we learned it was completely illegal for her to travel with his passport without him and if they searched her and caught her she could be detained at the border, his passport would be cancelled etc. Not a good plan. Who knew?
At any rate, she was able to meet up with him briefly at the MTC to give him his package and say a quick hello. They don’t get to spend time together as they are busy in their groups each learning their languages (French and Tahitian for Zach and Thai for Rachael) but it was still fun for them to see a familiar face!
They aren’t allowed to hug members of the opposite sex when they are official missionaries (there are some strict rules to follow as missionaries) so this is their hug, lol:
It’s been amazing to watch these kids grow and see the tremendous positive influence they have had on each other. They are both giving up prime time in their lives – leaving family, friends, opportunities, school, sports – everything behind – to serve complete strangers on the other side of the world, in a language not their own – and in turn serving their God. May they both be watched over and protected as they start this next, incredible journey.
