Cade’s Christmas

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We started off December with an early Christmas for Cade since he would be leaving on the 13th. Christmas is not all that exciting when you are leaving on a mission-all you get is mission stuff, but we tried to make it as exciting as we could. Here he is wearing or holding every gift he got: a Moroni tie, a Moroni tie pin, a mountain tie clip, snazzy heated gloves, a mission bag, Moroni socks and stripling warrior socks, a framed picture of his family, a mission cookbook with all his favorite recipes and tickets to see Gentri in concert a few days later. (It was an Awesome concert!)

A few days later the MTC sent him a Christmas present in the mail…

On the 10th, Cade was set apart as a missionary. 

As soon as the Stake President finished the blessing, Cade whipped out his name tag, which he’d had in his pocket, and put it on. 

That night he needed to run his suit coat over to a seamstress for a quick fix. He took his companion, Elder Hymas, with him….

On the 11th he began his one day of at home MTC. 

On the 13th, we got up nice and early and dropped this handsome, talented, faithful, stalwart young man off at the Boise airport for his flight to the real MTC in Provo.

He found five other missionaries getting on the same flight and they all bonded before take off. A few hours later, he landed in Salt Lake where Allie picked him up and took him to breakfast with Reagan before dropping him off at the MTC.

I sent Allie a text when we dropped him at the airport that said, “Package delivered” This is the picture/text she sent back when she picked him up: “Package received”

We talked to him on his P-day a few days later and he was LOVING the MTC. He loves his district, his companion, the spirit, all of it. I was so relieved! On Christmas Eve he sent us a picture of what he got for his Christmas Eve gift this year…

Don’t ask me what he’s doing, but his tie has snowflakes on it. 

Santa sent him his stocking and his Christmas cereal as well. Elder Cook came an spoke to the missionaries that day and Cade sent us a picture of who he got to sing with at one of the many concerts/devotionals he got to go to on Christmas.

That’s Dallyn Vail Bayles for those who don’t know. He’s an amazing tenor who was on Broadway and in our ward in New Jersey. Here’s a video of one of my favorites that he sings:

We get to Zoom with Cade every week and that is really nice, I gotta say. His aunt took pity on him and made him some of her Christmas truffles, sent them home to Utah with Allie in a cooler, and then Allie found a company that delivers daily to the MTC, so he got a little late Christmas joy from home. He has had an amazing experience at the MTC and will fly out to Colorado on Friday, Jan. 5th. That’s when the rubber really meets the road. Can’t wait to see what awaits him in the mission field!

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