Farewell, Elder Chavez

This has been a looong week for me. Last week we were in Texas for my little brother's farewell. He will be serving a mission in Kennewick, Washington Spanish speaking.We left Wednesday morning and got there that night after 14 hours of driving..really. Once we got home, it was all non-stop. We enjoyed seeing friends and family but boy was it hectic! We had about 150 people show up at my mom's house for the farewell party! It was a lot of fun. We also went to our stake's softball games where Chip was one of the star players, went to Alexa's volleyball game-she's way better than I ever was, did some shopping, and ate at our favorite restaurants that are only in El Paso (yup, even Chico's Tacos-Chip loves them!).

We also managed to squeeze in a visit to the Temple in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. With the exception of Alexa, my complete family was there. I can't describe how wonderful that was. I have a great testimony of the blessings of the temple. I have seen how it literally brings families and relatives together.

We returned to Utah on Monday and then picked up Ariel at the airport on Tuesday. That night we went to dinner at Chang's and came home to carve a pumpkin. At least he got to semi-celebrate Halloween :) ! Wednesday morning came, and surprisingly I did pretty well until I set foot on MTC ground. It had finally hit me. My little brother is not so little anymore and was leaving us for a long time. I am so grateful that he has the opportunity to do so. He and his companions will share the gospel the way two other young men did with my mother and my dad's mother. If it had not been for them, I would not be where I am now.