Sister Andrea Elaine Hale

I'm up way too late tonight . . . doing bills, taking care of too-long-put-off correspondence, blogging . . .

Back in the fall of 2009, I knew that come November, life was going to take off at the speed of light for several weeks. I kind of categorized it into three phases: 1. The trip to Australia and N.Z. 2. Christmas and the holidays with my whole family home and 3. Getting Annie ready for her mission and sending her off. I actually added an unexpected phase that I'll call 4. Letting go of the family pet, Calvin. I've managed to blog about 1,2 and 4 (not in that order) so I guess it's time to wrap it up with 3. Getting Annie ready for her mission and sending her off.

Annie still had a month of her semester left when Brent and I took off for Australia/NZ. By the time we got back from our trip, our out of town kids had arrived for the Christmas holiday so there was no time, at that point for Annie and I to shop for her mission. By January 3rd, everyone had left (except Kalli, who headed to Provo to spend the week with her sister) so Annie and I kicked it into high gear and started to shop for her missionary clothing and other gear. Now, this is not like shopping for an Elder . . . two suits, three pants, ten shirts, ten socks, seven ties, one calling card and a partridge in a pear tree! Sister missionaries, particularly visitor center sisters, have to acquire a fairly nice wardrobe of clothing including several mid-calf skirts (anyone tried to find mid-calf skirts lately?) and four or five nice suit jackets. Shoes for the visitor's center, shoes for tracting, boots, pantyhose (Annie . . . "what's pantyhose"?), dressy shirts and blouses, dresses, cardigan sets (what's that?), pajamas, gym clothes, jeans (not low rise or skinny). Colorful but not TOO colorful. Tasteful but not trendy. AAUUGGHH! This may sound like a lot of fun to a lot of mothers and daughters out there but neither Annie or I are what you call enthusiastic shoppers. Never the less, we screwed our courage to the sticking post and set forth for several days of SHOPPING OUR BRAINS OUT! Sister missionary mall in Provo, Dillards, Maceys, Nordstrom (great pantyhose), numerous shoe stores, Banana Republic (outlet store), The Wight House in Bountiful (where we should have started . . . outstanding choices for sister missionaries) . . . Hi Ho, Hi Ho . . . a-shopping we did go! And we enjoyed ourselves in spite of ourselves. Being together was the best part of it. The only situation that I can think of where I would call a several days long shopping trip a treasured memory!

So . . . in the midst of all this crazy shopping was the preparation for the meeting formerly known as "The Farewell". Annie prepared a talk on the subject of hope, a favorite subject of both hers and mine. Our good friend, Laura Smoot, also spoke in church that day. When Annie found out that Laura would be speaking with her, it was so calming for her. I cleaned house, prepared food for the open house afterwards and Brent and Jordan moved furniture and set up tables and chairs downstairs. The photo above is Annie, visiting with friends after church.

It was so good to see so many of Annie's friends after the meeting. I wish I could include pictures of all of them in this post. Pictured above are Whitney, Shea and Michelle.

Good friends, Laura and Matt. Matt and Annie have been friends since the fifth grade when she changed schools from Centerville Elementary to J.A. Taylor El. They've snowboarded, skateboarded, played night games, and even played in a little band together.

Friends from our first Centerville ward Adelle Barnett Lowe, Dora Wersland, Sven Wersland and Trudy Prescott. Actually, Trudy and Keith Prescott live next door to us now. Annie started sitting with Adelle in church when she was a year and a half old . . . every week as soon as we got in the chapel, she'd find Adelle and run and plunk herself on her lap! Pretty soon, Adelle started packing a bag with quiet books and cheerios and Annie ended up sitting with her, every Sunday for eight years! Sven and Dora lived across the street from us when we were in our first Centerville home. Even though their children were older and most of them had left home, Sven and Dora let all the little neighborhood kids hang out in their yard, climb their big tree and jump on their trampoline. Annie and her friend, Stan Smoot, repaid their kindness, one day, by picking EVERY one of Dora's big, beautiful marigold blooms and tossing them under the trampoline! The only time that I ever saw Dora get even mildly upset at the kids. Not one of Annie's best moments!

LaVerna Stapler and Ty Olson. LaVerna became a second mom to Annie, over the years, through Annie's friendship with her son, Richie. Annie cherishes her friendship with LaVerna. Ty is a good friend of Annie, Richie and Matt (a couple of photos back) . . . a years long friendship of snowboarding, skate boarding and in general just having a great time. I was wishing that I'd been able to get a photo of Annie with her long time friend Stan Smoot. We used to call them Annie and Stannie . . . they started out their friendship when they were both in diapers! Annie always loved hanging around with a posse of guy friends . . . I guess because she had three older brothers she was just comfortable with guy stuff. I love Annie's friends . . . the guys and the girls!

Family and good friends. Left to right: Laura, Brittany (Kalli's sister), Kalli, Kirstie (Kalli's sister), Nicole and Chad Walker, Scott, Shay (Rachel's sister).

The "Jeru Crew". Some of the eighty people that were in the group that Annie was in Jerusalem (semester abroad) with. Several of these great young people came to Lake Powell with us for a reunion trip, at the end of last summer. I love these kids.

The day before Annie left for the MTC, we decided to take her for a little photo shoot as I didn't really have a good photo of Annie to frame and set out in the living room. When the photographer found out she was going on a mission, she did some "missionary shots". Most of them were fairly cheesey but I thought the one below had the quintessential "Annie look".

These photos were taken at the Texas Roadhouse where we had dinner just before the Stake President came to our home to set Annie apart as a missionary. Above are Brent's parents with Brent and I and below are Laura, Annie, Scott and Rachel. Jordan had to work late so he couldn't join us for dinner.

This is just before Annie and I dug in and started packing all her stuff into her two suitcases. We ended up having to call in reinforcements . . . Brent Hale the "superpacker". That man could shoehorn an elephant into a coat closet if he had a mind to!

Just before leaving to take Annie to the MTC. Don't let the smiles fool you . . . we were all feeling a little bleak.

Just before we left, I saw Annie saying her goodbyes to Calvin. The tears were just running down her face and I heard her say "I'll see you in another life, Calvin". She knew that Calvin wouldn't be around when she got home in eighteen months . . . I just don't think she knew he'd be gone a week after she left. It was really hard to write her and tell her that we had to put Calvin down.

We went up to the Provo temple grounds before we dropped Annie off because we knew that there wouldn't be any time for photos together once we drove through the MTC gate. Everything finally became "real" to me, when we drove onto the MTC grounds. Up until that point it was as though we'd just be shopping for her mission and talking about her mission and anticipating her mission but, at that moment, I finally realized that she was LEAVING on her mission. Okay Sandra . . . have a little dignity. No uncontrollable sobbing at the MTC curb.

We were directed to park at a "station" along side the curb where two smiling, friendly young Elders (they looked about seventeen years old) greeted us and grabbed Annie's luggage. They gave us about fifteen seconds to give her one last hug (how can I really let her go?) and then they whisked her off in the direction of the MTC building, engaging her immediately in conversation.

She didn't look back . . I know because I watched her for what seemed like a long time. We drove away and I was feeling fairly proud of the way that I'd kept my composure, despite the crushing weight I was feeling right around my heart. The composure lasted all the way until we drove off the grounds and then came the sobs . . . long and loud with buckets of tears. Brent looked pretty stoic to me, although he told me later that he had a pretty big lump in his throat. Anyway, after I'd cried for about ten minutes (we were already on the freeway) Brent, in an attempt to comfort me, kindly said something like "Honey, she's in God's hands now and she's going to have a great experience" to which I replied something like "If you hit me with one more platitude like that I'm going to strangle you with your own entrails!" That's what he gets for trying to comfort me in a moment where there just isn't any comfort. Separation from loved ones is just plain unnatural . . . uncomfortable . . . not ever completely okay. I have kids and grandkids in Minnesota and Boston, parents and siblings in Canada and now a daughter in Nebraska who I'll get to talk to just three times in eighteen months. On entering this world, we are separated from God and spend a lifetime feeling that separation ACUTELY. We sort of get used to all the separation. . . all of the goodbyes and see ya laters. Sort of. But it's never really completely okay . . . not really. So is it okay with me that my youngest child (who also happens to be my good friend) has chosen to serve the Lord by going on a full time mission? Of course! I don't have any problem with her going THERE . . . it's this business of her leaving HERE that's causing me heartburn. But I'll get used to it . . . sort of.

To wrap things up . . . here is a photo of Annie's (Sister Hale's) MTC companion, Sister Stanger. And here are Sisters Hale and Stanger chilling in their MTC bunkbeds. Annie left for Nebraska last Tuesday and she was able to call us from the airport and talk for awhile. It was great to hear her talk about some of her MTC experiences and feel the strength of her testimony and her gratitude for the plan of salvation. She will be an awesome missionary. But I miss her.

If anyone reading this is interested, I'm posting her letters and photos to a Facebook group called Letters from Sister Andrea Elaine Hale. I think anyone can join. You don't necessarily have to be one of my Facebook friends. My kids are trying to talk me into doing a separate blog of Annie's mission. I'm still thinking about it.