FOND FAREWELLS

 We said "Goodbye" to two faithful missionaries this week!


Elder Bruening had to leave a couple weeks early in order to get into his Summer Term at BYU along with his sisters wedding just beforehand!

We took him to see the new Phoenix Temple site so he could see firsthand where it is and how it is coming along.

 He got to stay at the Mission Home for the night since he had an early morning flight the next day.  It was great to have a "son" in the Mission Home again!


WELCOME HOME ELDER BRUENING!

 He had an early morning flight back home to Alabama.  He is officially saying "Y'all" again!

We got to take him there personally and it was a great chance to visit with one of our special missionaries!  GOOD LUCK IN SCHOOL AND COME VISIT SOON!
Elder Bruening's sister is moving to Tucson after her wedding so we think he will have an excuse to come down often!

We had an "expected but unexpected" good-bye to say this week...
One of our Visa Waiting elders, Elder TiaTia, received his Visa to go to New Zealand!

This was after we had to completely start the Visa process over again with all the medical tests and such a couple weeks ago!  We did not think it would ever come this fast!


He had been with us 5 months and we were ready to keep him from the start!
He got to be companions with Elder Vaoga, from Samoa, who was perfect in helping him with his language studies in preparation for his Samoan speaking assignment in New Zealand!  Their housing provider, Brother Bowler, will miss him, and looks forward to a new companion there soon!

We were greeted with leis from the elders and were ready to head to the airport.

We arrived with plenty of time, so we had about an hour to just sit and visit. In this time, we realized that Elder TiaTia has more connections to us than we knew.  His stake president in Provo-Orem, is an old family friend.  President Taylor called him up to tell him we had his missionary with us and that he was now on his way to New Zealand.  It was really neat!

Elder TiaTia also knows a lot of the young men that our son Braden knows from football in Provo.
Truly it is a SMALL WORLD!


We will miss the testimony and ready smile of Elder TiaTia.  He is ours.
We also can imagine the pleadings of his mission president in New Zealand, begging for him to make it safely to that mission where he is desperately needed!
He is theirs too!
We look forward to reunions after the mission to hear of his experiences in this part of his mission and are just grateful we had him here!  It was meant to be!