We did fly out on the afternoon of February 4, 2021.   Before we could fly out, however, we had to see the kids again.  The day before we left, we had the kids come over to the house to visit for a few minutes and get another hug.  We put a large sheet of paper on the wall to measure the height of each of the grandkids so we could see how much they had grown during our adventure.  They range in age from 5 to almost 21 so we expect a serious variation in the growth.   Here they are when we did it. Good looking bunch of kids, right?  We think so. Well, Kim isn't one of the grandkids, but she snuck in anyway.  Guess which one she is. We gave them each a letter from us explaining some thoughts as to why we are leaving them.  Noah said everything was okay until he read the letter, then he got teary. Like I have told a few people, one can only prepare so much and then it's time to go.  If we don't have it, we don't need it or we can buy i...

January 28, 2021 Doing something really worthwhile seems to take a great deal of preparation, patience, long-suffering, and more patience and a lot of work and perseverance.  Got the idea?  We began this adventure in earnest last May (May 2020).  We had scanned the senior missionary opportunities for a few months and decided on Tonga. There were several opportunities, some critical, that were open.  Arranging for doctor visits, for example, at the outset of a global pandemic is really hard.  Just a physical exam, that's all we wanted!  To be brief, not everyone was cooperating with us. And, I didn't like that, but I persevered.  From inception to filing our mission application was longer than we expected.  I had expected to put our available date sometime in September.  By the first part of July, we had it all together and had our interviews with the Bishop and then Stake President scheduled.   Before we decided to get things going ...