Mission Map

This is a map of Ethan's mission.

Ahhgee

When Ethan was born he was given a little stuffed animal, a bear. When Ethan would cry, if we would give him the bear, Ethan would stop crying. And his cry sounded like he was saying “ahh gee.” So we named the bear Ahhgee. 

Ethan had pictures with Ahhgee when he was a baby and he has kept it in his room all his life. I made him a pillow with a pocket to put books in but Ethan put his bear in it. So when Ethan left on his mission, we put Ahhgee On the couch in Ethan’s normal video game playing spot. 

Painting, painting, painting

Bryan took the week off (except last Monday) and has been working on the house, painting Courtney’s room, painting the new office, and all kinds of stuff. 

The blue wall in Ethan’s room is now white. That’s crazy! 

Courtney was so excited to get in the big room but we need to figure out how to decorate it now. 






The blue wall moved to Courtney old room, the new office. It’s a bit darker than we thought it would be and Bryan wasn’t too sure about it for a while, but he is feeling better about it now. He has it all painted and we are waiting for it to dry before moving things in.




When it’s done, I will post pics.

Changing rooms

Courtney has been so antsy to get her hands on Ethan’s bedroom. Having him do the MTC at home delayed it for 3 weeks and that was hard for her.

About 15 minutes after we got home from the airport, she started moving in. Ethan had left clothes and things so we finished packing his room up and then started moving her in.

Bryan and Courtney spent Wednesday painting the room white and then we will finish getting her switched.  We are turning her old room into the office and the goal is to have a room finished in the basement for Ethan when he gets back. 🤞🏻

Courtney is excited to have the bigger room.

Ethan flying to his mission

July 21, 2020

In true Ethan fashion, he didn’t pack until Tuesday morning. We did a load of laundry and he packed and we still had a ton of time before his 1:10 flight from St George. 

We played games, ate breakfast, talked, and waited to go to the airport. When it was finally time, we loaded up and drove out.

Bryan dropped us off at the front and I took the airport picture while Bryan parked the car.

Ethan went in and got himself all checked in. Thanks for the suitcase scale we borrowed from Grandma and Grandpa Oman, his suitcases were under the weight requirement and he had no problems. He had his ticket for St George to Salt Lake and another for Salt Lake to Denver.

Then we had to wait. We took pictures, chatted and got ready to say goodbye.


A nice woman took a family pic for us. And then we had to give final hugs and say goodbye. This was tough but he is going to be an amazing missionary and he is so ready and prepared to go.


Ethan went through security. I think he would be glad he only had to do it once because he had to take off his belt, shoes and suit coat, he also had to open his bag for his phone charger. Then he had to go through the scanner and do everything in reverse to get dressed again. It took a while.

Then he gave them his ticket and loaded on the plane.  We went to the observation deck to watch his plane take off. There were 2 sister missionaries on the same flight going to Slat Lake to catch their connecting flights. So he wasn’t the only missionary.


His plane left 7 minutes late but, when we got home we checked his progress, and it landed in Salt Lake City 20 minutes ahead of schedule. So he got there before we got home.

We watched until his plane was far from sight then we headed home. 

Here is a timelapse of Ethan's plane that one of the sister missionary's mom gave me:

We watched the progress of his plane. He landed in Salt Lake and then was supposed to fly out at around 3:15 pm for Denver. But as we watched it became apparent that his plan wasn’t going anywhere. Finally, about 90 minutes behind schedule, it took off and they were in their way. There were a bunch of missionaries on the plane. Ethan’s travel plans included 10 missionaries and we don’t know how many more were going to Denver as a stop and continuing on. 

We got an email at 10:55 pm that night from Ethan saying he had made it, was with his companion, and would be heading out to his area on Wednesday. 

Yeah! Here to the start of his adventure.

Last Sunday before Ethan leaves

July 19, 2020

Church today was a time for Ethan to say goodbye to some people in the ward. It started out as a usual Covid-style sacrament meeting. Ethan had to bless because we only have half the priesthood there and everyone sang quietly because masks muffled their voices. 

After the sacrament was over, the counselor in the bishopric who was presiding (Brother Hintze) stood and said that the planned speakers that day...the missionaries serving in our area...hadn’t shown up. But lucky for our ward, we had 2 missionaries doing home MTC who would be leaving that week. So he called on them to speak to us. 

Ethan started by saying that since doing home MTC he has found that he isn’t as nervous to get up and speak in front of people. Teaching investigators online has gotten him more comfortable. He then shared a bit about his experience and shared that he had challenged himself to read the entire Book of Mormon during his MTC experience. He finished in 10 days and had a strong testimony that reading each day is important to our testimonies. He challenged everyone to read, even if it is a little bit, each day. 

After church, we got the three of the missionaries who would leave that week, together for pictures. It was bittersweet to watch them say goodbye.

Here are the three missionaries and one future missionary (Jared is putting his papers in soon). They have all grown up together. Ethan and Daisy are going to the same mission, so that’s fun. Duncan has been reassigned to Kansas until he can get to Botswana. 

The missionaries: Elder Richey, Sister Hurt, and Elder Pack.


Their final hug goodbye with Jared, Duncan and Ethan. It was cute to see.


Brother Hintze has been amazing for these boys. He was one who pushed them to finish their Eagle, going so far as having PPIs with them each Sunday to monitor their progress (ie, make sure they were doing something each week and not slacking off). He’s a great example to them.


After Church, Monte (whose last name group goes on to church on the opposite Sunday as us) came over to say goodbye. This was Ethan’s hardest goodbye, I think. Ethan practically lived at the Evans’s house. I think we probably owe them a bunch in grocery money for feeding him so often. 🤣 Ethan loves hanging out with Monte. 

Before Monte left, I had to take a picture and, in true teenage boy fashion, I got a sarcastic photo. But it’s them. 😁

Fires

It has been crazy in Washington County the last couple of days. We have had quite a few fires that have started. One of them was over by Washington city and the other is up by Veyo. 

When Bryan and I went on our walk the other morning we could see the red of the flames over the mountain. And the air has been very smoky. The fires aren’t near our house, but we can see them pretty clearly and see the smoke.

They have a little bit of the fire contained this morning and you can’t see the flames from our house, but the haze and the smoke made it a very pretty sunrise.