August 15, 2017 - Departing for Lima, Peru MTC

The morning finally came for Tanner to leave for the MTC.  The night before he told me he was nervous to go to bed since he would have to wake up the next morning.  He said he slept pretty good the night before even though we had to get up very early in the morning to get to the airport.  We left home close to 6 a.m.  Byron helped Tanner get all of his luggage checked in.  His luggage weighed 46 and 39 lbs each.  We decided to say our goodbyes before heading upstairs where we had more room.  I was taking a picture of the kids all together, when I started sobbing and soon Byron and Bradley followed.  It was pretty emotional saying our goodbyes.  Tanner has been such a source of strength in our family and will be greatly missed by all!!!

Johnathan and Tanner have always had a special relationship.  They have always been very close and shared so many experiences together.  Johnathan was telling Grandma Beck on Sunday (two days before Tanner left) that he doesn't know who he is going to talk to now.  These two have always gotten along and rarely have an argument or disagreement.  I can't wait to see that glorious reunion in 3 years after Johnathan returns from his mission.

It has been fun to see Camille and Tanner's relationship formed the past few years.  Tanner looked forward to Camille's letters while she was on her mission and was always one of the first ones to read them.  It was also cool hearing Camille tell Tanner a great set of scriptures to read before he left or sharing experiences with him from her mission.  Bradley has been following Tanner around the past couple of months and won't let him out of his sight.  Tanner has been so sweet to take Bradley fishing quite a few times at the Jordan River and Bradley was beaming every time he spent time with him.  Tanner also was awesome to let Bradley join his group of friends when they went to play futsal and Bradley loved feeling included.  Tanner has always been so patient with Carter and Parker and talks so nicely to them.  He was great to include others in all that he did and just made everyone feel important.

We walked upstairs to the security and found a lot of other missionaries saying their goodbyes also. We weren't upstairs very long before Byron mentioned it is probably time to go and I quickly grabbed one last hug before he turned around and walked away.  It was fun to keep watching him as he was in the long security line.  He waved back to us and then we lost track of him.  His travel campanion was Elder Chandler Ward.  We were hoping he found him and that there were more traveling to the Peru MTC with him.