Elder Squires Arrives at the MTC

We have a missionary!  Daniel was set apart on Monday evening by President Jeffrey Parker of our Redrock Stake.  On Tuesday morning we drove to Utah and stayed overnight in Salt Lake City as part of our family tradition for taking our missionaries to the MTC.  We have several traditions we established with our first missionary son Ryan, and I've captioned pictures below to tell about them.  Daniel's MTC drop off time was on Wednesday (today) at 1:25 p.m.  He is our first missionary to experience curbside drop off.  The policy changed two weeks after our son Mat entered the MTC, so this was a fun opportunity to see how it all works.  We took pictures and said our goodbyes on the Provo Temple grounds and then we got into the line of cars waiting to send off missionaries.  It's an extremely organized process.  We were directed to space 18 where we pulled over and a missionary came to assist Daniel.  Steve and the boys got out of the car to help Daniel with his luggage and then off he went with the host missionary.  It took less than one minute.  I stayed in the car and took the picture.  Now we will wait with great anticipation for our first missionary email from Daniel!  We are happy for Daniel and we love having a missionary!!!

On the way to Utah.  Daniel, Mat and Ryan were all sitting in the backseat.  They are all very broad shouldered so it was not the roomiest of rides, but we all wanted to make the trip together so they were willing to put up with a little discomfort.

After we checked into our hotel we took a walk on the Salt Lake Temple grounds.  Here are my three Melchizedek priesthood holders standing in front of the statue depicting Joseph Smith receiving the
Melchizedek priesthood from Peter, James and John.

The sister missionaries were happy to visit with the boys for a few minutes.

We met Valerie and her family at The Roof restaurant in the Joseph Smith Building.  This is also a family tradition.  This was the first time we had grandchildren to come participate with us.  It was fun!  After dinner we made a visit to the Church History Museum.

This morning we went to visit Valerie and the kids at her house and then we all had lunch at Mimi's in Orem, another tradition.  After lunch we drove to the Provo Temple to take some last family pictures.

Here's Daniel, moments from walking into the MTC.  We were all pretty excited after we got our hugs and tears over with at family picture time.  As you can see, we left Daniel with a smile on his face.  I am so proud of him!  He will be a great missionary!!!  Til we meet again Elder Squires!