Chalk Family Adventures: Kas Wisdom teeth, Stephen off to Boston, & Selling our Texas home!

Always a delight... Kassie's drugged up wisdom teeth extraction state didn't disappoint... such a funny girl! Especially her showing up dressed in full Hogwarts regalia...

President Bikman gave a lovely setting apart blessing for Stephen. “Your happy cheerful obedient zeal will be spiritually contagious! Understand how thin the veil is…you will be a tremendous force for good.” It was such a tender setting apart blessing for Stevie! And at the end he added, “Stephen I know your grandpa was here”. So sweet.

As I watched our 20-year-old son walk away this morning at 5am for the 2nd time, headed to his plane to take him to his 2nd mission in Boston Massachusetts, something stirred deep in my soul. He had nothing with him… No backpack, his hands were free and empty, he had already sent his two suitcases on the plane… And he just walked alone. I was struck by the similarity to how I believe it will be when we meet our Savior again. We will go to Him with nothing but ourselves… Just everything we have chosen to become in this life. I am so honored by Stephen’s choice to serve, and so humbled by all the men and women around the world who give up their time to serve others. Whether it be missionary service, military, healthcare, the list goes on, and we are grateful! I will always treasure these last 4 months we’ve had with Stephen during his quarantine time and the fun things we got to experience together; we will now anxiously await his exciting new adventures in the Northeast! And hallelujah, he arrived safely this evening… Many thanks to good President Mavromatis and his sweet wife for sending us a pic! With their email message: We are blessed to have Elder Chalk in the Massachusetts Boston Mission. He came safely and we met him at the airport. Normally we would bring all new missionaries to the mission home for dinner and orientation but due to the need of social distance we are doing things differently. For this reason, he met his companion and left to their apartment.

And his sweet email to us that night: I'm in the city of Revere in Eastern Boston, and my comp is named Elder Rasmussen. My apartment is pretty nice, apparently we pay a couple thousand a month for it haha. We have a kitchen, a study, two bathrooms, a bedroom, and a small terrace outside. I am completely stuck in my apartment. We can only leave for food runs or mission errands. We don't have a car. I have a Spanish assignment!

And Stephen attended the first baptism in the Boston mission since Covid started, we got to be on a zoom chat watching it happen! So precious. Stevie got to offer the opening prayer.

Lots of summer playing... Kam Hair marrying, ziplining, Kassie's first "kiss" date...

And we're selling our home! We’ve lived in Texas over 20 years and loved it all, the whole time Daron has worked with HP. It’s been great & except for the time we went to Switzerland, we have loved living in Houston by my family. But Daron’s family is largely out west and now with Covid, HP is allowing people to work remotely from other locations. At least for a year, after which HP will reevaluate their remote working policy. This will be our first (and maybe only) chance to live out in Utah near 6 of Daron’s 10 siblings, the kids will get to be near a whole different batch of cousins, and after a year of renting there (since we don’t want to make a permanent change in this crazy market), we will hear if we need to return to the Houston office or perhaps near the Ft Collins or Boise offices. We put the house on the market after our Utah trip thinking well let’s give it a try since Stevie and Kas will be at BYU in one year so we’d like to be near them. We were shocked when the house sold in 3 days! That moved up our timetable, and we've seen lots of evidence of God's hand in things. This changes things for Kassie’s senior year but really it’s different from anything anyone expected so it’s probably good that these kids have to start learning to deal with change, right?? Fun farewell activities... family gatherings, luncheons, dropoffs, private Chill party.. so much love! Leave it to Shannon to send a text like this: Good morning! As you know, Melanie and Daron woke up one morning and decided to sell everything they own and take a "trip" to Utah! She would love to have a 'see ya later' lunch at The Black Walnut, this Saturday at 11:30am. Come help us kick off their 365 day, Temporary Rehoming Celebration! For those of you who can't make it, we will be meeting again in 2021, same time, same place, to welcome them back to Texas. And also this is temporary! Did I mention this is temporary?