Moving and Preparation

April 2015

Missionary couples make all kinds of choices for what to do with their homes for the 18 months or so of a mission.  We love our ward and neighborhood, but think we may prefer a house when we return. So, we spent the month of March moving out of our condo, which meant massive sorting – trash, DI, long term storage and pack for the mission.  Amazing what we still (or again) had accumulated since our last clear out! We rented a storage unit close by for the furniture and household items we would pack for 20 months or so, until we found a new home and there were only a few days when we didn’t take something to our storage. Gradually we had fewer pieces of furniture to use until we moved into a lovely place provided by a dear friend for us to use until we left for the mission.

It was a blur then and it is even more so now. Near the end of March we were out of the condo and then had some professional help in cleaning it and preparing it for a lovely woman who hopes it's her last move.

We also spent time in March and then into April acquiring the last few things we needed to bring with us to the mission. We packed our two big suitcases with clothes, personal items and electronics like our laptops. To avoid extra fees we were urged to pack no more than 50 pounds each, plus a carry-on bag weighing no more than 40 pounds. So we weighed repacked and reweighed, and did it again until the last moment. We made it with 1 pound over on a suitcase of Jayne's and a wink from the nice ticket agent.

Before we left we wanted to visit as many of our children and grandchild as possible. So we planned a trip to New Orleans to visit the Clifford family living there. With help from Greg’s Frontier nephew we were able to fly to New Orleans to visit two cute little boys (and their cute parents).

We saw some local sights like the French Quarter and swamps and ate some tasty local food. On the way back to Salt Lake we stopped in Denver and spent an afternoon visiting Greg’s 91-year-old father.  The goodbyes began.

We also visited three cute grand boys in St. George and got to watch a baseball practice of the near 6 year old, and the antics of the 5 and 3 year olds. 

Between our MTC weeks we had a family party for one of our Salt Lake toddlers and our Farewell gathering the next day, so all the SLC Cliffords were there. One long lovely afternoon passed at Farmington Station with the two Johnson babies, playing on the square and eating. So we were able to visit all ten grandchildren in a short time. It was a fun and amazing experience. These little ones will grow so much in the next 18 months, but we can visit them through Skype and Facetime. For senior missionaries there is not a limit - except for the constraints of time differences- on the amount of communication with our family. And in the grand scheme of things 18 months is not that long. (One of us wrote this claim and the other disagrees!) Only the very oldest ones understood that we were going far away for a long time, so the parting was mostly painful for the grandparents.  But part we did, and it was off to the MTC!