and they're off..

Elder and Sister Rhoades right after getting set apart

all the nieces/granddaughters minus 3 who are in florida :(

right before they left

everyone before they left

so... my parents are gone. :(

18 months.

seems like a long time on this side of the 18 months.

i remember as my friends began leaving on their lds missions i told my dad that 2 years seemed like a real long time, and he said this:

"looking at it from this side of 2 years, it seems really long, looking back on 2 years...it seems really short."

and for some reason that made me feel better. :) so i just have to remember that now that he and my mom are the ones leaving on the mission {thankfully only 18 months, not 2 years}.

saying goodbye was a lot harder than i thought it would be. but i know that they are going to do so many great things out on the mission, and that they are going to change so many people's lives. such an incredible experience.

they have had a lot of trial trying to get on this mission {date of leaving got pushed back i think 3 times} with my dad's health and other things, but they just kept moving forward with faith, knowing that this was something that they were going to do no matter what happened. 

they are such an inspiration to me and i am so excited when that time comes in my life where i get to serve a mission with my sweetheart. :)

I didn't have any brothers, so i have never experienced the whole sending someone on a mission thing, and the whole setting them apart as missionaries thing....so to be there for that was really neat.

my mom has been saying how nervous she is because she doesn't want to be teaching someone and say the wrong thing or maybe not know what to say at all and at the setting apart our stake president {who is a great friend of ours} said something that i really loved:

"don't worry about saying the wrong thing, because when you are baring testimony, nothing you say is the wrong thing."

so good luck ma and pa! we will miss you and we love you! i know for a fact you will do great things and i look forward to hearing all about them. :)

{p.s.....we barely made it home alive from our vacation at priest lake....but i'll write about that tomorrow}.