Provo, UT MTC (Missionary Training Center) July 13th, 2016

This was a day that I always thought would be a lot harder than it was.  Avery's excitement for his mission and being anxious to get out into the mission field  rubbed off on all of us.  There weren't a lot of tears.  I relate it to his first day of kindergarten, he was off and running and didn't look back except to wave goodbye! He was the first of about 12 missionaries going through security that morning.  His flight to SLC was at 7:30 am so these pictures were taken at about 6:15am, very early!  He had a big group of friends over until about 2 am so we got about a 2 hour nap the night before, oh well lol.  

Sophie, Mitch, Bayley, and Krista

6+ years of friendship

He was so happy to see his cousin Jamison
show up at the airport, glad he moved to AZ this past
year so they could do more together.

Aunt Jacque from Arkansas was coming through town on business
so she was able to see Avery off too!

Jaxx 

Right before Avery was going to give hugs goodbye
he pulled Austin aside and had a {man to man}
talk with him about being the man of the house now,
 taking on more responsibilities, being nice to his
sister, and taking care of Mom.  

their last hug

handshakes for the girls :)

First missionary through security

Round 2 of heading off to the MTC was to land in SLC and Mike and Tricia Tutton (and Tuckir, Brinley, and Crue) were there waiting on the other side of security.  They would pick him up, take him to lunch, take him to the new Provo City Temple to see it, and then off to the MTC.  He had to check in at 2pm.  Brinley was awesome enough to Facetime us when he landed in SLC and when they dropped him off the MTC.  It was nice to just be a fly on the wall watching him.  And Tricia was awesome to send so many pictures!  She gets me <3

There was a huge group of missionaries coming in from Argentina finishing their missions and coming home to SLC at the same time.  So when Avery came down the escalator there was a "welcoming commitee" with signs and Argentina flags! He said later that a few of them had some good advice for the outgoing missionaries as they were all walking toward security.  But, so neat for him to see a glimpse of what the day will be like when he returns.  But, we aren't going there yet, he has 2 years to enjoy his mission first!

 The MTC in Provo welcomed 750 missionaries that day! Summers are busy around there with everyone graduating high school and wanting to go straight out to their missions.  This is the line to get in to drop off your missionary and say goodbye!

Brinley face-timing us when he landed!