We survived Home MTC! And it did
not go as expected! But, honestly, I kind of loved it anyway.
So beforehand, I figured I'd have a very quiet week and a half where I barely left the house and hung out near Bentley while he did all his Zoom classes. I was hoping to finally do the paint-by-numbers kits that Camille gave me for Christmas years ago! I was pretty excited for it!
But then it snowed. And iced. And iced some more. And school was canceled for a week and a half!!! And even then, they had two hour delays for the rest of that week!
So, basically, I barely left the house and hung out near Bentley while he did his Zoom classes and I tried to keep everyone quiet the entire time! Which is a TOTALLY different ball of salami!!! But also, I don't know when I'll get to enjoy having everyone home together again, so I also loved it. It was like this lovely little cocoon time where I didn't feel bad not leaving the house (but also, there were plenty of other people around if I did need to run to the store, I could do it without abandoning Bentley), and I didn't have a lot of other stuff going on to be stressed about (like, ahem, during Christmas). It was so great. Also, the missionary rules aren't quite as strict as they used to be, so we were allowed to watch family-friendly movies at night! So we had fun with that-- we watched Little Women (1994 version, because I figured my kids would get a kick out of seeing Wynona Ryder before her Stranger Things days and Christian Bale before he became Batman!), Sense & Sensibility, The Best Two Years, Tangled, The Saratov Approach (this was a bad idea, it just freaked everyone out), and The Emperor's New Groove... And a bunch of episodes of The Chosen, too! So that was all a lot of fun for me!
Having said that, it was HARD for Bentley. Nine hours on zoom per day is ROUGH. He did not enjoy it. And I don't blame him-- I really can't handle more than an hour on zoom.
It's funny, because when I heard that the church was continuing to do Home MTC after Covid lockdowns had ended, I thought that was pretty stupid. But Craig just shrugged and said, "I'm sure they figured out that there was something good about it." And he was so right! Because, yeah, it was kind of awful, but you know what? It made going to the actual MTC so great!!! First of all, Bentley already "knew" his district and his teachers, so getting to meet them in person was actually really exciting and happy. And while nine hours of class is nothing to sneeze at (and I remember thinking it was pretty hard when I was in the MTC trying to learn Japanese), if you've been doing it all on zoom, moving it into a real classroom with actual people feels pretty great!
So, yeah, Bentley is in Mexico loving the MTC because it's not zoom. And I will take that! Good job, church people, figuring this all out!
But seriously-- he had literally ONE HOUR of that time when his siblings actually went to school. One. Hour. That's insane.
We did have time on Saturday, so we took him to the temple and then to Five Guys (which they do not have in Puerto Rico):
And on Sunday, Bentley got to give his farewell talk (technically it was Fast Sunday, but the stake president said it was fine, which I really appreciated). It was also Ryder's first time blessing the sacrament, so he had Craig and Bentley up there assisting him, and it all made me so happy. Also, their ties were in primary colors, and then Colton's tie was green. We didn't even plan that!!! Then Kendra sat with us during the meeting, and I looked down the pew and my kids just happened to be lined up in age order. Seriously, I just about burst.
Wednesday was our last night, so Tom and Donna took us all out to dinner at Mexico Viejo, which was delicious.
And Craig took pictures of Bentley hugging all his siblings goodbye...
Bentley used the basement to pack, so he could spread all his stuff out. He was so scatter-brained trying to do it, but it was hilarious and we were just joking and having the best time. And then, because we knew we weren't going to get any sleep anyway, we sat up looking at pictures of him in the hospital when he'd just been born. Really, we did everything short of singing "Sunrise, Sunset"...
Bentley got up at 3:30, Craig and I rolled out of bed around 4:20. He hugged his siblings goodbye once more, and we headed out to Richmond. Everything went very smoothly, and I stood there sobbing as we watched him go through security. (Some poor girl was very concerned about this and kept staring at me. Finally her mom asked me, "Where's he going?" and assured me that he would do great in Puerto Rico. It was very kind of her.) It's very weird to say goodbye for two years. Nothing can really prepare you for that. And putting your kid on a plane without a cell phone in this day and age is a little scary!!! (Spoiler-- he got to the MTC without any problems. Everything went just fine!) The drive home was very somber. I got the kids off to school and pretty much stayed in bed for the rest of the afternoon and tried not to cry too much.
It's funny how I can be so happy that Bentley is finally on his mission, and also be so sad and missing him! Life is hard. And bittersweet. And wonderful.
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