And he's off!

 Bucko (who is now Elder Coleman for the next two years) left for the Missionary Training Center yesterday. He had over two weeks of home MTC, learning expectations, schedules, and lessons. It was a neat experience, but yesterday was hard. He didn't get his tickets until Monday. We had hoped my sister could pick him up from the airport and take him down to the MTC, but it didn't work out with his flight time. He was bummed he wouldn't get to see them, but he set up for the shuttle to take him down. He was pretty nervous because he hadn't flown for over ten years and had been with all of us then. 

Everything went smoothly, though, for his flight and shuttle. It was a little stressful on me because he couldn't take his phone, so he had no way to call us and let us know he made it or not. I received an email from the shuttle with instructions for what to do when he landed and decided to call and see if they could tell me if he made it or not. Thankfully, the guy who answered the phone assured me that he had just loaded him onto the shuttle. That was a blessing to know he had made it!

I emailed him that night and he was able to email back and let us know he was okay. He wrote:

Hey mom! I made it to the MTC just fine, airports aren't as bad as I thought. I think my flight attendant was a member, she congratulated me when she saw my badge. And a bunch of other people at the airport noticed me too. If you're on the missionary mom group on Facebook, someone there saw me getting off the plane and got so excited that she posted me. And I was going to try calling today but I'm having trouble setting up the new phone.  Hopefully I'll get it figured out by Monday.  My district is all awesome, the leaders are amazing, and I'm fitting in already. The hardest part was definitely saying goodbye to everyone. Tell everyone I love them please. I'm safe here and I'm doing good. I'll update you more on Monday but for now I have to keep it short

Love you to the moon and back,  Elder Coleman.

I wasn't a part of any missionary mom groups, so I tried to join a few but couldn't find a post. The next morning, my good friend from back home sent me this screenshot:

I was able to join the group the next day, but it was so nice to see he had made it okay!