Benson Boone Concert

 Months ago Jill suggested that all the sisters come to Utah to go to the Benson Boone concert. So we bought 4 tickets. 

The girls loved the concert!!! He is a good singer and a great performer. It was at the Delta Center in Salt Lake.

I had a fun time hanging out with the cute 3 grandkids. Will, Paisley and Charlotte were so good. I was thankful for Jeanette and Diana's help. Paisley is well trained for going to sleep at night....feed her a bottle and put her in her playpen.  Diana rocked Charlotte to sleep but she only stayed asleep for a few minutes. So we watched tv for a little while and then I laid by Charlotte and Will until they fell asleep. "I love you Grandma." I love you Will... He is a very observant and aware kid. The next morning we were making pancakes and Matt came in and Will told him we were borrowing some pancakes.

Other trip highlights:

-Grandpa Randy asking about the Benson Boone concert and saying he should listen to his music and see if he and Grandma would like it....and asking if the tickets were $50 each  (not quite...a little more than that)

-Carly trying on grad dresses

-Shopping and more shopping (including replenishing Lucy's after mission wardrobe) 

-A tour of Utah State campus for Carly guided by Hanna...including writing our wishes on a the wishing tree (Carly wished for a kiss....but don't tell anyone or the wish won't come true)

-Hanna locking her keys in the car at Old Navy in Logan in the pouring rain

-Visiting Steve and Karma....they are so funny. We all want to be like them as we get older.

-We finished off the weekend with 7 out of 8 of us getting the stomach flu (although Lucy still doesn't believe it was the stomach flu...she thinks it was from food...and don't tell my mom and dad, I was sick at their house but didn't want the to know....hopefully we didn't share any germs)

Journey Home from Puerto Rico

 From a missionary Mom's perspective...

I woke up on Wednesday morning and checked the flight tracker for Lucy's first flight. She left Puerto Rico right on time and landed in Houston. Then I checked the flight from Houston to Minneapolis...delayed. She was only going to have 20 minutes to get to the next flight. I started to worry. Austin told me it would all work out. Jill and Hanna told me she was a wizard and could do it.

Then as I kept checking her departing flight from Houston, it showed two more delayed starting times. There was no way she was going to make her third flight. So I tried to figure out what we could do. The hardest part was that missionaries don't go home with a phone, so there was no way to contact her. I looked at possible flights and saw that there was a flight to Calgary from Houston that she could possible switch to. I called Church Travel and they said they could only switch it if we could get a hold of Lucy. So I tried everything I could think of. I called the airport 4 times and asked them to page her and give her a message to call her mom. I tried calling the airline. I put in on Facebook to see if anyone was at the Houston airport. I asked my friend Keri who works for Delta. I prayed and prayed.

She finally left Houston, and so our next prayer was that her flight from Minneapolis would be delayed a few minutes. I watched both flights. We decided to even start driving to Great Falls in case she made the flight.  But we only got 30 minutes from home and we knew she missed the flight.

Then we just had to wait for Lucy to call us. She told us that she had prayed the whole flight that she would make the connection. When she got there and saw that she had missed her flight, she went to the bathroom and cried. Then she sat on a chair and cried. Then she finally asked a nice lady if she could use her phone to call us.   A very long hour later, she called us and through tears said, "hi, mom. I missed my flight." I know you did. Then I told her that she needed to call Church Travel and call us back. She did and they told her she needed to go talk to Delta customer service to get her ticket reissued and they would help get her a hotel. I guess I should say the part that Austin actually took the phone from me and gave her instructions and a pep talk that she could do it.

The lady she borrowed a phone from said, "I'm sorry you missed your flight. Do you need a tissue?" She gave Lucy two kleenex. When Lucy got to the ticket counter, another lady was crying so she gave the second tissue to the other lady.

A very nice lady named Ruby was at the Delta ticket counter and was so helpful and kind. She registered her for a flight for the next day, reserved a hotel room for her, and walked her to the airport shuttle. Lucy told her she was returning from a mission, and Ruby asked her about FamilySearch. Lucy gave her a Book of Mormon. 

Lucy got to the hotel and got checked in and called us. We talked for about 45 minutes and we both felt better.

We got an email from Church Travel with her new flight plans that the fastest flight was still to Great Falls (Calgary was also an option), we called Jill and Hanna and asked if they just wanted to stay the night in Great Falls or come to Cardston. They decided to stay instead of coming here and going back the next day.

Jill and Hanna convinced us to come spend the afternoon with them even though Lucy's flight didn't get there until 5:30 pm. So we drove down the next morning and met Jill and Hanna for lunch and did some shopping before we went to the airport.

Lucy slept okay. She had the hotel give her a wake up call at 6:30 am because she is still a missionary. She woke up and did a little exercise, had a shower and put her same clothes back on because all she had was a backpack. She ate breakfast at the hotel.  All she ate on her first travel day was a pastry and chips that she got on her flights. Then a granola bar she had brought. 

She took the hotel airport shuttle back to the airport and still had 3 hours until her flight. She did meet some other missionaries who were headed home to Utah from their missions in South Dakota. Her flight to Salt Lake was on time with no problems.

Then she went to her next gate and met a nice couple from Montana that had worked at the Cardston Temple. The wife sent me a facebook message that they had met a tired missionary who was excited to come home.  Tears. Then I said to myself, where were you in Houston when I needed you..... But thankful Lucy had someone to talk to.

I kept checking Lucy's last flight and they were loaded 15 minutes early but didn't take off for quite a while. Lucy told us that the computer on the plane wasn't working so they had to turn off the plane and restart it. She was praying that the flight wouldn't be delayed. It finally took off and they landed right on time.

We were so excited to see her through the window and then met her at the hallway where she came out. After 18 months and an extra travel day, we were so excited to see her.

We each hugged her and she met her new nieces, Paisley and Charlotte. Will's first words to Lucy were, "Lucy, do you have any money?" He wanted to get a bouncy ball out of the vending machine.

We got her bags and stopped for a quick dinner and headed back to Cardston. We got in the car and Lucy said, "Do you want a back?" She wanted to stand and help us back out like missionaries do whenever they back up.

When we got to Cardston, we stopped at the stake center so Lucy could get released. President Ferguson gave permission for Austin to release her. She bore her testimony and then it was time to take her nametag off.  She did it!! She served a mission for Jesus Christ to the people of Puerto Rico.

Brother Joe Paulsen had left a case of Fairlife protein milk, licorice and popcorn with a welcome home sign at the stake center. Grandpa & Grandma Nunn put up some yellow balloons and some welcome home signs.

Hermana Lucy Nunn

 God was with her until we met again.

She followed his counsel and it did uphold her.

His sheep did securely keep her in His fold.

Life's perils did thick confound her.

God's arms were unfailing around her.

She did keep God's love as a banner floating over her.

God was with her until we met again.

Lucy was at BYU and went to an Institute class where the teacher invited them to write down a couple questions and then listen for the answer at General Conference. She wrote down, should I go on a mission and what she should study in school.

Then as she listened to General Conference, her answer came. Over and over. So she called us Sunday night and said I think I am going to go on a mission. Okay. Let's do it.

She started her papers and debated putting her availability date right after her 19th birthday in January or at the end of the next semester. She felt an urgency to go now.

She submitted her papers, received her call on December 19 and started home MTC on February 12. Then a week later she flew to the Mexico City MTC for 5 more weeks to learn how to be a missionary and how to speak Spanish.

Each companion and area taught her something different. Some were really hard and some were easier. 

At her one year mark, she summed it - This has been the bestest worstest year of my life. There were many times when she told us she didn't really want to do it anymore. But she did one more day. There were many p-day calls when she was really happy and told us about amazing experiences and lessons. 

Lucy learned to love the people she taught. She was sad when she knew they had felt the Spirit and even had the start of a testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ was true, but then they decided to stop the lessons or stop progressing or stop answering their messages.

She had taught Rene for weeks and he was a believer. He studied on his own, and He knew it was true. He is in a wheelchair because he is paralyzed, so it was a struggle for him to get to church because he had to have a nurse be able to come to get him ready for church, and he had to get a ride with a shuttle service that didn't always run on Sunday. He did drive his electric wheelchair all the way to church and back one Sunday. The date of his baptism finally came. Lucy and her companion were filling the font at the church, and Rene messaged them and said he wasn't ready. They tried to contact him, cried, went to his house, etc.  Right before the transfer, they did go and see him again. A few months later he was ready to be baptized, and by a small miracle, Lucy's mission president let her and another sister in her area that had also taught him, to go back to Ponce to be there for his baptism. It was definitely a highlight of her mission. 

When Lucy was in Levitttown, the acne on her face was really bad. People commented in church all of the time. (she says that Puerto Rican's don't have a filter). She also felt that she had gained weight, and she was struggling. Jesus knows. So He put her in a walking area for 2 transfers. Her face cleared up and she walked and walked and walked so she felt like she was in much better shape.

Lucy had a really hard companion at Christmas time. She was 26 years old and from Guatemala and was a convert to the Church. She told Lucy that she shouldn't lead as much because she was the junior companion. Lucy cried herself to sleep on Christmas night. Four weeks into the transfer, Lucy had a change of heart and tried to make the most of it. It got better but she was thankful  that she was only with her for one transfer.

Lucy worked hard on her Spanish and it became easier over time. Her second companion was from Guatemala and spoke very little English. Lucy said that she could understand 80% of what her companion spoke but only 40% of the Spanish that Puerto Ricans spoke. They talk fast and truncate words and use slang, so they are harder to understand.  After a few months she became more comfortable with understanding and speaking Spanish, especially talking about the gospel. Every day words took longer. Her and her companion got rear ended in their car and there were a few cars in the pile up. She didn't know the Spanish words to talk to the police, but luckily another guy whose car had also been hit could speak English and Spanish so he translated for them.

Lucy was strictly obedient, especially about time rules. We never went one minute over our P-day calls. We ended exactly on time. For most of her mission we would talk for 2 to 3 hours on P-day (one day when her companion was really hard, I think we talked for 6 hours). Near the end of her mission, her mission president encouraged the missionaries to only talk to their families for 30 to 60 minutes. That was hard for Lucy, but after a couple weeks she did just call us the last hour of her P-day.  Also, she was not supposed to message or even reply with emojis to any messages during the week. We could send messages during the week, and she could read them, but she couldn't reply. And she didn't. I think she did a heart one message one time...the entire 18 months.

Lucy grew to love the people, speak Spanish and came closer to Jesus Christ.