halfway through the MTC- and lovin' every minute!

Talon has now been in the MTC for a little over 4 weeks! Wow, how time really flies! AND Talon's stay at the MTC is already half way over! Talon leaves the MTC on March 29th for the Phillipines. Talon emails us every Monday and writes my mom, Lance, Hunter, and Maddie quite regularly. Both my family and Talon love hearing from each other! We all make sure to send lots of letters and lots of packages to Talon! And we look forward each Monday for his emails. And each email just gets better and better as we hear about all that Talon is learning and doing in the MTC. He is studying so hard. He says he has never studied so hard in his whole life, ha ha, not that that is hard to beat since I'm not sure he's never really studied HARD in his entire life until now! Ha ha. But Talon is so dedicated to learning the gospel and learning Tagalog! We have all been anxiously waiting for pictures from Talon and finally this week we got some!

Talon and one of his best buddies, Elder Judd.

Talon's WHOLE district!

On the back of this picture Talon wrote, "I love packages they are the best!"

And this one said, "Yep, we actually bought suspenders..ha ha!"

Talon and his "lovely" companion Elder Larsen- first day in the MTC. At first, Talon wasn't so sure about his companion. He told us that they have nothing in common, but that maybe that was a good thing because then they are able to better focus on the studying at hand. :)

Talon rolled his ankle a couple of weeks ago and apparently this was the result of the roll. "But don't worry," he told my mom, "it's already almost better!" Pretty gross lookin', don't ya think?

our favorite part of Talon's most recent email...

"hmm so i think now i will tell you just a little of the tagalog that i have learned.. here is my tesimony...

Alam ko po na totoo an ebanhelyo ni jesucristo Alam ko po na si jesucristo an anak ng dyoes Alam ko po na meka kasma and mga pamilia sa walang hangan. alam ko po na napakahalga and mga pamila sa dyoes. Mahal po kayo pamila.. sa pangalan ni jesucristo amen.

translation...i know that the gospel of jesus christ is true. i know that jesus christ is the son of god. i know that families can be together forever. i know that familes are very importand to god. i love my family.. in the name of jesus christ amen.

goodbye for 2 years!

On Wednesday, January 27th our whole family came to say goodbye to Talon before dropping him off at the MTC. We all met at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast and then headed off to the Provo temple to say our final goodbyes. What an amazingly emotional day it was for everyone! We were all so very happy for Talon to finally be at the MTC- to be a missionary- but we were also a little sad since 2 years can seem like a long time. But we all know that it will surely fly by a lot quicker than we will even realize!


We had to have three huge tables to fit all of our family at the Cracker Barrel and they were all completely FULL. It was such a great morning with lots of good fun, some time to say goodbye to Talon one on one, and we were able to take lots of good pictures!


The food was amazing and there was so much of it too! The service at the Cracker Barrel was also pretty amazing, we all got our food pretty quickly and we were all stuffed by the time we were done eating it!



















Once we were at the temple it was time to say our final goodbyes. It was hard, but so good. And Talon was very ready to just be in the MTC! So we took lots more pictures, gave Talon lots of hugs and all wished him good luck before my parents, Hunter, Maddie, BreAnne, and Maccoy took Talon to the MTC and dropped him off. It all happened very quickly and all of the sudden it was all over and he was gone. Such a crazy feeling!















Now, Talon has almost been in the MTC for two weeks and he is doing great. He writes to us every Monday, which is his P-day and we all write him lots of letters and send him lots of packages whenever we can. Talon says he will send us some pictures of him at the MTC soon and we are looking forward to that. We are all so happy for Talon and feel so blessed to have a missionary in our family!