Saturday morning Rick had an online meeting and then we headed up north with Jaiden and Jenna. We were going up for Elsie's baby blessing on Sunday. We arrived at Shane and Alicia's around 2:00 and Rick and I went car shopping, since Rick is selling his car to Jaiden and needs another one for himself.
He had done quite a bit of shopping around online and a couple of cars picked out. The first one was at Hertz in Murray. It was over $18,000 for a 2023. We went to test drive it, but couldn't get the USB cord to bring up the navigation system. We tried a few different cords, but we couldn't get it to work. Rick said that he has had problems with that before with some of the cars he has rented in the past and wanted to make sure it worked with the USB cord, without having to rely solely on the bluetooth.
We finally gave up and went to Larry H. Miller and test drove a toyota corolla 2025. It was priced at $22,763. We had planned to get a 2023, but decided that it would be worth the extra money to get a new one. We haven't had a brand new car since we lived in Ivins, over 21 years ago. At that time we had purchased our rent-to-own Geo Prism.
We ended up buying the Toyota Corolla LE. It was almost $25,000 with taxes and everything. So Rick has a new car! And Jaiden finally has a car too. This car had better last us a very long time, ha ha!
Rick worked hard on Jaiden's welcome video and I love the way it turned out! It contains some things that are definitely non-traditional and unique, but Mongolia is not your traditional mission!
Listen or download HERE!!
https://familystorypodcast.com/returned-missionary-podcasts
Scroll to Jaiden's picture (right now it is at the top) and then click on the "play" or "download" button!
Sunday, February 16: Jaiden had been asked to report on her mission to the high council at 7:30 this morning. That was kind of stressful since we have 9:00 church and were trying to get ourselves ready, plus get everything ready for the luncheon (brunch) afterwards. So Rick, Jaiden, and I had to get up a little after 6:00 to get ready. Branson Averett got home from his mission last Thursday and so he reported to the high council also, and Brother and Sister Bryner, a senior couple who just returned from their mission in Maryland.
I could feel a cough attack coming on during Jaiden’s report and so
that was really stressful. I hadn’t brought water with me and vigorously sucked
on my cough drop and kept praying that I wouldn’t start coughing. My throat
finally calmed down, but I was too stressed to enjoy the rest of the meeting.
Thankfully I was okay during sacrament meeting!
We hurried home and Jaiden changed into her blue Mongolian
Deel for sacrament meeting. She did a great job on her talk and shared four
meaningful stories. I really enjoyed it! Jaiden's best friend, Emily Williams, sang Rick’s arrangement of “Go
Forth With Faith,” that Rick arranged and it was such a nice touch to the
meeting! Then Branson spoke and did well too. We actually ended about 8 minutes
early, but better early than late!!
I hurried home so that I could pull out the breakfast casseroles that
were warming in the oven. I cooked them yesterday, but then just put them in
the oven during church on 225 degrees. It didn’t feel warm enough to me and so
I turned the oven up to 350 and cooked them a little longer. It took 10-15
minutes for everyone to arrive anyway and so it worked out fine. When I pulled
those two casseroles out I cooked another one (that I hadn’t cooked yesterday). We had about 30 people and so 3 casseroles were about right.
The only ones I invited to the house after were family members and our good friends, the Williams. I told Jaiden that she could invite whoever she wanted. A senior couple, Berkeley and Erica Price, who served with
Jaiden in Mongolia came to her homecoming. That was nice of them! As we got
talking we realized that Berkeley is cousins with my former missionary
companion, Juliette Landsom Holdaway! So fun! We sent Juliette a picture of us
together with a little message.
Jaiden’s former SUU roommates did a re-creation of the photo
that they took on our front porch for Jaiden’s missionary farewell, which was
fun.
After everyone left we cleaned up and took naps and then I fixed Bambido Salad for dinner. Josh was able to talk to Jaiden over messenger for about an hour while I fixed dinner and then after dinner we had our zoom call with Josh. It was a wonderful day!!
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| Sister Price, Sister Jensen, Sister Udy (Jaiden's MTC Companion) |
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| Brother and Sister Price (Berkeley and Erica), Jaiden, Lille Bell |
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| Former SUU roommates: Jaiden, Alexis Avila, Josie Ballard, Emily Williams |
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| SUU Roommates: Jaiden, Alexis Avila, Josie Ballard, Emily Williams (Jaiden's Farewell 2023) |
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| Mongolian Nativity |
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| Brother Price (Juliette's cousin), Wendy |
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| Grandma Jensen, Jaiden, Julie Yearsley |
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| My brother, Shane's family with Jaiden: Calder, Shane, Alicia, Rella (Adria is not pictured since she is currently serving a mission in Oklahoma) |
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| Cute Everett wearing Jaiden's shoes |
Normally Rick does a big breakfast for Valentine's Day, but his flight from Reno was delayed (he was there interpreting for a conference earlier this week) and he would have gotten home at 3:00 a.m. or something. So I told him to stay over in Vegas and come home today. Jenna had Madrigals anyway (she did singing valentines with the Madrigals today) and Jaiden and I didn't really want to get up that early, ha ha. But he emailed me all of the love letters and I put them out with some candy!
I have had a cold this week and it is always worse in the morning. I was glad that my regular job was cancelled and that I only had one short appointment. I went to Costco and got a couple rotisserie chickens and some fruit and then came home and fixed a chicken and broccoli casserole for dinner.
Janika and Brandon arrived just in time for dinner. We then just cleaned up and visited. Jaiden went to the Red Cliffs Temple with Emily and out to Chick-fil-a. Jenna went out with Ethan, swing dancing, dinner, and hot-tubbing. They all had a nice time!
Today we finished making posters and cleaned the house (as much as we could family visiting and grandkids around). Then we headed to the airport! Jaiden's flight was due to come at 4:30 and so we left at 3:30 so that we would be there a half hour early. Rick had everyone practice “the chant” and we took some pictures and videos. We had invited our good friends, the Williams, to meet us at the airport and so waited with them. Emily Williams (Jaiden’s best friend) made a really clever newspaper article about Jaiden which was really fun! All of our kids were able to come, except for Josh of course, since he is on a mission, and Janika and Brandon's family. They are coming next week for her homecoming.
We waited for a few minutes and then she came! Right on
time! She walked out and then started running and I ran towards her and gave
her a big hug. We were both crying!! I have waited 18 months for that wonderful hug!! Then everyone came and hugged her and then
she hugged her dad and then got to hug the grandkids. It was so great seeing her
again!
Thankfully her luggage arrived and wasn’t delayed
for two days like Janelle’s was. Then we did the traditional “run through the
finish line.” This was a tradition (started by Rick, of course) that we did
with all of our kids (except for Janika. Janika was relieved and grateful that
this tradition didn’t pop up until after her mission, ha ha). Rick’s chant for
this year was “J-A-I-D-E-N finish the mission to the end!!” Janika had sent a marco polo a few days ago asking
if Jared and Janelle had warned their spouses about the “humiliation at the
airport.” Rick was aghast that she would
label it as such. Then Jared got on MP and chanted, “Jaiden Jaiden We’ve Been
Waiting!” Apparently Josh said that on his last family video chat as a possible
option. Then Rick said, “No, this is the way it is done…” and then showed a
marco polo of an entire seminary class (that he happened to be visiting) chanting
“J-A-I-D-E-N, finish the mission to the end!!” It was so funny. He was maybe
going to include it on her missionary video, but forgot, ha ha.
After we left the airport, Rick and I brought Jaiden over to the Stake President’s house for her release. It was our stake conference this weekend and so this quick release happened between the leadership meeting and adult session. President Nadauld discussed goals with Jaiden in three areas: spiritual, physical, and social. He encouraged Jaiden to become an ordinance worker in the temple, take an institute class, go to the YSA ward, continue with her education and graduate – and date.
We had a really nice discussion, and he had Jaiden share a special, meaningful experience from her mission and shared her testimony in Mongolian. He also had Rick and I share some of our thoughts. It was really nice. He didn’t have her remove her tag right there like the stake presidents did with the other kids. He said that she could take it off when she was ready. Maybe he allowed her a little extra time since she didn't get to wear her badge for most of her mission in Mongolia (except at zone conference). Missionaries in Mongolia are not allowed to wear their tags (unless they are from Mongolia) since they are there on a work visa. So sadly she didn’t have the same emotional attachment to her tag that some of her siblings did. He told her to put her missionary badge somewhere she could see it everyday to remind her of everything she experienced and learned on her mission.
When we came home Jaiden looked around the house and said, "Our house is SO big!! Many of the Mongolian homes are the same size as our garage!" I think she will be excited for consistent hot water and power!! While we were meeting with the stake president Jared picked up the Costa Vida order. Jaiden had requested Costa Vida for her first meal. It was a little expensive, but also took a lot of stress off not having to worry about preparing a big meal for everyone.
After a delicious meal we had Jaiden teach us a lesson. This is another tradition that Rick started years ago and I love it! I love hearing a beautiful lesson and testimony from our missionaries! She shared a really nice lesson on faith and shared her testimony in Mongolian. Then Jaiden shared some Mongolian “treats” with everyone. She gave us Mongolian chocolate, a Max fun bar (Janelle described this as a “a party in your mouth”), some aarts (curd from sour milk), powdered packets of various flavors that you put in a cup of hot water (not sure what those are called), and Aaruul (dried curd). It was fun to see everyone’s reactions – especially Evan and Eli’s, ha ha! I was surprised that Jaiden stayed up as later as everyone else. In Mongolia she had a 12 hour train ride to the city and then went from there to the airport and then traveled from Mongolia to South Korea (3 hour 20 minutes). She thought, "I am in the same country as Josh!" Then Korea to LA (11 hours) and LA to St. George (1 hour 30 minutes). So 16 hours total in the air, plus lots of hours in layovers! They are a day ahead of us and so it shows her leaving and arriving on the 8th, but she was really traveling for two days.
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