Skypeing: Mother's Day 2014

It seemed like Mother's Day would never come, but like Ashlyn's whole mission so far, it just sneaked up on us & we were surprised at how fast the time has flown by since we last Skyped on Christmas! 

Hailey made signs for the backdrop of our skype call:

We carefully planned the day out so that the big event was skypeing. I, fortunately, got 3 different, but very short phone calls from Ashlyn, setting up the time that we would get online. One of those calls was during Sacrament Meeting! I hurried and ran out of the chapel to answer the call. I have learned that  502 is Kentucky's Area code. Anxiety, excitement and panic explode inside of me when it pops up on caller id!! 

Ashlyn said that 3:30 was the time. So at 3:30 we were ready. Here we are at 3:30---

Waiting for Ash to sign on...

Here we are 3:45, 4:00, 4:15 and finally at 4:30

Yep, still waiting. It was torture!! 45 minutes later....

Then we got a quick call from Kentucky again, telling us to look for a different account. And suddenly, this appeared!!

It was great!! Ashlyn was very happy and laughed a lot. 

She told us that learning about the Atonement and how it carries her through each moment of every day is one of the ways she has changed on her mission. We asked her who her favorite companion was and she seriously could not answer that. She just replied that she truly loved each one of her companions and was so grateful she could serve with each of them. 



One of the more memorable experiences of this skype call was when we told her we had tried the Bigelow Tea Bag object lesson she had shared with us and it didn't work!! In fact, Jeremy burned his hand 3 times trying to do it. (See explanation of it below) So, she couldn't understand why it didn't work for him. Being a little bit of a crazy family....we went and got an empty tea bag and lit it on fire. Unfortunately, the ceiling fan was on & it picked up the flaming tea bag and we ended up having to stomp out a burning tea bag. Poor little rug now has a scorch mark on it!! Ashlyn was dying with laughter at the situation!!! 

*Hailey did her robot dance for Ashlyn.
*Paige immediately blasted questions at Ashlyn regarding her "love life" that is on hold for 18 months. Wisely, Ashlyn did not answer any of Paige's questions!!! 
*Ashlyn said she has met some really great Christian people on her mission. This was really heartfelt and I could tell she feels very strongly the emotions she has for them. 
*She also said there is no good way to ride a bike in a skirt!!

I told Ash I wanted a picture with her. So here is the 1st picture we took together:

Typical picture for our family---someone HAS to be making a crazy face!! 

When we had to end the call, it was very hard. The emotions were raw and we told her we would not be the ones the click off. So, she said goodbye and clicked off on a happy note, at exactly 40 minutes (per mission rules!).

At Christmas, it was much harder to say goodbye because we all started crying. This time, Ashlyn did not cry. That brought me great comfort. (Although I still had to have my own little pity party afterwards.) 



 She did behave for a second so we could actually snap a picture!!

  Object Lesson on Faith: Take a Bigelow Tea bag & empty the tea out. Then stand it up like a tunnel on your palm. Light the top on fire. It "should" burn until it gets right to the bottom and then it is "supposed" to go flying away and the fire extinguishes on its own. Disclaimer: This is a 19 year old hs graduate encouraging this type of activity. Try it at your own risk!!! :)