Armies of Helaman

Our son Andy has been blessed with many good friends. He became friends with many of these boys when they were in grade school. Above is a picture of Brady and Taylor when they were in forth grade with Andy. They have had more adventures than you can imagine. Most of it has been harmless fun (with one or two visits/calls from the police, but I won't go into those at this time.) We feel so fortunate that Andy chose good friends and that they collectively chose to engage in good activities. Is there any bigger blessing for a child than having good friends during the teenage years? We count our blessings in that regard with all of our children.
They (this picture doesn't show all of them) grew up hanging out at the homes of all the boys. We enjoyed having these boys in our home (even though they could empty the refrigerator in seconds) and we got to know their families through the process of picking them up and dropping them off at various homes and also while attending ALL of their sporting events. There isn't a sport that these boys didn't play and they played their sports of choice very well. They all played in high school and excelled in soccer, basketball, baseball and football. The interesting thing about their friendship is that they all attended the same junior high school, but then they went to different, highly competitive high schools because of boundary requirements. In some cases, they competed against each other in high school sports. But they remained friends through it all, much to the surprise of all their parents.

Their freshman year of college, six of them lived together in an apartment while they attended UVSC or BYU. They had more fun than is probably legal. During these months, Andy was honored to be asked to baptise one of his friends Ronnie (seen below in the white shirt without a jacket) into the church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. All of the boys were good examples to Ronnie and included him in all their activities.

They started receiving their mission calls last fall and the first to enter the MTC was Taylor. We have attended the farewells of these good boys and have wished them well as they have gone to serve the Lord. Rick and I got to see all these good Elders of Israel as they came through the MTC. We loved chatting with them, sometimes eating dinner with them and watching them grow and change. We moms started a "missionary mom group" meeting for lunch to visit and share information about our sons and their missions. We set up a monthly email list to share our sons letters and emails with their friends so that they can stay in touch since they have so little time to write letters. It's been so uplifting to receive the emails from all these good Elders and read them before sending them off to our sons. That way we parents can learn how they are doing as well.

When Andy was in the Missionary Training Center, five or six of his friends were in training at the same time. Here is a priceless picture showing some of them in front of the world map in the MTC, pointing to where they are going to serve across the world. They are truly boys turning into men right before our eyes. They are going out to do some good in the world. I pay tribute to the latter-day Armies of Helaman!

"And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all--they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted. Yeah, they were men of truth and soberness, for they had been taught to keep the commandments of God and to walk uprightly before him." Alma 53: 20-21.

as shown by the world map above:

Elder Andy -Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar

Elder Tanner - Thailand, Bangkok (Tanner's parents are Thai and he was called to serve in their native land and learn to speak Thai. How cool is that?)

Elder Tanner - Russia, Vladivostok

Elder Brady - Illinois, Chicago

Elder Tom - Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (Spanish)

Elder Jake - Ukraine, Donetsk

others not shown

Elder Taylor - Pennysylania, Harrisburg

Elder Dustin - Argentina, Rosario (yes, this is the mission where I served!)

Elder Mike - California, SanDiego

Elder Mark -

Elder Ric - California, San Bernadino (a change from his origional call of Russia, Vladivostok

Elder Jon - waiting for his call to come in August (UPDATE - Jon was called to serve in the Mexico, Chiquaqua mission)

McKay joined the Marines right after they graduated from high school last year. He is submitting his papers, hoping to get a mission call and then receive a two year leave of absense from the Marines so he can serve. Afterwards he'll return to military duty. (UPDATE - McKay was called to serve in the Columbia, Cali mission. He will deploy for one year to Afganistan and then he'll head out on his mission.)