missionary week

Although I knew this week was coming, I am now coming to grips with the fact that it has actually arrived. Not only is Brady heading out next week, but we have had several missionaries coming and going. On Wednesday, Brady's cousin Dusty arrived home from his mission in Indiana. I love this kid. Don't you just love that smile? These are the three cousins closest in age - Brady, Dusty and Landon.
Besides Dusty coming home, Kelsie is leaving. She is heading to the Florida Tallahassee Mission. She gave an incredible talk in church a couple weeks ago and came to be with Brady today and then their family was heading to Utah this afternoon. She and Brady will overlap their time in the MTC by a week or so. Brady has instructions to keep an eye out for her. She should be easy to find. Although she is short, I think her cool bright colors will be easy to spot in a sea of dark suits. Kelsie is going to be an awesome missionary.

How's this for a proud papa?

We had a great sacrament meeting today. Another young man in our ward just came home from his mission in Baltimore a couple of days ago. Daniel grew up with Brady and went through scouting with him. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of him today. Anyway Daniel and Brady were the speakers in our meeting today and both did an excellent job. Another young man in our ward, Codi, is also leaving for Anchorage Alaska later in January. Lots of missionaries right now.

All these missionaries coming and going are keeping Grandma and Grandpa Watkins on the road keeping up with everyone. They are so wonderfully supportive.

It was a fun time for cousins to get together. Here is Rachel, Onya and Collette. We got to see different cousins at different events through the week. I love cousin relationships. I love that our kids have such good friends in their cousins.
Here are 11 of the 35 cousins. Ben, Trevor, Shaw, Niels, Brady, Michael, Kelsie, Rachel, Roni, Roxanne and Melanie.

There was a strange phenomenon that happened right after this picture was taken. The Whipple cousins bring a certain energy level with them everywhere they go. If you've ever been around this family, you can verify this fact. The level of talking and laughing and general conversation is usually a higher volume than normal and funnier than you can imagine. When they said their goodbyes after this picture was snapped, they walked out into the parking lot and the rest of us looked around as if the party had just ended and we had no option than to quietly disperse and go our separate ways.