Chris leaves

Well it's been several days since I posted. On Feb 7, Jessie's boyfriend Chris left on his mission to Leeds England. She has had an extremely hard time, much worse than I expected. I feel SO BAD for her. It breaks my heart. I can say though, that I know EXACTLY how she feels. When I waited for Brian, it was one of the worst times of my life. I was so sad. It's almost a physical pain---it hurts so much. With prayer, I hope we get through it. I really hope she marries Chris and I think she will. He has an AWESOME family that I really like. His Mom is SOO good to Jess and that really helps her. They are really good people and I would love for her to marry into their family and to have Chris in ours. He is an exceptional young man.

The very day he left, she hurt her knee quite badly playing church basketball. Took her to the Dr and it was sprained. Things like this always seem so much worse when you are already sad. So that was a rough day. It is so hard to see your child in any kind of pain. As a mother, your instinct is to "fix" everything for your child. To make it all better. But I can't do anything to fix this. I got out all my stuff from when I waited for Brian: comforting quotes, scriptures, fun things to do for him. The next day she called me from school and said, "...Mom??..." and then just burst out crying so hard. So I let her come home and we went to Missionary Emporium and bought her lots of fun things---an England sweatshirt, a shirt that says "I love my missionary", keychains, magnets, England flag, chart to count down the days, and several other fun things. And we went to lunch.I think it helped her a little. She has also spent a few evenings with his family. Being at his house seems to help a lot. I remember it helped me too. It's as close as you can get to them so it feels good to be there. I hope as some time passes she will adjust. It's really hard for me to see her so sad.