Return of the Boy

 He's BAAAAAACCCKkkkkk......

Okay, here's a confession. I spent the first half of the summer worrying about Chase and hoping that he was surviving his new experience of work and living away from home. Once he started to love it, I immediately switched to dreading the day he would have to come home. I knew how much he was loving his time with his friends at camp, and how hard it was going to be to leave them. And I was not wrong. Coming home was hard! That's such a good thing though. 

Chase had an amazing summer at Aspen Grove. He grew so much and learned so much about himself, and kind of turned a corner in his life. He let us know that he felt very certain about his desire to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and to leave sometime late this fall or early in the winter. He seemed much happier, although lonely without his Provo crew. 

Here he is with one of his roommates and best friends at camp, Cameron, on the day I went up there to pick up all of his stuff. He stayed one more night to be with friends as long as possible, then got a ride home the next day. He also got to spend Labor Day weekend working there, which made him a lot of money and also reunited him with many folks, though not everyone. 

Here is the photo I posted on Instagram the day after he got home, just to express my happiness at his happiness. 

Not that every day since then has been happy - it's definitely a weird time, since he knows he wants to get out on a mission. He didn't start school, though he did start taking a missionary preparation class at the Institute of Religion at the UofU. He's kind of in limbo, in a waiting period between major events in his life. He's been helpful working on some projects for his grandma, but he kind of needs a job. But...he's leaving soon so.... anyway, it's weird. But truly overall joyful.

Here are some closing photos of him enjoying a new prize he bought himself after discovering that working for money can have an upside. Money! Thus....lightsaber. 

I love this boy. I love what he has learned and how he has grown. And I'm pretty sure there is a lot more of that to come in the next weeks, months and years.