joy and tears

If you watched the video I posted yesterday, you can hear lots of whooping and hollering at the beginning. That was not us. Two other families were awaiting their missionaries on the same flight. They cheered and screamed. I took one look at Brakston coming down the escalator and dissolved into tears which just started a chain reaction. Soon, we were all crying (except Alec who could NOT stop smiling for hours!).

Brakston informed us that it was the first time he'd cried in at least a year. He certainly made up for it yesterday! We went straight from the airport to the stake president's office for his release. He cried buckets! Once more, this started a chain reaction and had the entire family crying. I'm not sure I ever imagined how hard being released would be for him. I think removing his name tag was one of the hardest things he's had to do. It makes me cry just writing about it.

Brakston loved his mission, the people, and the gospel. As hard as it was to see him sob, I was also very grateful that he had that reaction because I knew how important his mission had been to him.

Now, he's got to make the change to "civilian life". It took a long time to get him out of his suit yesterday. I believe he was home for about 7-8 hours before he changed out of white shirt and tie. That made me laugh. Still, I think he'll make the adjustment fairly quickly. The ward invited him to play basketball last night an he went to institute this morning so life is moving on.