10.7.18

• What a week! Before I get into that.. I could write a whole email on General Conference! Wasn’t it amazing! And two hour church! What?!
  

  
  

  I love President Nelson! I deleted my Facebook and Instagram app for the next days off my phone. I started  my personal reading of The Book of Mormon. 

  
  

  Monday night President Esquibel came over and set Keagan apart. It was a beautiful blessing and we were all teary eyed. We had Makayla’s Family and my mom and Thom come over and my Aunt Ellen was here, too. (More on her later). 

  
  

  One of the hardest parts was to see Makayla and Keagan give their last hug. We sure love her and her family! She has been a good example and good friend to him. 

  

  
  

  Tuesday morning we took Elder Shoop out to breakfast. It was a quiet meal. I was trying to hold it together. As we got closer and closer to the airport, it got harder and harder. My heart physically hurt. But at the same time I was (am) so proud of him and the person he is! That bittersweet word again!

  

  
  

  At SeaTac airport, up above.

  
  

  Saying goodbye was hard! 

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  We watched him walk in line until we couldn’t see him anymore. 

  

  
  

  His plane left at 1:00 and went to Salt Lake where Melissa and Hazel picked him up. He had a good evening with them and even got to watch and listen to some thunder and lightning! 

  
  

  The next morning Melissa took him to go visit our good friend Jennie Klumker and out to lunch at his favorite spot. 

  
  

  She took lots of pictures for us and sent him off! 

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  What a good big sis Melissa is!

  
  

  

  
  

  https://youtu.be/E77o4yIuWbA

  I made a video of him entering the mtc. I love Melissa’s voice in the background. 

  
  

  I gathered myself together after he was “gone” and went out to do some shopping that I needed to get done. I pulled into the parking lot and checked my phone before I went in.. there was a short email from him already. More tears.. had to gather myself together again. 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  

  
  

  His good friend Landon Oliver is in the MTC right now, going to the Philippines. They’ve know each other since Landon was born! So, Friday morning I was reading Landon’s email before I went to work( thank goodness!) and Elder Oliver says...

  
  

  
  

  Wednesday is easily one of my favorite days of the week, it is the day I get to torment newbies. As they walk through the doors, my whole district will usually try to hide spoons in there stuff or shirts, or yell at them in Tagalog. All a lot of fun.  But as we were heading to go do studies I got a prompting to get my camera, so we did and we waled over to our room and just as we were leaving I ran almost literally into Elder Shoop, who is on the second floor of our building. It was great.

  
  

  But I didn’t get the picture until that afternoon. (Luckily after work.. haha)

  
  

  

  
  

  So, how cool is that! Our first picture of him with his name badge on is with one of his best friends! What a tender mercy!

  
  

  Well, the other big thing at our house is that we have two roommates. My Aunt Ellen moved in with us in the downstairs bedroom and Kenzie Redding moved in with us into Keagan’s room!

  My Aunt Ellen is my dad’s younger sister and she lived in southern Oregon. She wants to be closer to my dad especially since his health has declined. And her son lives in Seattle, so she asked if she could live with us for a few months while she finds a job and gets her own place or gets a place with my dad. So, far it has been great. She’s very pleasant! And she’s cooked us dinner a couple of times! I may never want her to move out!

  
  

  Kenz is basically in the same situation. She just graduated from beauty school and needs to save a little and get her feet on the ground. 

  
  

  So, last week was a little crazy with them moving in and Keagan leaving, but we’ve really enjoyed their company and I think it will be good. 

  
  

  Elder Shoop’s email is keagan.shoop@myldsmail.net if you want to email him. Next week I’ll try to remember his physical address. 

  
  

  Love everyone!

  Sis Shoop

  And I love this picture!

  

  
  

  
  

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10.5.18 bonus

My first picture of Elder Shoop as a missionary with his name tag on! 

Landon Oliver is in the mtc right now going to the Philippines. Here is a paragraph from his email yesterday. 

Wednesday is easily one of my favorite days of the week, it is the day I get to torment newbies. As they walk through the doors, my whole district will usually try to hide spoons in there stuff or shirts, or yell at them in Tagalog. All a lot of fun.  But as we were heading to go do studies I got a prompting to get my camera, so we did and we waled over to our room and just as we were leaving I ran almost literally into Elder Shoop, who is on the second floor of our building. It was great. 

How awesome is that! ❤️

Tender mercy for sure! Tears of joy!

Love you guys!

Donna

10.1.18

A little late. We were enjoying life to much to write earlier. 

We had an awesome weekend! We took off to Long Beach Washington on Thursday afternoon. We got there just after the sun set. It was still beautiful! We had a 2 bedroom condo about a block from the beach, but it was up on hill and overlooked the ocean. We had an awesome deck view. I sat there a lot enjoying the tranquility- sound and smell of the beach! We were also lucky enough to have beautiful weather the majority of the time we were there! It was in the high 70s and sunny! Sometimes you don’t even get that in the summer!

 Friday morning we headed over to Long Beach, the cute little beach town and had so much fun! It was almost magical and had so much fun enjoying our time with Keagan. 
He loves the arcade, we spent a couple hours in there. It was pretty fun! We went into all the cute little shops, had ice cream, played mini golf, and Ray and Keagan went on the go carts. 

We went onto the beach a few times, but it was hot (we’re wimps) and we had forgot our chairs. We went back to the condo for a short nap and woke up to fog! We couldn’t see the beach anymore!

We had a great time! I can’t wait to go back! 
On the way back, we stopped and saw my dad and Keagan said goodbye. 

Yesterday we had an open house for him. It was so nice to have so many people come over and support us. I have too many pictures to post. The nicest surprise was seeing Greta Harris (Lapossa) come. We had no idea she was coming. She lives up in Mulkiteo now (at least 2 hours north). She was Keagan’s primary teacher for a couple of years and they were super close. That was really sweet. 
Beth and Merrill George came from Portland and Logan Woodbury came from Bremerton. And of course, our bonus son- Adam Cichoski came over from Moses Lake. It was great to have a lot of youth there and people we love from the ward. 

I haven’t cried as much as I thought I would. I’m happy that he is worthy and willing to go. I will for sure miss him! Mostly I’m sad about the end of an era at the Shoop family. Our youngest child to leave the house. 

Tonight, I’m sure will be a different story. He gets set apart at 8 pm. Tomorrow we take him up to the airport and it leaves at 1. Melissa will pick him up and take him to the mtc Wednesday where he reports at 1. Pretty exciting! 

Many more emotions to come next week! And I’m so happy General conference is next week! What a great time for all of us to hear our Savior’s voice through his prophets!
Love you all, 
Sister Shoop



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