Travel to Nicaragua – Week 5.5

[This post is from Mom and Dad]

Cayman is travelling to Nicaragua today from the Provo MTC.  He woke up very early and left the MTC around 4:00 AM.  We had sent him a disposable cell phone on another missionary parent’s recommendation as Cayman had received word that he was allowed to call home during travel.  This turned out to be a very good idea, as the Atlanta Airport, where they had a layover, does not apparently have (m)any pay phones.  Cayman ended up letting his two companions (he was in a Trio for travel) use the cell to call home as they couldn’t find anything.  He did take a picture from his terrible disposable phone while on the plane to Atlanta and texted it to us.

We got to talk to him, and it was wonderful, although very difficult to say goodbye again.  He was in good spirits, and was excited and nervous for the next step.  He talked about how his district (from one of the elders in the district) started saying that they were never getting out of the MTC because it seemed so far away.  Now that they were leaving, it had changed to, “I’m never coming home.”  We didn’t like the sound of that, but knew it was in jest.  We even got in on the joke; at one point someone mentioned something about when he came home, and I said, “But that doesn’t matter anyway since you’re never coming home.”  He said, “Exactly.” 🙂  It was really fun to talk to him, joke with him, and hear him tell stories of the MTC in his own voice…not just in an email.

Presumably they were to arrive around 8:00 PM local time in Managua, although we haven’t gotten word yet.  We are hoping for a note from Cayman or from the Mission President to let us know all is well.  We can’t wait to find out where he gets assigned and who will be his trainer.  We will update the site with a new post when we hear from someone.