Update...

Hello everyone,

Just a quick update...Tanner left the MTC yesterday (Tuesday, 16 September 2014) at 3:30 AM with his district.  He called his family at 5:30 AM from the Salt Lake City Airport.  We were ECSTATIC to talk to him, even though it was so early in the morning.  He was very calm and excited to get out into the mission field.  For anyone else sending a missionary off, send him or her one of those Go Phones or whatever they are (the somewhat disposible pre-pay phone) before he leaves the MTC.  We just put some minutes on there so Tanner could call us from the airport without any calling card problems.  It worked wonderfully!  Tanner sat comfortably while he talked to us, and he watched all the other missionaries line up at the phones and run around to different terminals to find phones to call from.

We found out that 29 missionaries left the MTC to fly to Montreal.  Holy cow!  That's a lot of new missionaries all at once.  We're glad Tanner made it out with the rest of his group.  He had a small in-grown toenail problem that sent him to the podiatrist outside of the MTC last Friday.  Missy received a call from the MTC to let her know what was happening, but the person wouldn't let Missy talk to Tanner.  Missy got a little worked up, but she ate some fresh peaches and calmed down :-).

Again, Tanner was very positive on the phone and VERY excited to get out into the missionfield.  We're very excited for his new adventures.

We want to thank all of you who sent letters and cookies and ties and cinniman rolls and cologne and socks and treats of all sorts to Tanner while he worked in the MTC.  He was very appreciative of everything.  I think he made some friends with all the stuff he received and was able to share with his roomates.  If any of you receive letters or pictures or anything from Tanner, please feel free to share them as comments.  Or you can even email them to us and we can post them on his Blog.  Thanks for all your support and prayers.

Darren and Missy Perkes