First Day Home

The captain comes over the speaker, “seatbelts on for descent please.” A long sigh comes out of my mouth, descent . . . that means I have to wake up now. The plane dips down and we head through the clouds, what a sight! I haven’t seen actual mountains in two years. . . There goes Utah Lake, the “Point of the Mountain,” we’ve been following I-15 since we flew over Vegas, and then goes by a new temple that I haven’t seen before, the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. It stands out very well in all its Celestial glory. As it goes by I think to myself, “that’s the place!” Not long after touchdown I find myself in a familiar area, though not one that is fresh in my mind. The path I’m walking I have walked before with my uncles and cousins when they came home from their missions, how different it is without anyone with me. . . . I follow the signs towards the luggage pickup and while I’m coming down the escalators to where they are, I scan the crowd of people and see many families greeting their missionaries; lots of love all around. I keep scanning and all of a sudden I hear, “IT’S KENNY!!!,” and see this little five year old boy come racing over to the bottom and side of the escalator bouncing like Tigger while he held on to the rail. When I got to the bottom he jumped and hung on to me so I picked him up the rest of the way and made our way to the rest of the family. I had seen them while coming down the rest of the escalator. When I reached them there were hugs all around, and then we gathered my luggage and headed out to the van. It was rather strange to have so many American accents around me; I’m not used to it. My family had lots of questions, and I had lots of answers. I was able to tell them a few things and show them the pictures I had on my camera. On the way home we stopped by my grandparents that weren’t at the airport and had a nice chat with them too. While there we called my Stake President and he set up 5 o’clock for my release. In the mean time I showed my family some of the things I had brought home, mostly just small things that I gathered, a couple hats, some shirts, and other trinkets for the family. When a quarter to five came we headed to the stake center and I didn’t have to wait long, my stake president was waiting for me. He had me come in alone and talked to me about my mission and the things he expected of me as a return missionary, mostly just about keeping the missionary appearance. He then brought my family in and had each of them express their gratitude for my service and some blessings they saw in their own lives while I was gone. Then he released me, which was sort of a letdown, because all he did was say, “Elder Kenneth Cannon Warren, I thank you for your service and release you as a full-time missionary,” and that was it. . . . We then went and had dinner at La Carreta. Afterwards we came home and my mom immediately tried to call Deb, though she didn’t answer . . . she tried a few times, but then gave up and my sister Kristi tried and got a hold of her, this was about seven o’clock, and Deb headed out right then. While waiting I continued to go through my suitcases. After a while, I have no idea how long, I heard the door bell ring, and a flurry of activity upstairs, I was in the family room downstairs. My mum called down to me that I was needed upstairs. I’m not sure how to describe how I felt up to this point; I think I was mostly repressing my feelings. . . I think I still am to be honest, because I was calm, collected, cool . . . yet inside I know I could have screamed, my favorite person in the whole world, the one who stood by me my whole mission, had just walked into the door, but at the risk of seeming apathetic I calmly walked to the bottom of the stairs to see my Deb nearly at the top (see Deb’s video post). I called out, “going upstairs?” She then turned around and I swear she could have jumped the railing in her attempt to get to me. That first hug felt really good . . . think about going without any chocolate for longer than two whole years and then being given a piece of the most decadent chocolate in the whole world, not too rich but rich enough, not too sweet but enough to make it last, and the flavor, well, the flavor is to die for. And when you eat this piece of chocolate makes you warm all over but at the same time gives you chills all up and down your spine. That is only a fraction of how it felt to get that first hug from my best friend after coming home. We spent some time at my house, until about 10 or so. Then I led her to her car where it came time to say goodbye, we embraced and I gave her our last first kiss. Think now on that chocolate analogy. . . that doesn’t even touch, or begin to scratch the surface of how good that felt, to finally be able to take Deb in my arms and kiss her goodnight once again, wow. . . I wouldn’t trade that for heaven, really, it WAS heaven.

- Ken