Because of stupid Covid-19, Joshua, and all of the foreign missionaries had to be sent home from their missions. So, Jake, who had just been out for a year was home from Guatemala. Riley was home from Mexico. If you had been out for less than 18 months, like Jake, then you could choose to be reassigned in your own country, wait to see if your mission reopened or just be done. Those missionaries who had been out 18 months or longer, like Riley and Josh, were considered DONE. I honestly do not know of anyone who waited. It took awhile for the church to get everyone home, quarantined for 2 weeks and sorted out before they could start reassigning them but Jake was called to finish his mission in Washington State, which he absolutely loved. Riley was home and everyone kept asking us about Josh. When was he coming home? Why wasn't he home yet? Well, when Jake came home, No one was allowed at the SLC airport to get him except 1 person. He wasn't allowed to hug my parents or see anyone for 2 weeks. My dad cried. It wasn't a happy occasion for anyone especially Jake. I did not want that to happen to Josh. At our airport they weren't even allowing anyone inside to pickup the missionaries. You were to wait outside for them to come out of the building to you. It was INSANE! The world was crazy! I wanted to slap everyone. But that wasn't going to help Josh. So, he and I talked about it and decided that we wouldn't tell anyone when he was coming home. We just kept pleading the 5th and saying, "Maybe they figure that Canada is enough like the US so they are letting him finish his mission". My plan was to just call everyone one night and say, "Let's drive out to the airport to see what missionaries are coming home." Then we would be sitting there in our cars watching these parents running up to their missionaries as they walked out of the airport and all of the sudden Josh would walk out and everyone would say, "Wait, that missionary looks like Josh...It Is JOSH!" Then they would jump out and run over to him and it would be happy and fun and not a sad, Oh sorry you're home, kind of thing. But, I also knew that Konnor would never go for that so I had to let him in on it so he would help me out. I needed him to say how cool it would be to throw Shayne off any scent of lying.
So, I let Joel in on it and he was NOT happy about any of it. He did not like having to lie to people about it and didn't think it would work. He thought it would blow up in our face and make everyone mad. I told him too bad, he had to keep it a secret because if he blew this for me I would be SOOO mad. And so it started...
The first thing I had to do was convince Sophie to come down and spend the weekend so she would be here. DONE! Everything was going great. The day came and we were doing yard work, putting rock in on the side of the house. We had planned to work in the morning and then go to the airport around 4:45 because his flight was supposed to come in at 5pm. BUT, I got a call that morning saying that he already missed his first connecting flight. So they re-routed him to LAS VEGAS at 8pm!!! Oi Vey! So, instantly I pulled Konnor aside and we worked a new scheme. I would tell everyone that since they did such a great job at the yard then we would reward them with ice-cream in Vegas. Now remember that we are right in the middle of the Covid lock down and Vegas is completely shut down. So there really wasn't any place open to even get ice cream. Konnor found 1 store that had a drive-thru still open and put on the performance of a lifetime to make it sound like the best trip in the world. Joel then called Dan Cluff to ask if we could borrow his 15 passenger van so we could all be in 1 vehicle. He was stoked! Then we all showered and left. As we were pulling up I got a text from Josh saying that his flight was early. I looked up and could see it about us. I also just happened to be on Facebook and saw that one of Josh's companion's did get home to SLC and his parents posted a picture of a cake that said Welcome Home Elder Hall. So, I hurried and showed it to everyone and said, "Hey Elder Halls' mom just posted and he is on that plane! Let's go see him!" Of course, Konnor and Joel said OK and Shayne and Sophie believed it because I was friends with all of their companion's moms. So off to the airport we went! When we pulled up to park we were literally the only ones in the parking garage. We got the very 1st stall and hurried in. It was creepy to see a once super busy airport to a completely deserted one. The only people we saw were that janitors and security guards. Then the fam started to get suspicious. I told them that if we just waited right where we were then they would have to come see us because we were by the baggage claim. See how sneaky I am. Meanwhile, Konnor and Joel went for a walk. A couple minutes later they came back with Josh and Sophie said, "Wait, is that Josh?" Shayne said, "No, it can't be. We are looking for Elder Hall not Josh!" She was getting upset. It was hilarious. And ever more so when Sophie and David took off running down the corridor towards him and gave him a hug. It wasn't until then that she finally realized what was actually going on. It was perfect! Thank you Konnor. Thank you Joel. The reaction was exactly how I wanted it to be no matter where the location was. Sophie and David were bawling. Shayne still couldn't believe what was going on and Ben was glad to see Josh but wondering when we were going to get ice cream.
There were only 2 other people on Josh's flight and they took carry on luggage so the only bags that came through the baggage claim were Josh's. It was incredibly weird to see the machine turn on, spit out two bags and then turn off. We picked them up and walked out explaining everything to everyone as we went. As we loaded Josh's bags into the Cluff's van another light went off in Shayne's head. It was great to watch them put all the pieces together. We then had to tell them that they could NOT tell anyone for 2 WEEKS! The were dying! It was Spring Break and we still needed Josh to be on his mission as far as anyone knew so we could give the grandparents surprise Covid free hugs. It worked for the first week and after that I got sick of hiding it and needed him to drive out to Brad's house to get something for me because I was extremely busy painting The Grip trying to get it ready to open it's new Green Valley location. So, Brad knew, then JoEllen knew. So we had to swear them all to secrecy. Hard work to get everyone to lie for you but when it pays off...it really pays off.
Here are the results:
WELCOME HOME JOSHIE! WE LOVE YOU!
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