My house is trashed

Everywhere I look, I see piles of clothes, suitcases, bags of toiletries, boxes of missions items....

We are trying to fit most, if not all, of our clothes in carry-ons for our upcoming 10-day missions trip. My niece had a great idea: Instead of spending a lot of money on special compacting travel bags, try putting clothes in Zip-Loc bags and sitting on them to squeeze all of the air out while zipping. She was able to fit an entire outfit in one gallon size bag. We tried it, and it definitely seems to save space. We decided to make it even more more compact by slightly opening the bag and using a straw to remove as much excess air as possible (I learned this trick from my grandma years ago). Jordan fit 10 T-shirts into a 2.5-gallon bag. Nathan decided to put outfits for each day into a 1-gallon bag and date it (another of my niece's ideas). That is a bit too much for me! I will be happy just to squeeze as much as possible into a carry-on.

I am getting really excited for our trip! We have a great team of youth going. We start our team training for this trip tonight, so prayers are appreciated. I will give more details about the trip when we get back.

Have a wonderful and blessed day!