August 4, 2013

Well, it is almost here! We have had a wonderful month full of farewell parties. It has been so nice to have those around us care enough to send us off with love. It is kinda like having your funeral while you are still alive! We will miss you all and hoping that a trip to San Diego might be in your future. Thanks for your love and support.

We had our farewell last Sunday and we had all but 9 of our kids and grandkids there. There 69 of us when we are at 100% attendance so we had 60 there! Thanks for coming guys! Seeing you all stand in the meeting brought such a sweet spirit. It was such a great sight from where I was standing and I am sure that I will remember seeing you all there and feeling your support for a long time!

We get set apart tonight at 7:15 and then report to the MTC tomorrow morning. We will be there each day until 4:30 and then we get to come home and sleep in our own bed and report back at 8:00 am. I am hearing that there are some evening devotionals during the week too. We will be getting some Preach My Gospel training and other than that we are pretty clueless of what will go on. Sitting in classes each day for that long may be a bit challenging for my body but I am praying for help there. -We are excited to finally get going. Maybe that is why they gave us a call with such a long waiting time before we leave!

Roger will take off on Sunday the 11th for California in the car and I will fly in on Tuesday the 13th to San Diego. He will get me from the airport and we will drive to the mission home. The man in charge of housing will meet us there and take us to our apartment. We are told that they have a one bedroom apartment in the Chula Vista Imperial Beach area that we will be in for a couple of weeks. In that time the mission president will interview us and see if they want to leave us in that assignment or move us to another one. We will either stay there the rest of the mission or move to another area and stay there for the rest of the mission.

I have a thousand questions of how things are going to be, what we will be doing, etc. But most of those things are not decided yet and it feels a little strange to not have a better idea of what we will be doing for the next year. We are feeling peace about it though and are just excited to "go where He wants us to go and do what He wants us to do." I think that is called FAITH.

I know that there will be hard times. Please pray for us. We have been promised that we will feel your prayers and that we will be strengthened by that. I know that we are doing a good thing. I have wanted to go on a mission since I was a young girl. When I was 18 I actually asked my grandfather, he was the prophet at the time, if he would pull a few strings and let me go when I was 19 instead of 21. He said he didn't think that he would do that. :)

REMEMBER TO PRAY, OBEY AND SERVE! WE WILL TOO.