Called To Serve

This is the photo we sent in with our mission papers

Today I am starting our mission blog.  I am new at this, so please pardon any mistakes that I make.

We woke this morning with news of Chris's stepfather's passing. He was a good man and a good grandfather to our children. We will miss him dearly and hope we can figure out a way to attend the funeral. That means getting to SLC three days earlier then planned.  We already have tickets provided by the mission department for Monday the 29th, but it appears that the funeral is going to be next Saturday. I am sure we shall find a way to be there to honor Grandpa John and be a support to Betty. We are glad are not gone yet, so there is a better chance that we can be there. However, it does mean starting this new, and already stressful, chapter in our lives with a bit of added stress.

We were supposed to fly into SLC on the 29th, as I already stated, then visit family for a couple of days.  We had registered for Spanish emersion class at the MTC on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of October.  Then the plan was to have a relaxing weekend with Chris's mom for conference.  Our official report date is on Monday October 6th. We are to check into the MTC at 10:00 AM. (exciting)

As far as the blog goes, we would like to invite you to join us on this Santiago, Chile adventure. We are so excited to serve, to see another part of the world and to fall in love with the people. I cannot promise how often I will write, or how interesting it will be. I can promise that I will try. I am not a very good journalist and what you read may only be good for putting you to sleep at night.  You may also find big blank days depending on how busy we are or how much fun we are having.  But my goal is to post at least once per week.  We shall see how it goes. Wish me luck!

That is enough for a start up page and I will include more details of this week later.  But this is a pretty good sample of what it will be like. If you are disappointed, you can leave and I won't be offended. However, if you stay and follow I my get better at conveying our experience with practice.