Making Mission Memories in Mongolia

 We have completed our week of training in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.  It was a great week spent with other senior missionaries serving in places such as Laos, Pakistan, Paris, South Africa and many other places, each with varying assignments and sacrifices, but all wanting to serve the Lord.  It was inspiring and uplifting!   We weren’t sure when we’d be able to leave for Mongolia, as our visas still hadn’t arrived. It was a week full of anticipation and uncertainty—but on Thursday afternoon, we finally got the call we’d been waiting for: our visas were here. The Church travel department sprang into action, and before we knew it, we had tickets booked. We’ll be flying out to Tokyo tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 8:00 and landing Monday afternoon at 2:00 local time (11:00 p.m. back home). We’ll spend a week in Tokyo for additional training before heading to Mongolia on May 5th. We met some great people at the MTC and felt blessed to be able to s...

The day has finally arrived!  After spending the weekend with Devin and Sarah, we enter the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT in the morning.  We will spend a week there before flying to Tokyo for more training for a week and then on to Mongolia!  We don't have official travel plans yet as we are still waiting for our Visas, but the people in the know feel they should arrive this week and we should be ready to roll!  Goodbyes are hard!  We are so grateful for modern technology and the ability this will give us to Facetime, talk, and text with our family and friends. We are so grateful for our kids and parents that are going the extra mile to allow us to serve.   Although all goodbyes were hard, the hardest was saying goodbye to our grandkids.  "But Grandma, how will we have Grandma days if you are so far away?"---5 year-old Kara.   "Grandma you look out the window when you go on the big plane and I will be waving at you.  Gran...