Well. It sure has been a while eh? Sometimes that happens when you finish school for the next 2 or so years, move 300+ miles, start training for a new job, get called to be a primary teacher for the 5-6 year olds, etc... Oh, and RECEIVE YOUR MISSION CALL!!! (Which in turn creates more things that leave less time for blogging. ie: going through and returning to the temple, taking mission prep after work, reading the Book of Mormon in your mission language, getting 8 bazillion immunizations, applying for visas/getting FBI clearance, and so on and so forth)
Where am I going, you may ask? Well, there are a few options on how to find out.
1-Have had any contact with me whatsoever the past 54 days
2-Watch this video
3-Scroll down
My call came to my parent's house in Logan while I was still at school in Cedar City. So I met up with my family and a few friends at Temple Square. Not wanting to drive all the way back to Cedar that same night, I and my good friend Alyssa stayed at her parent's house in Orem. Her fantastic mom had this cute little sign made up and hanging by the time we got there from SLC!
Oh! And if you selected option #2 (watched the video), you'll notice that at one point my mom says "You're going to My Argentina!" When my mom was in her early teens, her dad was a mission president in Cordoba, Argentina. Thus, my mom lived there for a few years. It wasn't until a few minutes later when I opened my call booklet and noticed that both my mission president and his wife had served their individual missions in Cordoba, Argentina. Coincidence? I think not! But wait, it gets better :) I show my mom their picture, and she recognizes my mission president's wife! Long story short, my grandpa was my mission president's mission president! As well as my mission president's wife! AKA my mom knows my mission president and his wife. You just can't make this stuff up. CIT!
Anyways, let me go ahead and just type out the conversation i've had with everybody the past month and a half, for convenience.
-I heard you got your call! What mission are you going to?
Paraguay Asuncion North
-Cool! Um...Where is Paraguay?
It's in South America. It's kind of in a Brazil and Argentina sandwich
-Wow! Is that Spanish speaking?
I'll be learning Spanish in the MTC, but they also have an indigenous language called Guarani. I've been told by a few folks that i'll likely learn a few phrases in Guarani, but it won't be the main conversational language.
-How exciting! Don't you already know Spanish?
Um, more or less. I could probably hold a broken conversation in Spanish if I had to, but i'm by no means fluent. And even then, most of my experience is in Mexican Spanish, and each country's Spanish can vary SOOOO much.
-Gotcha. Well, when do you leave?
I report to the Argentina MTC on April 25
-They have an MTC in Argentina!?
Apparently! I didn't know that either. But yes, i'll be in Buenos Aires for 6 weeks (which is awesome because the MTC and the Buenos Aires Temple are on the same grounds!)
-Awesome! Well, are you excited? Nervous? Scared?
Yes. All of the above. Haha, i'm really not all that scared per se, but that's probably because that still feels like it's forever away. For now, i'm just reading Preach My Gospel, reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish, taking Mission Prep at the USU Institute, and taking each day as it comes.
There is so much that could be said about the last few months. Lessons I never knew I needed to learn, people I never knew I needed to meet, experiences I never knew I needed to have. It's all kind of one big jumbled mess in my mind right now, but perhaps as I sort them out more and more, i'll post about them. For now, the one thing I can say to describe it all comes from 2 Ne 9:10, and that is...
O how great the goodness of our God
