John Received His mission Call!!!

I actually included this video in the post about our vacation, but just in case you missed it. (And so I can find it again some day...) 

Watch the video first and then scroll down for my thoughts...

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

↓

So yeah, that is two of my children called to serve in the same country that I served my mission in. Hannah is in Sao Paulo South, and John will be in Sao Paulo West. While they are/ will be in Sao Paulo, and I was in Bahia in the northeastern part of Brazil, this is very exciting for me. I think Steven is a bit worried that the three of us will take off talking in Portuguese and he will be left out. What if all our children are sent to Brazil, and he is left the only one in our family who doesn't know Portuguese?

The biggest question that is on everyone's tongue is, "Is he excited?" And the answer is yes, he is as excited as he can be - which isn't readily visible, but he is excited. I loaned him my copy of the Livro de Mormon (Portuguese Book of Mormon), and he has begun carrying that around along with his English, Japanese and French versions. He looked up a couple scriptures that were referenced during church yesterday in the Portuguese version.

I wondered a bit how Hannah would feel when she found out about his call. How would she feel about having her brother in the next mission over? We had John write to tell her the news. When we talked with her on the following P-day, she was so excited! She told us that when she read his email she was so excited that probably everyone in the cyber cafe knew that her brother was coming to serve in Brazil. I think one of the coolest things about it is that when they come back, they will be able to talk to each other in Portuguese and keep up their language skills. She is already anxious to answer any questions he might have about Brazil, and help in whatever way she can. She told us today that she told her mission president the news, and he may be able to arrange for Hannah to see John when he is at the CTM. (Centro de Treinamento de Missionarios).

Speaking of the CTM, I hope John will get his visa in time to go the the CTM, and not have to go to the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo instead. I think we learned from Hannah that we need to work as fast as possible. Of course, right now we are still waiting for the visa materials to be mailed to us, but we did take him to apply for a passport already.

So yeah. He enters the CTM on September 18th. That's about 3 months from when he received his call, 2 months after he turns 18, and that's how much time we have to finish getting ready. Fun stuff!