THE CALL! The Journey Begins

After years of learning, growing, and maturing, Spencer's Mission Journey has begun. With doctor visits, wisdom teeth pulled, shots given, weight loss, and interviews completed, the papers were submitted. And then the wait for the White Enveloped to come in the mail began. It was June 3rd. No one had checked the mail that day because everyone thought that everyone else had done it. The boys had been to the midnight showing of XMen First Class. They were winding down from the movie at 3 am and Spencer decided to go check the mail because he hadn't seen the envelope on the kitchen counter. He came running up to mom and dad's room at 3:15 in the morning shouting, "It's here, it's here. Let's open it!!" Of course mom said no because we were going to skype Lauren and Dennis (his sister & bro in law in ID) and Grandpa Ray (in Los Gatos) that day at 1 pm. He was disappointed but calmly handed the letter over to Mom for safe keeping (threatening anyone - Mom- not to open it).

We had to do somethings to be able to skype 2 people at the same time but we were successful. Let's just say it took all morning to do this!! The time came to open it. We had the family, Grandma Linda & Grandpa Clarke, the Greer's, the Kerr's, the Snow's, and the Morrison's gathered around in the living room. We had the computer on the coffee table with Grandpa Ray & Lauren & Dennis on skype and mom's cell phone connected to Uncle Brett (who was at Mormon Lake for Girls Camp) and Connor's cell phone connected to Uncle Brett's family in Tucson. Spencer got out his trusty old pocket knife, carefully sliced open the envelope, put a piece of paper over the call and began to read the letter. He announced that he would be going to Honduras and everyone began to scream and shout! We quickly calmed everyone and he continued to read. He started to laugh and said that he couldn't say the name of the city he would be going to. It ended up being Tegucigalpa, Honduras and he would report on Oct 12, 2011. Everyone cheered except for Connor and Mitchell. It would be 4 1/2 months until he had to be to the MTC in Provo, Ut. That meant that Connor would not get the little car until after his 18th birthday (October 1st) and Mitchell would have to wait that long to get his phone. They were a little disappointed about that, but what were they going to be able to do about it? WAIT!

Everyone was excited, and when all of the hugging and saying goodbye was done, the phone calls began. We first called Uncle Kevin to let him know, and to see if he could help us with the pronunciation of the city. Kevin served in Guatemala in the late 70's so we knew he would be excited and be able to say the name. It is pronounced Te-gu-ci-gal-pa. Just like it is spelled. Honduras is just south of Guatemala and the people of Honduras travel there to attend the temple. Spencer really never picked a specific place to go for his mission, all he knew was that he wanted to go some place that is warm and doesn't snow! I guess he got his wish. We were all so surprised that he would be going to Honduras. We had a world map out for people to guess where he would be going. No one guessed Honduras, but there was one guess to Central America. Now mom had to start learning about the country her son would be living in for 2 years.

Lauren had her computer out googling everything she could about the city and telling us the things she was learning. We found out that there were new Mission President's that would be starting their mission on July 1st. They are from El Salvador. That is pretty exciting to have a president from the area. We also discovered that there is a temple being built right in Tegucigalpa. There is no completion date set yet, but it will be sometime in the spring. You can go to www.lds.org and find the link to temples and see the progress of the temple being built. How exciting is that to have a temple in Honduras! We read through the packet that was sent to see if he would stay in the Provo MTC or go to a Central America MTC and found out that he would stay the whole time in Provo. We finished reading to see what things he would need for his mission. Let the buying begin!