Called To Serve!

Two exciting things happened today. Ethan got his mission call and Mel came home from BYU. We'll start with the highlight, which was Ethan's call.

(We're excited that you're home Mel, but a mission call trumps moving into the basement!) So - Corey is in Texas with Abi, and with the Corona stuff we couldn't do the usual mass gathering of friends like we did with Joseph, so it was a family opening with three different live feeds - Ethan on his Instagram, my mom sending a Marco Polo on the Hibbert Channel on her phone, and Corey's family (and Corey) tuning in via zoom on the laptop.

Ethan printed up his call and put it in an envelope for himself.

I actually really liked this opening with his siblings around him. What a wonderful experience to kinda open this with their brother. We are so excited for him! Two funny parts from the video - one after Natalie kept sticking her head right in the middle of the camera and taking up the whole screen with her face. Ethan chastised her the first time, then she got a second warning - "Natalie! We're going to kick you out... We will! Wes! Will you be on Natalie duty?" and then Ethan takes a deep breath: "Ok... ready?" and he starts to read... then Corey asks "Wait... are you recording this?" Yes... Ok... starts to read, then uncle Mark "Hold on... Are we recording this?" Yes! We got it! Then Corey's dad: "Do one of you guys have a record button on your computer?" Haha! So funny. So yes, it was recorded in various ways by several people. Here was my version~

So exciting! The Dominica Republic Santiago Mission!! And he gets to go to the Mexico MTC! (He was a little worried that the Corona stuff would mean he'd have home MTC, which he was sure would suck. He leaves on July 14th! And guess what - Joseph comes home on July 15th! Soooo... they are going to miss each other by a day. Unless Joseph decides to change his mind and NOT extend, which we are really hoping for. He was originally going to come home June 9th, but that got changed to June 2nd after the Christmas transfer was shortened by a week so that they wouldn't have transfers on Christmas day - so that was changed to a 5 week transfer instead of 6 weeks, which moved all the subsequent transfers back a week. So then Joseph's 24 month release date of June 26th was in the middle, and he decided to extend to July. We wanted to do a family trip before Ethan and Mel leave, and really wanted to have Joseph with us, but when we asked him about it he said he wanted to stay. "What if Mel and Ethan leave before you get back?" "Well we don't need to have that conversation until they have a call in hand." Ok, fine Elder! Just DON'T help us plan! So now we have call #1, and guess what Joseph, you're gonna miss Ethan! So again, we're gonna really be praying that he will change his mind and will come home in June. And I might send a little note to the mission office or his mission president or something to plead our case. I thought it was really cool to have all the testimony and purpose of missionary work stuff before assignment.

Ethan "I don't even know where that is!" He was thinking at first it was the Democratic Republic (of the Congo) in Africa, then "Oh! It's an island! It's by Jamaica! Ok! I like Jamaica." And with some relief: "...And I don't have to do online stuff."

"Thanks for coming everyone. ...I'm going to go play Smash for a couple hours..." (Smash Brothers on the Wii) Ethan has felt kinda nautious all day and had to lay down a few times feeling ill. The nerves were getting to him. But now he's good and happy, it feels right, it feels great.

A little blue tab there marking the place that will be his next adventure - the Dominican Republic!! So we are super excited, what a perfect assignment! It's like with Joseph - we wondered where he would go and then once we hear it, we're like "Oh of course that's the place!! (I should have guess that!) That is perfect!" The Dominican Republic is going to be the perfect place for Ethan!!! We are very happy.