Luke's Mission Call
I guess I get to make the first post in Luke's mission blog. We'll start with the day he received his mission call.
I was at work on Tuesday morning (April 18th) when I felt my phone vibrate. It was around 11:30am, and then I felt it vibrate several more times. I got excited thinking that maybe Luke's mission call had come. We knew it was a definite possibility, and sure enough, he had sent this text to our family group chat. Eeeeeeeek! :)
Normally, we would have opened it that night with friends and family, but he was being awarded a couple of scholarships and the ceremony was that night. Plus Annie (his girlfriend) was out of town on an orchestra trip and of course she really wanted to be there. So after some conversation with him, he decided to wait until Wednesday night to share it with others. But he really wanted to know for himself that night. So, Scott and I went with him to the scholarship night, where he was awarded 2 scholarships. We were thrilled!
As soon as that was over, we took off and drove over to the Bentonville temple. Ashley, Devin, and Tyler met us there around 7:45pm. Trevor, Mary, and McKenna FaceTimed us. With our immediate family, Luke opened his email and read his call to serve. The mission call letter wording has changed in recent years. Instead of your assignment being at the very beginning of the letter, it now appears at the end. I like the shift, when you actually think about the letter. It first talks about your worthiness to represent the Savior. Then it talks about your purpose as a missionary. And then it gives you your assignment. Luke's main desire was to go somewhere "different", and I think he got it. He has been called to serve in the Colombia Medellin mission and he will begin on Monday, July 17th! Common Spanish pronounces it "meh-duh-yeen", but the locals pronounce it "meh-duh-jean".
A friend had told me about an app where your friends and family can take guesses, so I shared the link and we got a lot of guesses. I told everyone they could make 2 guesses: a stateside guess and a foreign guess. Trevor actually did guess Colombia!! What we were also surprised about was that he begins home MTC on the exact date that he listed for his availability! We just figured he would begin in August because it's 4 months out, and everyone we know getting calls right now starts in August. Suddenly it feels like his time at home is very short, and our calendar has just exploded with all the things to fit in, and other commitments that we had.
Two other thoughts about his mission call. First, I do feel a little nervous about Colombia. When all you know about a country isn't good, it's easy to worry... and the first thing that comes to mind when you hear Colombia are the drug cartels. But we've prayed as a family, and I've prayed personally, that whoever assigned Luke his mission call would know exactly where to send him, and this is where he was inspired to be called. So we go forward with faith that this will be a great experience for Luke. It's crazy to put a place and a date to the call now.
Second thing. It was a year ago when Nathan and Drew opened up their mission calls that Luke said to me afterwards, "Mom, isn't it crazy to think that in a year that could be me?" It was the first time he had said anything specific about going on a mission after high school, and I knew he was starting to think about it. Natalie pointed out that Luke did, in fact, get his mission call exactly one year later!! He shared his mission call on the same day that Nathan and Drew did, one year later. I just think that is really special. :)
Wednesday was another busy day. The youth had a stake activity that night for the juniors and seniors, Teacher Appreciation. It's a very nice event the stake puts on where the youth select a teacher that they are grateful for. The teachers get an invitation to join on a certain night and they don't find out until that night who selected them. The students write a nice tribute and they are read to the audience. The teacher comes to the front and the student meets them there, gives them a small gift (usually a book or a journal or something like that) and they take a picture together. Of course there is food and socializing afterwards. Anyway, it's a very nice event and Luke was asked to be one of the tribute readers! He was asked to sing a special musical number with a small group, and then, at the last minute, he was asked to sing a solo part when someone else couldn't make it.
We hurried home as soon as it was over because we had friends come over for Luke to announce his call. As we discussed how he wanted to do this, at first he said he didn't really want to have a big group of people over, but in the end, he decided to invite some friends and then of course there are our good friends who wanted to come, and then other youth started hearing about it, and it just grew from there. We ended up with about 50 people at our house that night! We also did a Facebook live and an Instagram live so that our extended family could watch and anyone else who wanted to. I made some chocolate chip cookies and scotcheroos (Luke's favorite) for treats.
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Hyrum, a friend from the ward who also just got his mission call, and the Bishop. |
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Friends! Grateful for all the support for Luke. |
In the end, I quite like the way it played out. It was a really special thing to open his call at the temple with just our immediate family (how cool that we have a temple so close to us now!!! I love the beautiful building as the backdrop of this moment.). We went to dinner afterwards (even though it was about 8:00pm, we hadn't had time to eat dinner beforehand) and talked about it. And it was super fun to still share with friends and extended family with him reading his call to all of them as well the next night.
A few of these pictures from the night Luke read his mission call at the temple were posted on the Bentonville Temple Page with the following post:
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