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16 Years Ago Today!!
By Robyn | February 29, 2008
Wow–that was a lifetime ago! But 16 years ago today I left work early and headed home to wait for my mission call. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a letter from the President of the Church telling you where in the world you were going to be living for the next 18 months (for me). In order to surprise my mom, I had my call sent to the neighbors. Bad move! I can’t keep any secrets from my mom–and she knew what was up weeks before this day came.
The night before we had watched a church video called “Called To Serve” and one of the scenes of the video’s shows missionaries in their classrooms singing the song in Japanese, and my mom said, “Wow, I’d feel OK if you went to Japan”. Her fear was somewhere like the Dominican Republic or South America–not the safest of places for a young lady to be. While waiting for the mail our conversation drifted to missionaries we knew and strangely happened to center around missionaries that all served in Japan.
The call from the neighbor came, and we headed over to get my call. As we walked toward home opening the letter we paused at the end of the cul de sac but across the street from home and read line by line of the letter, and sure enough I had been called to the Japan Nagoya Mission. We hugged and jumped around in the middle of the street. The neighbor was calling to us asking us where–but both of us had lumps in our throats and we couldn’t speak. I finally managed to croak out “Japan” and we headed home!
We went to the Missionary Store and I bought Brazil paper (for my little brother in the MTC) and Japan paper for me. Both are identical except for the mission name at the top of the page. I wrote him a 6 page letter on Brazil paper and the last paper on the Japan paper. Never once did I mention where I was going. I had a friend deliver it to the MTC that evening and eagerly waited to hear from him. It took him forever, re-reading the letter over and over, and flipping the pages until he finally noticed the different stationary.
That was 16 years ago! Babies being born that day–are getting their drivers licenses about now. It was FOREVER ago!
28 years ago, my parents met for the first time, and an amazing fairy tale began that has encompassed my life from that time on. Life changing events for my mom, myself and my two brothers. We didn’t hear about my dad that same night, it came a couple of weeks later–but this July, my parents will celebrate 28 years together—and for all of you out there looking—Prince Charming was taken off the market that day!! Sorry!
Thanks Mom, for being my best friend and sharing HUGE moments of my life with me—and Thanks Dad–for saving us from everything–and for sharing your best friend with me!!
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March 3rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
What a great story. You have had some amazing travels in your life.