Wednesday, July 30, 2008
1st day at the MTC
Austin flew in to Salt Lake City on Monday the 28th of July 2008. He was greeted by his Aunt Micki and cousin Dackota who also took him to see his Stake President to be set apart as a missionary. President Labrum happened to be in Utah for a wedding at the time. Austin said that the blessing he received was really wonderful...especially the part about being able to learn the language! Aunt Micki and her family then acted as his surrogate family while he stayed with them until Wed, July 30, 2008--MTC day! Thank you Micki for being there to take all those great pictures of him. It just killed his parents to not be there for this precious moment in time when he receives his official name badge and steps through those doors as a regular full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--not to be seen again by his family or friends for 2 years as he focuses his life on serving the Lord and the people of Argentina. This is something that Austin has been singing songs about, dressing up and wearing little homemade missionary badges for and looking forward to doing ever since he was a little boy--What a wonderful day to actually be a missionary! ...And now on to the training!
The Mission Call --April 2008
On April 1st, Austin received the biggest April Fools joke ever when his sister and brother in law dummied up a fake mission call packet and sent it in the mail. Austin had been waiting for weeks in anxious anticipation to know where he would be called for the next 2 years of his life. So when he opened up this packet, believing it was the real thing and read that he was going to Bangladore India speaking Hindi and leaving in just 4 weeks from then he was absolutely giddy with excitement.....that was until he read the next paper which read, "You're the fool Austin!" OOOOH was he mad or what! Thankfully the real mission call came shortly thereafter and with many cell phones gathered around him so that all the family members who were not there could hear where he was going, he read to all of that he had been called to the Argentina, Buenos Aires South Mission speaking Spanish. It was a very happy moment indeed! Mom was in St. George with tears streaming down her face, Brad was also in St. George at his college apt, Dan and Natalie were in Indiana. All of us were thrilled. Austin said he had guessed it right that day coming home from work when Aaron asked him where he was going to be going and also in a dream that he had the night before.
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