To Serve and Dream...

Last week we were able to participate in a great event as a family! My little sister decided last year that she wanted to serve a mission for our church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints). She had to wait until now to do all of the paperwork (women have to 21 or older and young men 19 or older) and receive her call. Our leaders we believe are divinely inspired to call each individual who chooses to go on a mission and who is worthy to a certain part of the world. My husband, for example, was called to England. There are missions all over the world, and we've all been trying to guess where she might end up for the next 18 months of her life (men serve for 2 years). She has taken Japanese for four years, in high school and college, and did included that information in her paperwork. But none of us thought that she would end up there... It was her dream to go there, but she was willing to go where the Lord wanted her to be. And if that meant learning another language too, then she'd do it!

She received her call in the mail last week and we arranged for our family to meet there later that night. I felt badly she had to wait so long but we all wanted to be a part of it! She began reading the letter and then stopped, put her hand to her mouth, said "Oh my gosh" before reading "you have been called to serve in the Japan Tokyo mission...". Immediately, the family erupted in cheers and tears because we were so excited! Here are some pictures with our new, soon-to-be sister missionary!

And, of course I had to shoot a video! I forgot my nice video camera I use for weddings, but my digital did well enough :)