closer, getting closer

Yes; you are right.  Our mission is still over 4 months away but those months will be filled with so much that the mission, itself, seems right around the corner; besides, we just received the flight information to Romania. The March and April calendars were zoos and the forthcoming months will be just as crowded.  We have May to get the house as ready as possible (inspect and service the heater, pump the septic, paint, etc.) and to get us ready [shots, language (preps to continue through September), etc.].  Karley and kids come in late May; hopefully Al will be able to join us sometime during their stay. Rachael is coming sometime during the fray; again, hopefully, Chris will join us for a few days (he will be busy with summer sports).  Ken will do whatever he can with the clan around; Krisy will be working through late June.  July we travel to see the kids that won't be coming to the house and bring Marci home for a bit. Carey and family will be coming sometime during the month and maybe even more.  Late July/early August is the beach house trip.  Todd and family return with us through mid-August.  Last minute preparations are slated for late August (I hope we won't have many but that never happens).  We are off to the Salt Lake area and Provo in early September (10 days at the MTC) and then fly out for Romania 19 September.
The language is coming along; both of us are having trouble letting our Italian and Spanish pronunciation habits crowd out what we know should be the proper Romanian pronunciation.  We each meet with both our coach and tutor once a week for a total of two hours and try to practice with each other (Krisy is much better than me with her practice).

The country and the language

We are trying to accomplish all of the tasks required of us in the missionary packet; there are many.  We feel a little like the ant in the song "Hi Hopes" by Frank Sinatra and hope we can take down "another rubber tree plant" as we attempt to complete each of our tasks.  The language learning itself seems daunting as we will have to do much of the learning independently before our mission due to Krisy's work and Krisy and my evening schedules. Fortunately, the languages spoken in both Romania and Moldova are very similar and are Latin-based (Romance) languages so our knowledge of Spanish and Italian will help us.  Moldova speaks a form of Romanian; like going to the deep South or New England from the West coast in the US.  There are so many other things to do including all of the financial plans and preparing our house for the onslaught of kids and grand-kids that will descend on it throughout the two years we are gone.  We hope it will be a busy and inviting home for them.  We are studying what we can find of the culture(s), history, economics, food and religions of the country to better prepare ourselves to serve the Lord and people there.

The Call

It is Monday, 7 April.  Last Saturday our Bishop sent us a text to tell us that, according to what he could see through his access to the church computer system, our missionary assignment was made over a week ago (it had only been 3 weeks since we talked to the Stake President and we thought we wouldn't find out for at least another week or two).  That got us to thinking, wondering and worrying through the rest of the weekend (it was conference weekend so our ears were perked to hear anything missionary).  Well, our call came today and I am waiting like a good boy for Krisy to come home from work to eat lunch before we open it together.
We are going to the Romania/Moldova Mission; both of us are assigned as "office specialists" whatever they do (I think we'll just do whatever the Mission President tells us to do).  We are to report on 8 September.

Waiting for the call.....

On March 23rd our Stake President pressed "send" and our completed application to serve a twenty-three month mission was on its way to church headquarters. We indicated that we would go anywhere and learn any language and would be available in September. Ken and I have ALWAYS known we would serve a mission together because, as converts to the church, we didn't have the opportunity to serve as young single adults. Our mission has always "loomed" somewhere out there in our future....then, when our Stake President called Ken a week and a half later with a couple of questions from church headquarters.....suddenly our mission became FRONT and CENTER. We are both nervous and excited. I can only describe the feeling as a kid in bed on Christmas Eve trying really hard to go to sleep so the morning will come. I have so much respect for my four children who have served missions previously in Toronto, Canada (Spanish speaking), El Salvador, Paraguay and Peru. They exhibited so much faith going on their own - and I get to go with my best friend! We should have our mission call between the next two to four weeks.