The Call -Received August 30, 2012

I've been called to serve in the Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission, speaking Spanish. I report to the Provo MTC on December 19.

A few fun things about the mission:
-In July there were 140 baptisms (for about the same number of missionaries)
-The mission includes Miami and the Florida Keys
-There are a lot of Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants in Florida... and a lot of rich white retirees
-Manatees live in Florida!
-Alligators and cockroaches do too, darn
-The climate is semi-tropical
-Hurricanes hit Florida
-It is humid in Florida
-All the missions in Florida are bicycle-riding missions (this is hearsay from a guy at my YSA branch who served in Tampa)
-My mission president will be Donald E. Anderson. His wife is Janet Anderson. They are from El Paso, Texas.

There are a lot of rules that I'll have to follow in the mission, and some friends and co-workers have thought they weren't fair, or they were too strict. But let it be known that I am willingly giving up the chance to swim, wade at the beach, watch TV, surf the web, read fiction, listen to non-LDS music, do my laundry whenever I choose, stay up past 10 pm, and go to Harry Potter world while I'm in Florida.

I am going on a mission simply because the gospel is true. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and the Plan of Salvation is real. Through the Atonement, we will all have the chance to become all that we can be. I have found no greater joy than in feeling the Holy Ghost and knowing that I'm doing what is right. I believe that a knowledge and understanding of the gospel is the greatest gift that I can give to anybody, and so I am choosing to go teach the gospel to the people of Southern Florida. I can hardly wait



*The first post on this blog is actually a re-post from the family blog, and was written in September