Sunday, November 13, 2011

Shem's Mission Call

Shem had filled out his mission papers but by his calculations he would receive his call while he was at Philmont for 10 days of hiking with his dad. He asked me not to open it, which I promised not to but I told him we would probably think of some fun way for him to find it.
Well the girls and I did a little searching for ideas when we decided to make a fake mission call. It was a little tricky but with the creative ideas flowing the girls got it done. It looked pretty convincing. They sent him on a scavenger hunt to find it, which made it more convincing since we told him that that was probably what we would do.
After he found it he was told to read it all the way through out loud. Shaun was looking over his shoulder and started mentioning mistakes that he noticed, we had to shush him with sign language. Luckily Shem was to excited to notice. The girls sent him to Madagascar. They sealed it before I could see where they sent him, they were supposed to send him somewhere close to home. So he was pretty excited until he got to the end where it said "and please forgive your family for playing this cruel joke on you."
Here he is with a sad face and the fake mission call.
We then gave him his real mission call and we were all anxious to see where he was going.
A much happier face.
Dnipropetrovs'ko, Ukraine Mission
All the tabs on the map are all the places everyone guessed he would go. Only one person got close by saying Eastern Europe. He leaves Dec. 21st. We are all so excited for him, he will learn and grow so much.

6 comments:

Familie May said...

Oh, Christmas without Shem!? Your first kid is leaving for mission - how do you feel, Holly :(?

Familie May said...

Все найкраще в Дніпропетровську!
(All the best in Dnipropetrovsk!)
For learning the language just visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS4YsU7dY90

Smith Family said...

Wow!! Ukraine!! Congrats Shem! We know you will be a wonderful missionary.

Kent and Wendy said...

Wow - that is so exciting!
There is an elder from our ward that goes in the MTC the same day as Shem. He goes to Brazil.

Nicole Bolinger said...

CONGRATS to Shem!! I would have never guessed Ukraine!! :)

Scates Family said...

How Exciting!!! I cannot believe he is already going. Are you sending him from AR or bringing him out to the MTC?