The Next Chapter

What's next for Rain? He's been accepted to Brigham Young University and currently plans on majoring in Electrical Engineering. He will not, however, begin his attendance there just yet. Rain has chosen to defer his enrollment until after he serves as a missionary for our church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). In April he "submitted his papers" (basically his application for consideration as a missionary) and last month he "received his call." Missionaries do not choose the city or country where they will serve, they are assigned a location based on what we believe to be inspiration. Here's a video of Rain opening his mission call letter and learning that he has been assigned to serve in Monrovia, Liberia, West Africa:

We are excited for this upcoming adventure. Rain will report to a Missionary Training Center in Accra, Ghana, on September 20th. After twelve days in Ghana he will head to Liberia for ongoing training and real life missionary experiences... for two years.

For the next ninety seven days we will be preparing for his journey, spending family time together, learning all we can about Liberia, and laughing. We will share some of these good times here on the blog. Then we will share stories from Africa, as Rain waves back.

And as our nephew, Cameron (the world's beloved Ken doll), pointed out, our prayers for the next two years may be sounding a lot like a Toto song, "I bless the Rains down in Africa."