Josh's Mission Call!!!

Since Josh has been working and waiting for his mission call he has had time to come up to the institute and take mission prep.  One day I was up there to watch some of Andy's peer to peer teachers and we all ran into each other and decided to have lunch together at the Institute Deli.

I just love these two guys!

Three weeks after Josh turned in his mission papers the call came.

Andy had been able to watch the status through his current calling so we knew that morning that it had been assigned.  I texted Josh at work and told him to look at his email on his break and let me know if it had come.  I was actually going in to Macey's for some groceries right as he texted me back and told me he had it.  After I was done shopping I went and spied him in the deli (he moved from the meat department since they could give him more hours in the deli...it was his second day there) and blew him a kiss.  He looked a bit embarrassed bless him.

 I had butterflies all day!  

Josh finished up work, picked up Matt and Abby from school and came home and did his job.

Then he got cleaned up and went up to the temple to open his call on his own.

He came home and I couldn't tell for sure if he was truly happy or just pretending to be so I took him aside and without prying too much asked how he was.  He said he was excited and that he thought I would be as well.  We invited all who could from the family to come to our house that night.  Mom and Dad and Jo were able to come and Nancy and Merill, Lyndi and Todd and some of their kids, Jenny and Mike and their kids, and Angie and James were all able to chime in via Zoom.  (Jo Face Timed T on his phone).

Josh read the letter and confidently declared he had been called to the Washington D.C. South mission English speaking!

This is truly incredible!

When Josh was a little boy he told us more than once that he wanted to serve in the Washington D.C. ASL mission.  I don't know where he got the sign language idea from but that was a thing...and we all remembered it so to have half of that little boy's dream come true is a beautiful tender mercy and a testament to God's mindfulness of us.

Josh says that looking back, he feels like a seed was planted when he was young and that this is definitely not a coincidence.

I love him!

Another cool thing is that Andy and Josh just got back from that area on their trip the month before.  He visited his mission without even knowing it :)

Here he is talking to the family on Zoom...

We enjoyed visiting for a while and talking about all the cool details and things!

He starts one week of home MTC on Dec. 27th.  So that most likely means he will only be missing one Christmas which is nice :)  It looks like his mission president was just put in a few months ago so he will mostly likely have him his whole mission.

So grateful for the support from loved ones in person and digitally!

This is the perfect call for our Josh!

We are so excited and thrilled for him!