August 13, 2018

Good Morning!

As of tomorrow, I am officially on my mission!

Typically, I'm going to be doing mission emails on Saturdays (they're my P-days), but I got given today off so I'm sending out the first one now. Congratulations on being in the first wave!

For starters, I'm going to explain what I'm doing just a little bit. Because of my anxiety/depression, my ecclesiastical leaders and I decided that a full time proselyting mission would be a bad idea. As a result, I'm serving a Young Church Service Mission. The rules are a little bit different than for the 'standard' mission (for example, Saturday P-days), but the service is every bit as important. I'm beyond excited -- I'm going to be working at the Church office building in Utah, most likely doing some sort of computer stuff. It's an amazing opportunity, and I'm so grateful for all of the priesthood leaders and friends who helped me to get here.

Now, what would a mission email be without a fun story?

In theory, I drove here to Utah. In theory.

I bought a car - in great condition, according to everyone I asked to check over it for me - from a good friend of mine a couple months ago. It ran smoothly for about a month, before having transmission problems.

Do you see where this is going yet?

Well, following a number of home repairs, the car was still not quite where one might hope it would be prior to a three day cross country drive. It would slip heavily from neutral into first gear after start up -- picture revving the engine for maybe thirty seconds in neutral before suddenly taking off into first gear with a drag-racing-esque tire squeal, every time the car starts up. However, multiple friends and relatives assessed the car and told me that it would be ok to drive as long as I was careful, because the car drove fine once it finally kicked into gear, and replacing or repairing the transmission was going to cost almost as much as the car had in the first place.

Well, the day finally came for me to go, and off I went -- sort of.

Before I'd even made it out of Owensboro, Kentucky, where my family lives, the transmission completely gave up. Well, not completely -- I could still go into neutral, park, or reverse; the only problem was going forward. As I am not Tow Mater, I didn't feel comfortable embarking on a cross country adventure in reverse, so I ended up having the car towed back to my house with my metaphorical tail between my legs.

The next day, I began the process of selling the car and bought a plane ticket to Utah. At about three in the afternoon, leg two of the expedition began at the Owensboro airport. With three bags of luggage and a rather weighty backpack, I embarked on a ten seat (including the pilot), two propeller airplane to St. Louis. Somehow, in spite of the plane being at full passenger capacity, they managed to fit all of my luggage, so while the flight was crowded and I was

jealous of the guy who got to ride next to the pilot, the flight was more or less uneventful. At St. Louis, I got a Chili's flatbread pizza and waited for my next flight to Dallas.

Immediately before boarding, my stomach began to cramp up. We got on the plane and into the air, and it only got worse. I've never been airsick before, so I was positively miserable. I spent a good thirty turbulent minutes in the airplane's restroom, debating if I should continue to resist throwing up. When the pilot finally announced that we would be landing, I was ecstatic.

Except we didn't land in Dallas.

Because of a large storm over DFW, we had been diverted to Shreveport, Louisiana. We sat - in the plane, mind you - on the runway for very nearly an hour. Even with my connecting flight delayed out of Dallas, I still missed it by a couple hours. I was exhausted, cramped, and sticky from a lack of adequate air conditioning.

Fortunately, we did make it into DFW, however, and more fortunately, my mom's parents live there. They picked me up and I spent the night, laundering the clothes I had been wearing and playing solitaire in my grandpa's bathrobe in the hope that I would feel less sticky on my flight the next morning.

I did make it to Utah on a connecting flight Friday morning - sandwiched between two dudes with inhumanly large biceps - but fortunately, I understand why I had to undergo the delays and struggles that I did.

My flight to Utah included eight or twelve returning Elders. They were returning to Utah from various missions, and I shared with them that I was on my own way to my mission. They, course asked details, and I explained to them that I was serving a service mission, as I did to you above.

One of the missionaries got particularly excited about this. He then informed me that a large number of the contacts that he had had over the course of his mission came from website referrals, and that he always felt grateful for the missionaries who served where I was headed.

I want to close by bearing my testimony that everything has a purpose. I might not be able to see it yet, especially in things like my mental illness, but every twist and turn on the path of life guides us one step closer to where God wants us to be. Just because we round a corner and see yet another hill to climb does not mean we have been forsaken or forgotten -- just that we have need of yet stronger legs.

I love you all. Thank you so much for the continuing support and love.

Elder Huntsman LeBaron