Pictures and Things

 We are slowly getting more and more information about the mission we will serve. As it filters in, we have been surprised by some of the things we have been told. In most missions, the couple will wear their missionary name tags all the time, everywhere they go. We will not. We will be spending most of our time scanning books at the library in Springfield, Missouri. We represent the church but work directly with the family history department of the church. As such, we work with Family Tree the computer source that stores all historical documents. When we work in the library we will be wearing Family Tree name tags. 

We also found out we will work specifically at the library the entire time. It is our main focus. As we have time outside of our library scanning duties we can participate in any meetings, events, or service opportunities that come available. Jeff talked with the mission president on the phone and they are looking forward to having us. We are opening up this mission call area. We are the first to go into this assignment. Jeff is well versed in the scanning machine and is so friendly with people, I think we will do well to establish things in a positive manner. 

As we make ready the house, pack, and plan we are in a constant state of bewilderment, which I am sure is normal. We start to look around at all we need to do within the house and get immediately paralyzed and head downstairs to watch Seinfeld. We are learning to take things one at a time and move slowly with the process. We decided we will sell most of our furniture, and pack up all our personal belongings to be stored. We are renting the house while we are gone unfurnished. We decided this is the best way to get the most rent to help support us while we are gone. 

We decided we would get professional pictures done for our family before we left. Our cute photographer was our neighbor and friend Dominique Bowring. We highly recommend her. She did such a great job capturing the complexities of our relationship in these genuine photographs. It was fun to do as we have literally NEVER done photos of just ourselves. Neither Jeff or I enjoy photos and are highly critical of ourselves. I truly love these photos though. Even if I feel 100 Ibs. and can't get over Jeff not having facial hair. (Better get used to that! No beard for 23 months.) I love his beard.