Jess and her mission call

I mentioned in my previous post that I was going to talk about the reason for my trip to Norwich in this post, so here it is!

My nineteen year old niece, Jessica decided to serve an 18 month mission for our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (You can find out more about what we believe here and here). She submitted her papers and she found out that she would be receiving her assignment at around the time I was having my injection. Mum was planning on being there for when Jess opened her mission call, but of course, if she were down with me, she wouldn't be able to do that. We decided that we would skype Jess so that we would be able to be there that way but then I thought that being as though Mum was with me to help look after Caleb, etc, while my wrist healed, there was no reason that we couldn't be in Norwich for that time instead of here. So on Thursday morning we loaded up the car (you really can't travel lightly with a baby, or if you can, I really haven't figured out how to do that!) and after my injection we headed to Norwich so that we could both be there, just in case her mission call came. As we were driving up we got a text from my sister, Lin (Jess's Mum) to inform us that Jess's mission call had come. We were pretty excited about it! Laura had been on holiday in Portugal but had flown back that day and was also travelling to Norwich to be there. It's pretty much a usual thing for the family to gather to be there for the mission call opening, it's really exciting to find out where the person will be going.

On Thursday evening, we all gathered at Lin and Steve's house. Jess's sister, Rach lives down near Bath with her husband and so she couldn't be there; neither could Tor (my other niece and Jess's cousin - she's at university in Hawaii - alright for some!) so they both skyped in to be there. It was so exciting to watch Jess open her mission call - there is a video of it but it is on facebook and I have absolutely no idea how to save it and upload it to here, being the technophobe that I am! So if you're my friend on facebook, I am tagged in it and you can see it. Watch it, because my description of it really does not do it justice! Here is a screen shot that Tor took of Jess at some point during the proceedings!

See the little Tor in the corner too?


To begin with, my nephew Sam read out the list of guesses as to where the family thought she might be called to serve. Most of the guesses were for the Scotland Ireland mission, I think one guess was the Leeds mission, one was Mauritius, one was Temple Square. (I guessed Scotland Ireland). Jess opened her call and read it aloud to us..... she is called to serve in the Utah Salt Lake City mission. We are all so happy for her and proud of her. I remember around 9 years ago when we all gathered around to be there for Laura to open her mission call before she went on her mission to Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Jess would have only been 10 at that time, so for me it felt a little surreal that it was now Jess in exactly the same situation! She is such an amazing girl and I know she will be a fantastic missionary.