Brandon got his mission call!

Well, after stalking the mailman for several days in a row, Brandon's mission call FINALLY arrived in the mailbox last Friday afternoon.  It had been almost 2 weeks since he had turned his papers in.  The waiting has been torture! 

Here he is proudly holding up his (unopened) call!



We couldn't open it until 7:00 because that's when we told everyone to come over.  Waiting until 7:00 to come was the longest part ever!  Even Brandon was pretty stressed.  Here he is pondering what's to come...Oh, and Ziggy!



I made Brandon take a picture of us before everyone else showed up.  I knew it would be crazy, so I'm glad we did that.  Such a cute picture!  (Even though we're both freaking out!)



Finally, at about 10 to 7, a few people started to arrive.



  We sent a notebook around the room telling everyone to write down their guesses of where they thought Brandon would be going.  It was pretty funny!



You can't see the clock in this next picture, but it was about 7:02 and Brandon was on the phone with one of his friends who was apparently lost and couldn't find our house.  I was getting a little impatient!  :)



So, we decided to go ahead and open the envelope!



Todd gave Brandon a letter opener tool, but Brandon didn't really know how to use it.  Plus he was way too nervous for such little details.  So he just ripped it open the best he could.  :)



And this is where he said, "Oh I just looked at the place I'm going."  Funny kid.  Then he finally read the call...

"Dear Elder Jones:  You are hearby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Michigan Detroit Mission.  It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 24 months.  You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, July 1, 2015."

July 1st?  What the heck?  We were surprised that we have less than 6 weeks to get him ready!  (Oh my gosh!  We've got a lot to do!)  But we are thrilled with his call and we all feel like it's the right place for him to go.  He couldn't stand the thought of going somewhere hot, so Michigan will be right up his alley...in the winters, at least.  Brandon wanted to go to a foreign country, too, but the more we talked about it, the more we realized that even though this was in the states, it's still a new place for Brandon and it will probably feel plenty foreign to him already. 



After he read his call, we invited all the family and Brandon's friends to have some refreshments.  It was very crowded in our house, but it was really cool to have so many people there to support him.



Congratulations Brandon!  We are so happy for you!



And here's a picture of Brandon and "Agnes" (aka Stacy).  HA!  :)

Well, we'd better get to work!  These next few weeks are going to come fast!