Holiday postings on hold - BIGGER NEWS TO TELL

                      THE MISSION PAPERS ARE IN!!!

We had a phone call from our Bishop on the 13th or 14th (of April) telling us that they had received a letter from Salt Lake City.  The letter stated that due to the VISA issues that missionaries have been dealing with, they have extended the allowance for Canadians submitting their papers for missions.  Now instead of  'putting your papers in' 90 days before your 19th birthday, the new recommendation is for 120 days.  Wow!  That means that Ross is suddenly elligible.

After a few phone calls it was decided that Ross would come home for the weekend  (more like 24 hours) to meet with the Stake President, and finalize his papers.   Ross was just getting ready for finals and wanted to come, but didn't think he'd get much studying done at home, so I picked him up late Saturday.  I drove up after lunch, did a bit of visiting and got to Ross around 5pm, we packed up some of his stuff to bring home for summer, and got home to Calgary around 11pm.  He slept in (no surprize), went to church, met with President Carter after church, ate dinner, and then we left again to take him back to Edmonton.  The whole family went on the drive (to Edmonton AND BACK) since they hadn't really seen him - arriving back in Calgary around midnight.

Now the waiting begins....

p.s. don't forget to tell us where you think he is going.....

These pictures were all taken during a mini photo shoot TRYING (really hard) to get a decent picture to send in with his mission papers. 

Don't worry - we didn't use any of the photos above. 

Here is the one I think we used

The pretty face the general authority will be looking at while he ponders where to assign Ross.

If you missed it, check out the talk by Elder Rasband in the Priesthood session of General Conference about calling missionaries at http://www.lds.org/  I'm having difficulty linking it here right now, but it's not hard to find.