Luckily it's been a fast year

I can't believe that a year ago today Eli was entering the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Ut and embarked on a two year adventure in the Korea Daejeon mission. The time has flown by for us at home, mostly because we know Eli is having such a great experience. That's not to say it's been easy. This is a challenging mission. The language is hard and the teaching is hard but he keeps embracing the challenging parts and we get to see him grow.

We raise our kids preparing them to serve missions because we believe the message we share can bless the lives of people all over the world. But as the time approaches and reality sets in we realize two years is a long time and sacrifices must be made. But one year into this mission the time seems like such a drop in the bucket of a lifetime. Eli is having experiences that can't be replicated in any other way. He is learning what it means to serve others and to live his life with Christ at the center. Everything he learns from his mission will be the foundation of how he lives the rest of his life. 

After Eli left our family decided to call ourselves on a mission and find ways to share the happiness that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings into our lives.  Since I was teaching seminary I decided the best way to share the gospel was to do it through my students. At the beginning of the year I had one of my students bringing a friend who was interested in our faith. We invited them to meet with the missionaries (Sisters Pereleman and Lybbert) in our home once a week. The interest faded and they moved on but in the meantime we had another of my students bringing some of his friends. It was so awesome to have the missionaries in our home once a week because of the spirit they brought. Some of our sweetest experiences of the past year have been with the missionaries in our home. We got to meet some amazing kids who we never would have met any other way and hopefully they felt the spirit too. We also got to meet the best sister missionaries ever who  have become a part of our family. 

A year ago I never could have anticipated the blessings that would come into our lives from having a missionary in the field and working with our local missionaries. Like any good sacrifice the returns are better than anything I could imagine.