Did you mean it?
All of you who have served missions know that in your final interview before your papers are submitted, you're asked if you are willing to serve whenever you are called. Well, those aren't just idle words - they actually mean that. And sometimes they try to make sure that you really meant it when you said "yes," so they change your MTC entrance date. Twice.
Thursday afternoon my stake president called me. With his unsettling preface, "You're used to them changing your date by now," I silently hoped that my date had been moved up a week or two. But alas. I am now part of a pilot program the MTC is doing to try to cram 11 weeks of Russian and gospel knowledge into my brain in only 9 weeks. Which means my MTC stay (and entire mission) just got shortened by two weeks and will now begin on February 15th. (And to be honest, I was kind of looking forward to Valentine's Day in the MTC - we could all commiserate together on our single and separate state instead of being out among our married and dating friends who shower one another with chocolates and teddy bears. But I digress.)
Seeing as how I'd been counting down the days to entering the MTC for a number of weeks, the process of adding 14 additional days was rather painful. I'd worked very hard for each of those 14 days, and it seemed almost unjust that I was being asked to go back and redo days 34 through 20 when all I really wanted was day 0. But maybe it could be fun to relive the past two weeks. We'll see.
And the crazy thing is, my best friend, who is also going to Ukraine, went through the same date changes I did, and we're still both going into the MTC the same day. (I'd ask what the odds of that are, except missions aren't really based on odds. But it's still rather unbelievable.)
Hopefully I've now proven that I really did mean my "yes" in my stake interview and I can be done with the date changing. Although, I guess I should be grateful it was the "whenever" being tested instead of that question's other half - "wherever" (*knock on wood*), because if my mission assignment had been changed twice already, I'm sure my preparations would be in complete chaos. So I'll count my blessings.
Here goes day 32 for the second time!
Thursday afternoon my stake president called me. With his unsettling preface, "You're used to them changing your date by now," I silently hoped that my date had been moved up a week or two. But alas. I am now part of a pilot program the MTC is doing to try to cram 11 weeks of Russian and gospel knowledge into my brain in only 9 weeks. Which means my MTC stay (and entire mission) just got shortened by two weeks and will now begin on February 15th. (And to be honest, I was kind of looking forward to Valentine's Day in the MTC - we could all commiserate together on our single and separate state instead of being out among our married and dating friends who shower one another with chocolates and teddy bears. But I digress.)
Seeing as how I'd been counting down the days to entering the MTC for a number of weeks, the process of adding 14 additional days was rather painful. I'd worked very hard for each of those 14 days, and it seemed almost unjust that I was being asked to go back and redo days 34 through 20 when all I really wanted was day 0. But maybe it could be fun to relive the past two weeks. We'll see.
And the crazy thing is, my best friend, who is also going to Ukraine, went through the same date changes I did, and we're still both going into the MTC the same day. (I'd ask what the odds of that are, except missions aren't really based on odds. But it's still rather unbelievable.)
Hopefully I've now proven that I really did mean my "yes" in my stake interview and I can be done with the date changing. Although, I guess I should be grateful it was the "whenever" being tested instead of that question's other half - "wherever" (*knock on wood*), because if my mission assignment had been changed twice already, I'm sure my preparations would be in complete chaos. So I'll count my blessings.
Here goes day 32 for the second time!
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