It surely was a bittersweet moment when we said goodbye at the airport and sent our first son on his way to serve the Lord. Thomas was called to serve in the Leeds, England mission beginning on February 18, 2010. It is a day we have long awaited as parents, and eagerly looked forward to. Thomas worked very hard, saved a great deal, and spent very little to prepare to pay for his mission. I personally (as Mom) was not prepared for the emotions of this time in my life, of sending off one of my children. I am a very matter-of-fact person, not prone to panic in emergencies, usually able to keep my wits about me. I did not really expect to be the Mom standing at the airport waving each time my son wound his way towards us in the security "switchback" line. Yet, there I was, watching the curly red hair of my son, going back and forth in his honest to goodness mission suit, complete with nametag heading off on his two years of service. As I stood fighting back tears, standing on tiptoes to catch just one more glimpse of that head of hair, which I had recently shorn, I turned into the biggest pile of mush. We watched as he cleared security and then moved out of sight towards his gate with a sheepish grin and a roll of his eyes at his crazy parents, and we stood until he was out of sight. I went home and just bawled in his empty room. All of the random things he had not packed up sitting everywhere. Some made me laugh, and some shake my head in wonder (a wooden box full of brass keys on paperclips??), but all made me a little sad for the cute little red-headed baby he had once been, and yet proud of the amazing man he had grown into.
We were so excited to get our first e-mail from our missionary. His words will be highlighted in gold throughout my blog. Here are excerpts from his first e-mail to us:
Hey Family-
The flight over was very fun, to my surprise. I flew out from Portland about an hour after you last saw me, so from there to Georgia was a piece of cake. But once I got to Atlanta , there was the 6 hour layover that certainly didn't help the jetlag. I was the second Elder to arrive at the airport, so we were able to talk about our flights and what we wanted to do in England until a lot of other missionaries started showing up. All in all, we had about 15 missionaries going to England from Georgia (and about half of them were from Utah . I found that funny, but not suprising). More surprisingly though, all but 3 of them were going to the Leeds England mission like I was. 2 of them were going to theManchester mission and 1 Sister missionary was headed to Ireland .
On the flight over, I mostly tried to sleep, and mostly failed at it. Luckily I wasn't too tired when we got there even though it was 8:00 in the morning, and even managed to make it till 10:30 that night until I went to sleep. Most of the time between 2:00 and 10:30 was convincing other missionaries not to fall asleep before night, regaling them with old tales of Jetlag in Ages Past, on a Trip to the Holy Land with a certain Red-Headed Genius.
Over the past few days in the MTC I've been making sure to write in my journal, even though I don't get much time every night. Every since day here is busy, busy, and even more busy as we teach, plan, and teach some more to fake investigators. Last night me and my companion (Elder Turney, from Devin , England ) taught a former temple president named President Jones in a mock lesson but with some serious evaluations. He really tried hard to trip us up but somehow we always managed to return to our lesson plan and teach him of Joseph Smith and the Restoration. Afterwards he shook our hands with tears in his eyes and told us he really felt the Spirit, which I am so happy I am able to do. Teaching by the Spirit is more important than anything else you can do as a missionary, and knowing that I'm able to do that is a big strength to me. Especially since....
Tomorrow we're going out street contacting. That's right, actual street contacting. The Preston MTC is the only MTC in the world that sends out MTC Missionaries into the field during their stay here, so tomorrow we are finding people on the street down in Manchester and then next week we're going door to door. But more on that later, looks like I'm running out of time.
That's the problem with email is that you can only do it for half an hour here, so physical letters would probably be a better, if slower medium for telling the full story of what really goes on here.
You can share this letter with anyone who you think would like to hear from me. To all those in my ward, I don't really know how to thank you guys enough. All those lessons, all the counsel, it's all added up into the Elder Alsop that's trying his best to be a succesful missionary and it really does mean a lot to me.
Oh and by the way, I've nearly perfected the British accent. It's not as hard as you think, when you've got a British companion and a bunch of British teachers.
I hope you guys don't worry about me too much out here, just know that the Lord will always protect me, and that the more time you spend worrying about me the more time I'll have to spend telling you not to worry so much, that I'm fine and happy and learning more every day.
-Elder Alsop (pronounced All-sohp by everyone here, I guess it's the proper way or something)
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