Called to Serve

This is my brother-in-law, Clark.  He is only 19 years old and he's about to partake on a grand adventure - he's serving a mission for the next two years for our church.  For the next two years, this young man will serving the Lord by teaching other about Jesus Christ, the restored Gospel, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He'll also be helping others in any way he can.  He'll be completely commited to the Lord.  He'll be gone from this family for two years, only getting to communicate through letters and email and only getting to call home TWICE a year.  I know it may seem crazy to some of you, but to me it's amazing. He's dedicating himself for two years to the Lord.  Although this is something that is expected of him, he doesn't have to do this, but he is.  It's amazing.

I've felt so blessed to be apart of this experince of seeing this young man go through this process so far.  It's been humbling.  He's 19!  I know it was/is so hard to leave his family behind.  We're all so close. I'm sure there were many temptations and doubts that Satan was pounding him with just trying to get him to forget the whole thing, but Clark has put his trust in the Lord and is letting the Lord guide him. 

As Clark left all of us at the airport to head to the Mission Training Center in Utah, I felt the Spirit so strongly.  This is going to be such a wonderful, testimony building experience for him.   It's sad to know we won't see him for two years, but I'm so happy that he has this opportunity.

After Clark recieves some training at the MTC, he'll be serving his mission in the Las Vegas, Nevada Mission.  For those of you that don't know about our church and about the missionary program, you can pretty much serve wherever there is other churches and there is a need to spread the Gospel - which is just about everywhere.  All the missionaries are called by inspiration to serve the Lord in these particular places chosen for them.  It's all very inspired.  It's all incredible. 

Here are some photos before Clark left us:

Clark and some of his nieces and nephews.  They'll be two years older when they see him again.

Clark saying goodbye to Kelsey, his girlfriend, who plans to write and wait for Clark for the next two years.  It was tough.  However, they're incredibly strong.

Kyle and Leon saying goodbye.

Clark saying Goodbye to his parents, Gary and Carol.  This is the 7th out of 8 boys the've sent on missions.

Wiping lipstick kisses off.

Clark heading off to go through security.

And I had to throw this one in - Leon watching the planes.

If you're interested in learning more about the LDS church

and would like hear some online member messages

(which are incredibly inspiring) go to mormon.org