A Call Comes!

After a VERY long week, Michael's mission call has come! We knew that it had been sent on Friday May 22, since Gary could log on as Bishop and check out the progress of his call. We thought for sure that it would be here by Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, but it finally came!

Mom, Dad, Marty, Karli were all there and Kristal & Ryan were on speaker phone as well as Gary and Kelli. Here he is just before he opens his call


He reads it to himself first and our usually stone faced, non-expressive son says and emphatic WOW!


So I'm thinkin' it's definitely not Boise,Idaho or Reno,Nevada and I start getting nervous thinking it must be somewhere really bizarre! Oh no!
He reads it aloud to all of us...



You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the:

Ecuador Guayaquil South Mission

Do you think I look just a little bit shocked as I'm holding the phone for Gary and Kelli to hear? I say NO WAY- NO WAY and then he shoves the paper at me so I can see that he isn't teasing-



We still can't believe it! Who would have ever guessed that Michael would be called to serve in the same country where Marty served and in the mission just neighboring Marty's. If you remember Marty served in Ecuador Guayaquil North Mission. It still seems SO unbelievable that with the 342 different missions in the church, Michael would be called to Ecuador also. We couldn't be happier and are very excited for him to be able to share what will most likely be very familiar experiences with Marty.
Here is some of the excitement that followed:







His mission includes southern Ecuador, which has not only coastal cities, but areas that include mountains and rainforest, as well as the Galapagos Islands. Here's the only bad part...
He doesn't report to the MTC until September 23, 2009! AAAHHH! So far away! We were pretty sure he'd be gone by July so it's going to be a long summer around here...but no matter! :)

CONGRATULATIONS ELDER MILLER!