Home

I am back in WV, and it is bitter sweet. I love seeing my family and friends all the time but I miss Texas. I miss the Bledsoe Family, I miss the heat, I miss it being dry all the time, and I miss being able to fix my hair. It was freezing when I woke up this morning. I haven’t really been able to do anything cute with my hair since I got back and it is super frustrating. The first day I was back I went for a run and my shoes got soaked. Most of the things I'm not happy about are all about my attitude towards them.  It is going to start getting colder and colder, my hair not being cute really isn't that big of deal, and I just have to remember that it rains a lot more here. The sweet part is I love getting to spend time with my family. I’ve gotten to see two of my nieces, spend a day with just my Dad, go coupon shopping with Chas and listen to my sister’s crazy stories from school. I also get to see all my friends on a daily basis which is a lot of fun.  Patti and Haley go the gym 4 times a week so I’ve started tagging along with them. It is a good thing too because I was getting bored just running by myself.  So like I said before it is bitter sweet to be home.

The mission prep is going really well and I have gotten a lot done since I’ve gotten home. I finally got all the stuff done for my Visa. Luckily I know a Notary, I was able to go to him and he notarized all my paperwork that needed notarized. We have a wonderful seminary teacher who signed my transcripts and certificates. Then I got to visit with her for a long time, which is always fun.  After I got everything done here in town, Patti and I made a trip to the State Capital and one of the workers Authenticated all of my documents that were notarized. Now it is all on it ways to the Church’s travel offices. Hopefully it is all done correctly and they will be able to get my Visa processed quickly.  I am almost done with all the paperwork and other non-fun stuff. Once I get all that stuff done I get to start SHOPPPING. I love shopping for new clothes; I like it even better finding good deals on new clothes. I am slowly learning simple things in Portuguese.  Like Bom Dia, como voce esta? Which means good morning, how are you? I am very excited to go and serve, every day it is a little bit closer. Only 77 more days, it will be here so fast. J

Things I wish I would have know to do before I got my call

I only have 99 days until I report to the MTC, how crazy is that? The days are going by so quick and I am getting more and more excited to go serve. I haven't made much progress in learning Portuguese; I probably should put more focus on that. I've been reading in Preach my Gospel. It is a great study tool, I recommend everyone read it. Summer is almost over, I go back to WV in less than two weeks. I am excited to see my family and all my friends but I'm not quite ready to go home yet. I love the Bledsoe family and it is going to be hard to say goodbye knowing that I won't see them for almost two years. Now on to what I wish I would have to known to do.

I wish I would have...

1. Known we didn't have a copy of my birth certificate. It took three weeks for me to receive my birth certificate after I found out mine was lost. I did have to get it from the State of PA, who has weird rules about getting those types of things. If you are planning on turning in your mission papers anytime soon make sure you know where your Official State Birth Certificate is. If you don't know find out how to get a copy of it, and if you can't get it locally order it the day you realize you don't have it. Even if you have a copy figure out how you can get another one, because if you have to apply for a Visa you may not get the copy you send for that back. 

2. Applied for a passport. Obviously I had no idea I was going foreign and would need a passport but it would have been nice to already have it. Apply for a passport at least three weeks BEFORE you submit your mission papers. By the time your call comes, your passport should be there too. Even if you don't go foreign it won't hurt to have one. 

3. Known Mission Prep Class was so awesome and went the whole summer and not just the last month. Mission prep is a great class, and I have learned a lot from it.  If your Stake has Mission Prep class I strongly encourage you to go. 

4. Taken notes during church way before now. Taking notes has really helped me the last couple of months to pay attention to what the speakers and teachers are saying. The speakers and teachers say a lot of important things that I always tell myself "That is such a good point, I should be doing that." I never remember exactly what they said after church is over and never really do half the stuff I tell myself I will. Taking notes has helped me to commit myself to doing those things. 

5. Been better at keeping a journal. Over the last ten years I probably have started about a dozen journals. I have not finished one of them. Over the last month I have written so much in my journal, there have been so many things that have happened that I did not want to forget. Even reading back through some of my entries I wrote a few weeks ago, I can see how much I have changed for the better. I'm really excited to start my actual mission journal. I have had it since Christmas but I have been saving it for two reasons. 1. It is the perfect mission journal; it has a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ on it. 2. I promised myself I would finish the journal I have now. I'm getting pretty close, probably by the time I leave it will be full. It is fun to know that I can go back and share the things that happened while preparing for my mission with my future children one day. 

There are other things I wish I would have been better about doing, the list could go on and on. Preparing for a mission has brought many great blessing but it hasn't been an easy path. There have been times where I have gotten super frustrated that things weren't working out perfectly. Although there have been a few speed bumps everything has worked out the way it was supposed to. I know that if I continue to have faith and trust in Heavenly Father he will always be there to help me. 

Dear Sister Huffman

It has been a few weeks since I opened my call but I'm still going to tell the story of receiving my call for my first official blog. On Friday July 5th I got a call from my parents about 3:30 in the afternoon. They called to inform me I had received a big white envelope from the Church at home. AHHHHH my mission call was 1200 miles away, but at least I knew where it was and that is was on its way to me. So my parents being the awesome parents they are overnighted it to me. They told me I should get it by 3 pm the next day. Ok less than 24 hours I will have my mission call in my hands, but then I had to wait another few hours so I could open it and my family could all be on the computer. That next day Dawn and I ran around pretty much all day, she kept finding all these little things we needed to go get and go do. It was good though because it made the day go by a little faster. It was almost 3 by the time I got the envelope. Once it got here we placed it on the mantel and left it there. We made dinner and then I got ready. It was getting closer to time so I figured we should start getting all of the computers set up. It was crazy trying to get everyone connected to us. We used every single electronic we could use to get everyone together. By the time everyone was connected it was closer to 730. I started to open the call, ahhh it was exciting. Then I started to read it. Dear Sister Huffman, You are hereby called to serve as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Brazil Juiz de Fora Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months. You should report to the Brazil MTC on Nov 20, 2013. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Portuguese Language. I actually skimmed ahead as I was reading out loud, so I got a little choked up and it was hard to read where I was going out loud. I am so excited to serve the people in the Juiz de Fora mission. I have 117 days before I report to the MTC, it is so crazy. Everything I need to do I am finally able to start doing,but I'll talk about all that fun stuff next time. :)