Another Hiccup

 Two weeks ago, Craig called me at work. He was noticeably upset and told me I had to come home. He needed me. He didn't tell me why.

I ran around the office closing out what I was doing and hurried home. The whole time I'm wondering if something happened to Josh, or Boaz, or Thea.

He had gotten a phone call from the Missionary Department. We had mailed our FBI report and the Post Office said they had delivered it October 28, at 5:08 pm. But the Missionary Department hadn't received it. They were waiting for those documents for over two months. Meanwhile, they had our passports and VISA application sitting there. 

The FBI report is only valid for one month, so even if they found it, it would have been expired. There was nothing to do, but restart the process. We went to the Sherriff's Office (DMV) and redid two sets of fingerprints each. The internet was down on our block, so we went to Craig's work and printed out the form we needed. We took it to the Post Office and sent it out as fast as it would go.

We knew the Missionary Department wouldn't receive it until Monday. One of the quirks about living in a small town in the middle of nowhere. And then we nervously puttered.

Our options were to restart our VISA and then wait in SLC Mission Home Mission. That would increase the cost of our mission, the housing would be about $900.00 more than we had budgeted for. The other option was to restart the whole process, which would delay us about six months. We can't do that because we have to be home for Boaz when he gets home from his mission. Our timeline as it is now is we will only be home for one month before Boaz gets  home.

Craig was talking to SLC, our sweet Stake President, and then our lovely Bishop. Before we even were aware we had a problem, he had decided to deposit the excess missionary donations in our ward into our mission account. We have at least twelve other missionaries from our ward, and he decided to put it in our account. The extra will help us afford the extra time in Salt Lake City.

I am now rather looking forward to seeing what will happen while we are SLC. I think something significant will happen while we serve there. 

We are still hoping to be able to go to Iquitos. The day after everything was resolved we got an email from our mission president in Iquitos. He was hopeful that our VISA process was going well and we would soon be on our way. There are three stakes in Iquitos and if they can get a fourth stake, they can qualify to apply for a temple. He wants us to work with the third stake, because their numbers are sliding and they won't divide until that stake begins to grow again.

We are super excited to be able to help work toward a temple.

Also, I have been saying that we will spend our 25th wedding anniversary on the Amazon. I still really want to do that. And I really want to go to Peru and fall in love with the people there.

We have faith that we will love both areas that we serve in, and the second area will still be Iquitos.