Eric's call

   This is one of the last recordings I have from Lisa about her life and what she felt was important. I do wish I'd be able to have the up to date stories, but she died while I was on my mission from 2016 to 2018. A reason to cherish what we have.

    "Eric is getting ready to go on his mission. Last Christmas – that was December of 2013 he was home from the first half of year in College.  I knew that – Eric is not a far ahead planner, he takes care of things that are this week or next week, but otherwise he just doesn’t do things. I sat down with him on several different occasions during that Christmas break for to start working with him on his mission papers. It is quite extensive; there is a lot of information you have to do. 

     'But once he goes back to college the only things he needed to do were: he needed to get his mission picture taken (which means he needed to shave his face and get rid of the beard that he had been growing) and he needed to get his physical done, and he needed to go interview with his bishop.  That was it. So January past and nothing happened. Each week I would ask him as we were talking on the phone, “Hey did you get anything done?” Annnnd it wasn’t happening. So then February came. February 14th was Valentines Day he had a girlfriend and he decided to shave his face for the event for Valentines Day. That’s great! Now we need your picture taken, he still didn’t do it. 

     "Finally about the end of February he started calling into the clinic there at Utah State to get his physical done – which I had told him to do months earlier, but he didn’t have it done yet. So then he went and had his physical and he had to get something else checked out at the hospital they had a specialist and that was not going to be until after the Spring Break. He came home for Spring Break - which was in March – it was great to have him home. We got his picture taken and then he had to go finish up, get his final results from his physical the end of March. 

     "I’d been trying to get him to do it sooner because I knew that once you get your mission call it takes a while. But it’s his mission call not mine and he needed to be the one to do it. So he finally went and got everything done and then went into an interview with his bishop. This was great, it was sometime around the first part of April. Then he was finally able to get in to see the Stake President a week and a half later and so he finally got his papers sent in the middle of April. 

     "Well the end of school was going to be coming in May, and I knew that and I was hoping he would get his mission call before the end of the school so he could open it up there at school.  The rest of the family (Kristy is on her mission) the rest of us traveled up to Utah the end of April for Amy’s graduation from BYU. It was Kylie’s Spring Break so she was off. We went and were able to be there for Amy. And the plan was that – Eric had sent his papers in and was just waiting, waiting, waiting for his mission call. Just hoping that it would come in before school got out. 

     "Well, after Amy’s graduation Kylie and I got on the plane and flew back down to California so that she could start school the next week and I had treatment that week. That next week Ralph and Amy were still in Utah. They went down to Southern Utah to look at some of the different National Parks there while they were waiting for Eric to finish up school. On the Wednesday we got an email from Eric I got a text from him saying the Call was there! He had his mission call. Could dad and Amy come up and be there for when he opened it? They were in Southern Utah so they cut their trip short, they spent the night there because they got in the afternoon, then they drove the rest of the way up to Logan to be there on Thursday night.

      "Eric had arranged that he would be opening his call that Thursday night in the basement of the Mountain View Tower where he was staying, they had a large room. He had reserved that so he could be there, and invited a lot of his friends to be there, and Dad and Amy were there which was awesome and very exciting. So he was able to open his mission call – they got me on the phone so I was able to listen to it and he started reading it and he was called to the Texas San Antonio Mission. He’ll be Spanish speaking and he’ll be going September 17^th.

       " We were just excited to have another missionary called, very thrilling, very exciting! A lot of people were congratulating him; we were so excited he was able to open his mission call with his friends there. So many of these young men – he’s got a group of twelve guys that have been hanging out all year and they have been able to serve in the Elder’s quorum together and so many of them have gotten their mission calls, so I was very happy he was able to open his mission call while they were there. I’m a little concerned that he‘s going to be going in September so that means that he won’t have a lot of time when he gets back from his mission to get right back into school. It’s all going to work out and it’s going to be just fine. Texas San Antonio Mission Spanish Speaking leaving in September on the 17.