Saturday, November 22, 2008

SHILLVILLE SENDS OFF A SOLDIER

All is well in Shillville and Jordan has entered the Army of the Lord as a infantryman to bring souls to Christ.

The family is adjusting to the absence of one of us. Jordan left for the MTC earlier this week where he will spend 9-10 weeks learning Italian and studying the gospel. He will then depart for Milan Italy. He gave his talk in sacrament meeting on Sunday and did a great job discussing “Why we should have Standards in our lives”. He also sang with his Aunt Shana, Brother Jakob and mother Marci. The talk was great and the song was wonderful.



Our Stake President gave him a wonderful blessing when he was set apart on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, my sister Brenda picked him up at the Salt Lake Airport, took him to lunch and then to the MTC where they had a short meeting and said goodbye. We very much appreciated Jordan being able to be looked after by his Aunt for those several hours. Cousin Clay also spent some time with Jordan before he had to leave. I am sure that snow, slopes and Clay nearby would be a temptation for a snowboard or snowmobile excursion if Jordan was not totally committed to his new job.

It is clear to me that Jordan knows what he is doing and has some fear of the unknown and some fear of the known too! He is very conscious of the sacrifices he is making and still willing to do so. It is wonderful to see him challenged by leaving his home, family and friends.
We all miss Jordan. Even Jake has said how much he misses his older brother.

Jake, McKayla and David are looking forward to playing musical rooms. We have been cleaning out Jordan’s room for the anticipated moves and finding many treasures and surprises. The next few weeks should be full of kids moving rooms and dividing up Jordan’s clothes and other treasures that he left behind. Saturday while doing some of the laundry Jordan left behind, Marci discovered a treasure trove stash of socks. We are now set for the next several decades in the sock department! All these years we thought that we had a whole family of the sock eating monsters that most families only have one of.

As the Father of this gang I am feeling extremely blessed to have a family who loves the Lord.

3 comments:

Chrissie said...

Good luck Roland and Marci! I'm sure Roland will do a great job. Aren't we so blessed to have such wonderful kids! I am so sorry we were not able to attend his farewell. Brad was in tithing settlement and I had a niece that was reporting her mission. I love reading your blog. Keep up the good work and let's get together someday!

Chrissie said...

Oops, I meant Jordan will do a great job - sorry!

Gail said...

That's so exciting...and scary too! I can't imagine how hard that must be but still, you wouldn't want him anywhere else. I love that he is going to Italy, Steve and I went there last year and although we weren't in Milan, we got a taste of how amazing Italy is in general. Start planning on picking him up...you'll love it!