The beginning!

Since I was a youngster I have always looked to serving a full-time mission for my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The church encourages young men, at the age of 19, to put their personal lives on hold for two years and give back a small portion of their time to the Lord by serving him. As missionaries we stand as witnesses of Christ and seek to bring others to him, and help those in less fortunate situations than ourselves. The gospel brings me joy and hope, I wish to share that happiness and hope for a better future with others.

A mission is funded by the individual and so to save money after leaving high school, I worked at International Armoring Corporation full time for 6 months, bullet proofing rich people's cars! By living within a budget, I knew I would have enough money by mid-February and so submitted my application papers for my mission just after Christmas.

After an agonising 3 and a half week wait, my call to serve finally came! My family were inconveniently on holiday at the time, I wasn't able to get time off work to go, and so I chose to drive to my girlfriend's house in Colchester and open my letter there...

Here's a photo of me with my call letter:

2 months later, after 12 different injections and 3 different visa applications, I'm pretty much ready to leave!