Temple Trip

We went up to Lehi for Thanksgiving and on Saturday the 24th Shayne received her endowments in the Mount Timpanogos Temple.  My entire family was there except Brad and Ashley who couldn't get away from work and had to stay in California.  I am a very lucky person to be born to such wonderful parents and to have such amazing siblings who the Lord has blessed with outstanding spouses.  The temple is such a holy place where sacred covenants are made with the Lord and Shayne was glowing when we left.  Later she told me, "Now it all makes sense".  She is a very mature person and it made it a very special experience.

PASSPORT

Shayne's passport came while we were in Lehi for Thanksgiving!  We were so glad and relieved.  She instantly scanned it and emailed it to church headquarters like she was told to do.  Now we are only waiting for her FBI clearance so she can get her work VISA.  We are a little worried about this one due to that fact that they said that if her VISA doesn't come in time then her mission will be postponed 6 weeks.  We have already had to wait for so long and would really love to not be set back another month and a half.  We were told that we could give the FBI a 4 week deadline so we said Dec 10th.  I hope they stick to it.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, on October 6th, 2012, changed the age of sister missionaries from waiting until they are 21 to serve a mission to the wonderful age of 19!  We were at the marathon waiting for Joel to cross the finish line when Katie Cluff send me a text telling me that the prophet Thomas S. Monson had just announced it.  Shayne and I both started to cry!  I called my mom and she started to cry.  I couldn't believe it.  Let me give you a little background on Shayne to let you in on why we reacted this way. 

For the last 8 years Shayne had been a very competitive swimmer.  She once said that her goal was the 2012 London Olympics and she may have been on her way but the Lord had other plans for her that we didn't know about.  The last week of her Jr. year she came down with meningitis. She had it for a week before I got smart enough to take her to the ER and by that time it had tormented her body to a point that it would never return again to the precision tool that it was before.  She was put in the cardiac unit in an isolated room that you had to completely gown up for if you were going in to visit her.  It was horrible.  She was there for 4 days and when she got out the doctor told her not to even move around the house for 2 weeks.  After the 2 weeks was up her doctor said to ease back into swimming carefully.  She jumped back into the pool thinking she'd do an easy 200 yard swim and by the time she made it to the end of the lane she could hardly move.  In her head she was healed.  But her body had a LONG way to go.  Before he Sr. year she had 3 colleges that she was looking at.  After the meningitis we no longer had schools interested in her swimming.  She was a endurance swimmer.  A long distance swimmer.  She could swim a mile in 18 minutes.  She was set to take state in the 400 IM and 500 Freestyle.  But now she had no endurance at all.
She slowly came back and by the time Sr. state came around she was able to still compete but only in the 50 Free and 100 Free and much to everyone surprise she took 3rd in both.  A great survival and comeback story but a life changing event.  She was ALWAYS planning on moving away and swimming at college.  Now she was staying home and going to Dixie State.  Her life had gone from full force to a complete stop and when we heard this news from our church we finally knew why.

Shayne was turning 19 just 5 days later and Joel was her bishop so mission papers started almost immediately.  Mason filled out her dentist papers in 2 minutes and our Nurse Practitioner, Amy Benedict, filled out her doctor papers the next day and then they were off to our Stake President Jeff Ellsworth.  A week later they were up at Church Headquarters.  We were so excited for her call to come and  wouldn't you know it?  Shayne's Mission Call came on Halloween at 11:30a.m.  She went to the mail and called me. 

 Joel was already home waiting for the mailman with her.  He left to go pick up Josh and Sophie and I picked up the two little boys from the elementary and met them all at home.  Shayne didn't want a ton of people around when she opened it.  In fact at first she was just going to open it by herself at the mailbox but then she figured nothing would get blogged about it if there weren't any pictures. (true)  So her next plan was to get it and call me to meet her at Joel's work so the three of us could be together when she read it.  But that didn't fly with Sophie and Josh.  Ben and David didn't really care.  But now that it came on Halloween we needed to get them out too because I needed to help them get in their costumes and ready for their class parties.  So it was all of us and Zack.  Zack is like a little brother to Shayne.  She called Eric too - Big brother - but he couldn't get off work.  So there we were in the living room, everyone with a phone on speaker to someone else.  Grandpa's, Uncles and Kyson when she opened it and read:

Dear Sister Beckstrand,
You have been called to serve in the Perth Australia Mission!

She goes to the Provo MTC and is speaking English which is exactly what she wanted.  She didn't want to learn a language because she wants to be able to start teaching right off and not have a language barrier.
She leaves March 13th.  Which isn't for awhile but works out well because it's our Spring Break!  We have a ton to do like get her passport ASAP! March seems like a while off but time will fly.  I hope we will be ready when it gets here.