Nick’s mission update

The time is quickly approaching for Nick to leave for Liberia. We are so excited that things are falling into place.  It’s been a crazy ride.  We expected that we would have to make-do with some items he already owned or with some items that aren’t quite what they asked for.  We have been to the mall, individual stores, and Amazon.  Thankfully most things were available.  The hardest items are obviously clothing.  They don’t carry size 13 shoes and tall items.  We found a great tailor and had all of Nick’s clothes custom-made. He picked out the type and color of fabrics and showed photos of how missionary clothes should look.  Indians like tighter tops and shorter leg pants. We are so happy with them. 

We also found a place to get 2 custom leather belts.  It was fun to see him use his leather tools to make them. 

 

We had mixed success with shoes.  We did find some crocs and a pair of Clark’s that fit. Thankfully he already had tennis shoes and one pair of dress shoes.  He is also supposed to take a good pair of leather sandals. We have looked everywhere and can’t find any that fit.  

We have also had trouble finding basic items like bug spray, pepto bismal, stick deodorant, and athletic shorts that are long enough. We also were worried about getting money exchanged, not have a valid drivers license and a debit card for travel. Nick is also not able to attend the temple as we are assigned to the Hong Kong temple. The mission President was awesome and quickly responded to ease our fears. 

Liberia uses the US dollar as their currency.  He would be able to drive with an expired license as he wouldn’t be able to renew it from India and his mission president takes all new missionaries to the Ghana temple for their first time. Nick was excited to be able to attend the Ghana temple. 

A month passed and we didn’t hear any word on obtaining his visa.  We started to look online for information and realized that travel is banned from India to Liberia due to Covid. We called the travel department to see the status of his visa.  Normally when travel is banned to a country, the missionary is temporarily reassigned in their home country. Nick can not be reassigned in India as no new missionary visas are being issued. If they sent him to the US, he could immediately leave after a 2 week quarantine period for Africa. Over the course of the next week, many calls and emails were exchanged with the mission we live in, the travel department, the Asia Area presidency, and us.  Ideas were presented including sending him to the Ghana MTC, but eventually the Church decided to send Nick back to the US. 

He will be set apart as a missionary here and flies Sept 24 to Idaho Falls to do home MTC with his grandma for one week.  He will get to attend the Idaho Falls temple with Alex while there.  He will then go to the Provo MTC for two weeks. He will fly out with his district Oct 4th to Liberia. We were really looking forward to the extra time with him but are grateful that a plan was made to get him to his original assignment. 

This did make things easier for us as we ordered most of his items from Walmart and Amazon and had them sent to his grandma’s house. We are in the final stages: receiving immunizations, packing suitcases, arranging transportation, and enjoying our last few weeks together.