Mission Call 3.0

Here we go again!  Kori received her mission call over the weekend!

Brazil Belem, Portuguese, Brazil MTC Sept 20th!!

We are so thrilled.  It just seems like the perfect call for Kori and we feel really good about it.  She will be deep in the Amazon rain forest where there are indigenous tribes. Cool!  It will be hot and humid and wet all the time, and she might get to see some interesting wildlife, even sloths!  She is excited to speak Portuguese, in fact, she's already been studying it "just because" she wanted to.  We are happy that we will get to have her home for the whole summer.  It will be fun getting her ready.  Receiving her call was a lot different than the boys.  She had a special place by the Laie Temple picked out where she opened her call by herself.  She face timed us after that to tell us, and then she spent the rest of the day calling and texting and telling people.  We are excited to have two missionaries serving together, it will be really nice for them!  We feel so blessed!  Congrats Kori!  We love you and are so proud of you for this decision to serve your Father in Heaven!!

Kori found this quote from Elder Holland about the work in Brazil and I have to share it here, I just love it!

Snakes

Our most recent Cub Scout Pack Night was one for the books.  Bro. Julander brought his reptiles and snakes, and the kids loved it!  Wes and I loved it too.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day first to my beautiful mom.  She has always been so sweet, selfless, giving and kind and I'm so grateful to have been her daughter.  These groovy pants from the 70s were my favorite outfit she ever wore!  I love you, Mom!!

We had a wonderful time talking to Clint and Kori today!  It was tricky with two phones and double Face Time, but it worked.  I'm grateful for modern technology that we could all be together, even from three different states!

Clint still has his personality... love him!

Soooo good to hear his voice, the thing I miss the most!

This little pudding is standing on her own and even taking a few brave steps!  I took these pics a couple of days ago, and she wasn't very happy that I made her pose.  It was fun for Clint and Kori to see how much she's grown.

Karlton and Livi gave me this darling book, and I took this photo with my new selfie stick Wes gave me, along with some new stuff to take to Girls Camp.  Thank you everyone!  I love you all so much, it's been such a wonderful day!!

Clint sent me a cute card.  He even included a couple of Indiana flowers and his cute art work.

Clint's card says:  Thank you so much for all you have done.  You've taught me to be a good person.  You always made sure I had what I needed.  You pushed me to improve.  And most of all, you loved me.  I love you so much.  I have no idea where I'd be without you.  I love you!  Elder Clint Thompson

Kori wrote me the nicest tribute, I need to include it here so that I will have it forever:

FELIZ dia de la Madre!!!

I wish I could have sent you a lei like the other Hawaiian moms here, but I couldn't figure it out in time.  Also, I hope you're not disappointed that I'm not going to make a Mother's Day post on social media.  I've decided that it's more important to tell you how much I love you directly instead of telling it to the whole world.

Thank you first for giving birth to me.  You gave me the gift of life!

Second, thank you for choosing to let me and my brothers be your life work, instead of working towards a career.  Now that I'm not at home anymore, I'm glad we were able to have as much time together as possible.

Third, thank you for all of our conversations when I got home from school or work, even if it was late and you were tired.  Those are some of my favorite memories with you!

Thank you for being patient with me.

Thank you for always treating me with respect.  As we often joke about, a lot of other moms say very negative things to their daughters and are very critical of them!  You have always treated me with respect and I so appreciate that.  That helped my confidence more than anything.

I love that we love so many things together!  Musicals!  Movies!  LOST!  The royals!  Etc!

As I get older and am making more and more adult decisions, I am incredibly grateful that you and Dad have let me make those decisions and been supportive of everything.  Even when I was a child and went through about 5,000 different life plans, you always supported my dreams and told me to pursue them.  I will be forever grateful that you believe in me and are willing to support me along the way.

Aside from being my mom, you are the most caring, fun, and kind person I know!!!

Oh and one more thing, thanks for helping me make all my craft ideas when I was little, even though the ideas were sometimes really wild!

I LOVE YOU MOM

Happy Mother's Day!

Love, Kori