You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned in the Brazil Londrina Mission.
You should report to the Brazil Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, December 5, 2012. You will prepare to teach in the Portuguese language.
Sean's mission call came June 20, 2012 to his apartment in Logan, Ut. He invited friends over to watch him open his mission call and had his family on Skype so we could watch the big moment. He was super excited as were all those who predicted he would go to Brazil via his Facebook page.
Here were some comments from his Facebook announcement:
- Edwin Butterfield DUDE thats in the same state as my mission!!! I served in Curitiba. you'll also have the Iguacu falls in your mission. Thats so awesome
- Tori Hunter Congratulations! You will be fantastic! Although, you broke the freshman trombone mission streak. You will be speaking portugese instead of spanish...
- Deanna Kulbeth Awesome mission! Right next to my brother's! You will no doubt nail it down there! Way to get a mission call.
That moment began a 168 day countdown (extraordinarily long due to wait times for Brazilian visas) until Elder Anderson would enter the MTC.
During the wait time he continued to work at the Space Dynamics Lab in Logan, Utah doing computer networking and enjoying a few more months of single life. He managed to acquire a girlfriend just two months before he left which made his final months fun and maybe a little bittersweet in the end.
He returned home to prepare for his mission November 20th (just before Thanksgiving). It was a great opportunity to spend a little more family time with him before he left. With his farewell on November 25 - Thanksgiving week was packed to the brim with food, family, and friends. Sean's Grandparents, John and Ellen Burnside arrived Thanksgiving day to enjoy dinner with the family and family friends the Stephersons and Ken Hainsworth. Friday, Sean's Aunt Michelle and Uncle Greg arrived with their children Madison, Amanda and Sadie, and Saturday Sean's friends from Logan arrived (Jeanne, Jaycee, Andrew, Steve, and Tristen) to spend one last night out dancing. It was a great weekend!
Sean's farewell was November 25, and he was asked to speak on Service.
Here is a link to his talk: Farewell talk on service
Grandma and Grandpa Burnside left directly after Sacrament meeting, but everyone else stayed for dinner and then left. It was a sad few moments as Sean watched his friends drive out of sight.
With just a week and a half left to get things finished, including have Christmas, the house was a whirlwind of activity: decorating the tree, finishing up paperwork, ordering shoes, hemming pants, and running to the store for last minute items (at least three times), it was finally time.
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