Jul. 21, 2004

Madrid

She's going to Spain!

My baby sister has been called to serve a mission for the LDS church. She's 21, a beauty queen, talented, brilliant, and now she's off to Madrid, Spain to be a missionary. Spain is so lucky to get her for two years.

I'm so proud of her. I'm not particularly active in the Church these days, but for the overwhelming majority of my life serving a mission was my goal and my plan. It didn't work out that way. But my kid sister, who's no kid anymore, is going to be tremendous.

My little brother (who's six feet tall and massively muscled and in the Army... little?) served his mission in Barcelona by total coincidence (prospective missionaries do not choose where they go, they are assigned) and now they can speak silly lisping castilian spanish to each other.

My weak Chinese is totally not going to cut it in the family now- it's gonna be all spanish all the time!

When I'm being honest with myself I realize that part of the reason I was so much more nervous and excited about Lauren's call than either of my brothers so far is that it almost feels like she's taking my spot. I didn't get to go, but she does. I should have done it first, now she is. On another level I'm really glad she gets this "first." I love her, she's my best friend, but it's gotta be hard to be fourth in the family. Almost everything has been done before by someone. Or maybe that's just my vanity feeling like I should have done it all first...

Nothing, though, can damper how incredibly proud I am of her. That's she's worthy to go, that she chose to, that's she's been working on it for a long time. She's incredible and I'm going to miss her a lot. She heads to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah in November, then to the MTC in Madrid. So I have some time left to cram in trips and spend time.

I love that kid.

She's pretty amazing.

On a side note, the Ugly Cat just turned around three times and curled up in my lap. Cats that act like dogs, what is the world coming to?

Rachel fluttered @ 2:55 pm