There's Gotta Be a Wrench Thrown In it Somewhere, Right?

Okay, so many of you have already read in an earlier post about the major effort and runaround it took to talk to my number 1 missionary son during the last Christmas holiday. So... Mother's Day rolls around. Another anticipated phone conversation. Only this time, I'm the one that turned the tables. The Captain and I decided to go to San Diego to spend Mother's Day with my mother (kinda left my own kids like Mother's Day orphans here at home, but oh well). I forgot to send my weekly email the week before until later Sunday afternoon, so I worried that Mr. Elder (Brother Elder? Elder Elder?) wouldn't know I wasn't home for the phone call. I wrote my mom's telephone number in the message, clicked on "Send" and hoped for the best.

New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of us time-wise, so it's always anybody's guess which clock he's running on when he decides to call. If he calls on his Mother's Day, that means Saturday here. Or, if he thinks ahead enough to know to call on my Mother's Day, it'll be Monday for him. Then again... what if he didn't read my email until it was too late to call... So, again, it was a nerve-wracking, nail-biting Sunday.

Finally, around 5:00 or so (maybe later... I was likely delirious from 'waiting for the phone to ring' fatigue), I heard my Mom hoot (yes, she hoots every now and again. If you haven't heard it, you should set aside some time to spend with her) after she answered the phone. Being the nice mom she is, she didn't play her power card of "I'm the Grandma, I'm talking first!!!" but instead handed the phone over to me.

The Elder sounds great. He also sounds funny still. He doesn't really have an accent, per se, but he does speak with a British-like inflection at the end of sentences and things like that. It cracks me up. He's busy. He says he's been recently transferred to the southern-most point of his mission, complete with penguins, -- just in time for winter in New Zealand. (That made me laugh since he HATES cold weather.) Anyway, they have a baptism scheduled in two weeks and a couple other people close to baptismal commitments. So, he's feeling really good about that. And, he says he has now ditched the bike for a car. (So much for the bulging thigh muscles he was bragging about at Christmastime.)

Hard to believe that he'll be home in 7 months. His mission has gone by really fast. Of course, he still has his priorities right. He wanted to know when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Christmas concert was scheduled for this year so he could figure out if he'd be home in time for the Little America brunch buffet. After the Captain looked it up, we told him the date and he's a bit nervous. It'll be close...