Dear Elder Rothert

Yesterday I received and envelope in the mail. It was a large one and the moment I saw my name on it I knew what it was. It was addressed to Elder Kevin Rothert and it was from The Office of the First Presidency. My mission call had finally come! At first I couldn't believe it but I immediately called Heidi and told her it was here and I wanted to open it with her. So she came over to pick me up and we went to her apartment calling Mom and home and Dad at work. We put them on speaker phone and then when we finally got to Heidi's apartment we sat down on the couches and I began to open it. (I say finally because that's how it felt to me, she only lives about 5 blocks from me.) I started reading.

Dear Elder Rothert:

That sounded so cool!

Dear Elder Rothert:

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Nevada Las Vegas West Mission.

So many thoughts went through my head here. I knew imediately that this was right. The past two weeks I'd had a feeling I was going to be going somewhere Spanish Speaking but I pushed that asside and thought. Wow! This is right! The Lord REALLY wants me to go here. For those of you who don't know, my dad also went to Las Vegas (it was only one mission then). Some may say that was just a crazy happenstance but I know the Lord had a hand in it. I don't know why I was sent to the same area my dad served but I know that the Lord wants me there. I kept reading:

It is anticipated that you will serve for a perious of 24 months. You should report to the Missionary Training Center at Provo, Utah on Wednesday, 17 December 2008.

I knew then I was not going home. I was sad but we'd expected that.

You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Spanish Language.

That was when the tears started to flow...and here they come now. Everything was so perfect. Everything was so right and I could feel it. This was exactly what my Heavenly Father wanted me to do and exactly where he wanted me to go. It still blows my mind.

I looked at the mission bounderies and it's basically all of western Nevada and a little bit of CA here in there. I can't believe it! I was telling everyone after that. I called everyone I could and told people on Facebook to call me. I was telling people all over the apartment complex.

It's such a great feeling to know I'm doing what my father in heaven wants me to be doing.