Sunday, July 7, 2013

It's almost here

Rewind back to February 20, 2013. I opened a large white envelop that cleared all question of when and where I will be going on my mission. As I read, "Dear Sister Hutchins: 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 Guatemala Guatemala City [East] Mission.. . . You should report to the Guatemala Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, July 10, 2013" there was a feeling of great. . . relief. This all-so-deciding moment declared a date months in the future. Between February 20 and July 10 would be another two months of a challenging Winter semester to finish, followed by another two months of Spring classes that would fill my life with hours and hours of physics in a day, finally followed by two plus weeks at home after finishing 22 months straight of school. Being a missionary was not on the top of my most-important-thing-to-pay-attention-to-list for those months, but now it is. This all-so-distant date of July 10 is now right within reach. Skirts are sewn, plane tickets are ready, luggage is almost completely packed, and now is the time. Tomorrow evening I'll be set apart as a full-time missionary, starting 18 months of life fully dedicated to the Lord's work. Tuesday evening I'll be on a plane, and another plane, and another plane, and then finally in Guatemala. As the July 10, 2013 sun rises I will be at the Guatemala City MTC, tired, but ready to be a missionary.
With all of this said, I'd love to hear from YOU! So here are some addresses that can help with that process:

You can write me through dear elder.com. I'll be in the Guatemala MTC and then the Guatemala City East Mission (it still may say north, but hopefully it's all fixed to be East). This is either free, or the price of a stamp. But you type, they print and deliver.

my email for my mission: dhutchins@myldsmail.net

my MTC mailing address is:

Sister Deborah Ann Hutchins
Guatemala Guatemala City East Mission
Guatemala Missionary Training Center
Bulevar Vista Hermosa 23-71
Vista Hermosa I, Zona 15
Guatemala City 01015
GUATEMALA

Letter mailing address (mission office address until I get my first assignment in the field, but this will get to me eventually)/package mailing (I don't expect packages, it's waaaaay too expensive):

Sister Deborah Ann Hutchins
Guatemala Guatemala City East Mission
Avenida Reforma 8-60, Zona 9, Oficina 505
Apartado Postal 921-A
01009 Guatemala City
GUATEMALA

 pouch mail is pretty exciting too:

Sister Deborah Ann Hutchins
Guatemala Guatemala City East Mission
POB 30150
Salt Lake City UT 84130-0150

here is a run-down on how to do pouch mail, I'm pretty sure it is only for communication either to or from the US:

it must be written/printed on normal white copy paper (not lined, not smaller, not colorful, not lighter weight)
you can only write on one side, you can't attach anything, like photos or notes, but you can print them onto the paper, and I bet you can draw pictures too.
once you are done writing, lay the paper with the blank side down.
fold the bottom (the shorter side of the paper, ya know, the 8.5" side) up to reach the 2/3 point from the bottom, and then fold the top down so that it touches, or almost touches, the crease made from the previous fold.
then get two pieces of tape and seal the letter closed by placing them on the long side about one inch from the ends without sealing the ends (so put the tape on the 8.5" side. part of the tape touching the original top of the piece of paper and the other part of the tape touching the crease, and one inch in from the sides, so the tape pieces will be about 5.5" apart)
Then on that same side (so one the back side of the top of the letter which is now the side laying up), on the top left corner write your name and return address, in the top right corner, place your US first class postage (just one is enough), and in the middle write the missionary address.
This is an envelope-free mailing system. it gets sent to church headquarters and then gets privately distributed to the missions.

Yay for my first blog post, my family will hopefully be keeping things up-to-date for anyone who wants to know about what's going on.



No comments:

Post a Comment