Indiana Indianapolis Mission

Elder Stan and Sister Lynette Smithhart have been called to serve a full-time (18 months) mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Indiana Indianapolis Mission as office missionaries for President Steve & Sister Kip Cleveland. We report to the Senior Missionary Training Center (SMTC) on Monday, November 11, 2013.  We have planned for four years to get to this point and we are truly excited for this opportunity to serve.

After receiving our call, the work really began.  We spread the word with friends that we were looking for renters.  Matt and Lindsey Smith signed on the dotted line and we began the process of purging, packing and storing.  Probably the hardest decision we made, which may sound silly, was to find a storage unit and determine the size we needed.  Appointments were made with our physician, dermatologist and ophthalmologist.  We needed immunizations for influenza, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, and shingles, and Stan needed the pneumonia immunization.

A tradition in church is to have a Farewell where missionaries speak before they report to the mission field.  Our date to speak was October 20 and our entire family came to support us namely Rob and friend Titia, Mark, Ryan, David, Rebecca, Cambria, Brynn, McKay, week old Amberly, Doug, Laura, Carl and my Mom, Dorothy.  Mark and Ryan decided to stay with us until we enter the SMTC which was especially wonderful because they helped us move out of our home.  We stayed with Virgil and Louann Oakden for a week and Mark and Ryan stayed with Grant and Diane Bybee.  A very important last detail was to have a family picture taken before we left!

November 2nd we attended Cambria's baptism and Amberly's baby blessing the next day.  We had a wonderful weekend.  Monday morning we met Rob, Mark, David and Ryan for breakfast.  It was quite a bittersweet morning having all four boys with us for the last time.

After goodbyes Mark and Ryan caravanned with us on our journey to Utah. We stopped over in Las Vegas and arrived Tuesday afternoon in Springville to stay with my Mom.  We had rest to catch up on and a lot of ends to tie up. With the encourage of Mark and Ryan we bought new iPhones, traded my iPad1 for an iPad Mini and bought a laptop.  Last night they created this fabulous blog for us.

Tomorrow we enter the SMTC for orientation and will be staying in the Marriott.  What a ride!