On Sunday, our Derek got set apart by a member of the Stake Presidency as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it was so special.  As soon as his blessing was finished, he proudly put on his missionary tag and was glowingly happy.  He had been waiting so long to get started on this journey.

As I mentioned in a previous in a previous post about Derek getting his call (I guess I should call him Elder Brown now ☺️), he had been expecting to start his mission in February, but it started the end of May.  Luckily during the waiting, he was able to do some really great things, but his favorite was becoming an ordinance worker at the San Antonio Temple.  He worked a Wednesday morning shift, he would come home glowingly happy.  What a special blessing, especially because our temple is closing for a five month renovation next week.

He has also had a lot of time to spend with Arthur, and I am pretty sure Arthur missed Derek enough while he was at college, that the Lord had him partially in mind when Derek got called to serve in the San Antonio Mission.

On Sunday morning, we all met the church.  Our Stake President sadly got stuck in Argentina (he is a Delta pilot and flies international flights), but his first counselor, President Gifford, was so wonderful – and he knows our family so well.  It was such a special experience.  To be set apart as a missionary (as with any calling in our church) means receiving a blessing from someone with the proper authority with promises guided by the Spirit, which then gives them the authority to act in his call as a missionary.

After he was set apart, we had to stop by our amazing bishop’s office.  Bishop Groberg not only helped with the preparations for Derek’s mission paperwork, but before he was our bishop, he was Derek’s Priest Quorum advisor, and so he knows and loves our boy.

As we prepared for Derek’s setting apart, as well as him speaking in our ward sacrament meeting as a way to signify his mission beginning, I realized that we needed a special musical number.  Luckily, we have amazing friends who play the piano, and Jana Rice was willing to play for them as we put together a musical number in a week.  They sang the song from a past youth theme, “A Great Work,” and it fit the situation so well.  I took a video of them in their at home practice, since I couldn’t video the actual performance.  It made me so happy to watch my boys sing together.

Here is a video of one of their rehearsals.

Sacrament meeting was wonderful, and it was so awesome to see so many family member who were able to join in and see the boys sing and Derek’s fantastic talk.  Derek’s best friend is in charge of the zoom feed, and he took a screenshot of who was in the meeting, and only one group on the list was not there for Derek.

So now Elder Derek Brown, is officially a missionary.  In fact, he began his home MTC (Missionary Training Center) yesterday, and he loves it!  He even had his first mission “all call” with all of the missionaries from the San Antonio Mission and his mission president.  Soon he will meet his new service mission leaders as well, as the Richters (who served some with Lily) just got released and a new couple was called.  He is all fired up and ready to go, and is so ready to begin his service assignments next week.

We sure do love this amazing boy of ours, and we can’t wait to see all the growth that will take place for him in the next two years of serving the Lord and serving others.