Homecoming Silver Anniversary!

Today is my Silver Anniversary!

25 years ago today I returned from serving a full time 18 month mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Wow!  It's hard to believe it's been 25 years since I came home.

Serving a mission was the best decision of my life.

I decide to post a picture of me in the MTC (Missionary Training Center).  This is where I spent the first three weeks of my mission learning how to be a missionary.  It was a very intense learning experience.

This is me in the laundry room of the MTC.  January 1992.

Now some pictures from the middle of my mission:

 You're all familiar with this picture as it is the background of my blog.  This is me with Sister Vega at a Zone Development Meeting (ZDM).  Probably around August 1992.

Same ZDM with some of the Elders from the Fort Myers Zone In the great Florida Tampa Mission.

This was a special ZDM focused on baptism.  We were specifically asked to wear white.  Of course this is where Sister Vega and I did our famous presentation entitled "Tract Tract Baby".  :-)

Pday in Punta Gorda.  I know it's P-day (preparation day) because I've got a letter in hand.  And we aren't working. Obviously I was an obedient missionary.  Wearing my missionary attire in public on Pday.

Same dress as above.  But obviously we were working.  Notice the copies of the Book of Mormon in my hand?  Looks like we were out tracting late. Yes, I was a hard-working missionary.  :-) No regrets.

 Now a few pictures from the end of my mission:

Do I look much wiser and seasoned than I do in the first picture?  My hair is certainly blonder.  :-) That's what 18 months in the Florida sun can do (with a little help from some sun in) :-)

Love that Florida sun!

1993

One of my last Zone meetings.  Seminole Florida Chapel.  Probably May or June 1993. 

Another Zone meeting in Seminole.  This happened to be our building we went to-- Sister Erickson and I served in the Seminole Ward.  Luckily we didn't have to travel far for this Zone meeting.  If I remember correctly this was the St. Petersburg Zone.  I loved being the only Sisters in our zone.  :-) It was that way my entire mission. Things are a lot more balanced now as more Sisters are serving missions.

I don't have any pictures of my actual homecoming.  I know we have a video of it.  So this'll have to do.  I loved being a missionary.  It was a lot of hard work but also very rewarding.  I consider it a sacred privilege I was blessed with to be called to serve a full-time mission.  Greatest experience of my life!

Happy Silver Anniversary to me!