Today is August 31 - tomorrow we leave home and stay at a hotel near the airport so we can be there by 4:30 a.m.  What a nice time of day to start on a Great Adventure -  September 2 at 6:30 we leave for Salt Lake City via Seattle and into the mission home on Monday September 5, 2011.
 
We appreciate all the  family that came to hear us speak last Sunday and for lunch and a visit. It was great to see most everyone there - missing Julie and family and Janice.  Our packing today was the weighing and reweighing, packing and repacking.  We think we have things balanced out and are semi under control.  It seems when you are getting ready to do the Lord's work that Satan really puts on the pressure and that has been the case this last while.  We do wish we could control that but know that blessings will come if we go and do that which we are supposed to do.  So... kids,  be your best and the blessings will flow we promise. 

We will miss everyone, friends and family, and appreciate your help in our being ready to go.  Thanks and we love you lots.  We have signed up for Vonage and hope that works over there - not sure.  It may take some time to get the internet and phone up and running.

We heard from President Padovich via email on Sunday and he answered some questions we had.  Yay!
We are really good at asking questions - sometimes even more than once.  Our memories aren't what they used to be.  Maybe they'll improve for 2 years.

We're pretty excited overall about the "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go Dear Lord" aspect of this call.  This continent is one that had not even entered our minds.  The Lord works in mysterious ways - we want to be on his team. 

It's already August 24th and we have been sidetracked for a few weeks for a Great Missionary Experience.  We have been able to have Li Jing (our new Chinese friend) in our home with the Mandarin Missionaries.  She was baptized on Saturday August 20,  by her husband (Fred Sun).  We were blessed to be able to get to know them and are grateful for them in our lives.  Li Jing left this a.m. for Shanghai then Suzhou where she will continue to teach Mandarin to high school students until the new year.  She hopes to come over to stay at that time.  We will miss her but hope to hear from her often.

We are now refocusing, have sold the cars back to the dealership, about finished the major shopping,  emptied the cupboards, taken the boxes downstairs, etc.  After we speak on Sunday, we will be able to finish the house off and be ready??? to go.  We are staying at the airport Sept. 1 as we leave early on Sept. 2, 2011.  Then off to Seattle, Salt Lake, stay 2 weeks, then to Chicago, London (9+ hrs), then to Johannesburg, and up to Lusaka, Zambia - our new home for the next 23 months.  Whew.  We should arrive very refreshed, right?  More Later.

Time is flying!  We are very busy getting ready to go, helping others, and teaching a beautiful young spirit, Li Jing, from China.  She has committed to baptism on August 21, 2011.  She returns to Souzhou, China on August 24th.  She teaches Mandarin in a high school there.  She is so bubbly, kind, honest, and open to the gospel teachings and principles, it is our privilege to have gotten to know her.  We took time this weekend to go to Waterton to Church - we love to do that at least once a year so this was the weekend.  It was Great!  President Rosenval is a fantastic Sunday school teacher.  Hopefully we can improve and be better teachers ourselves as time progresses.  Hopefully, we can remember how to post this. 

Are We Done Yet??

Wow!  Another few days of organizing, packing, reading, studying, and all in all trying to stay focused on the Adventure ahead.  We are looking forward to the focus, the challenge, and the blessing of being able to have the health and the mind to be able to help in the Lord's work.  We think that we are finished (?) appointments barring anything else like this week - an unforseen event - a broken tooth or two - still here though so easily fixed.  We got a letter yesterday from Salt Lake dated July 1 - it seems to not have been mailed or lost in the mail for several weeks.  By the time we leave, we hope to be very ready to concentrate on the experiences that we will have.  Looking forward to it.

July 25, 2011 - Monday

Preparation (and worry) continues.  This is practice adding to our blog.  The weather is sunny and warm today in Calgary.  We had talks on Pioneers, new and old in Church.  We need to continually study our materials and review the materials and supplies that are to be ready to go.

Paper Work

We have had to do a lot of paper work to get ready, including new passports and Police Criminal Record checks.  We are getting short of time to get all the necessary documents back to Salt Lake in time for the application to apply for visas to enter Zambia to be processed by September.

Welcome to our mission blog!

Greetings from Canada. Packing is underway for our mission to Zambia. We enter the MTC September 5, 2011 for a two-week training course to be followed by 23 months in Africa (but who's counting? :)

We will be living in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia.
20 Mutende Road, Woodlands, Lusaka, Zambia

If you'd like to stay in touch, email us at burton.shields@myldsmail.net.