Big news in the Bowerman family! Marshall received that long-anticipated letter, announcing that he has been called to serve as a full-time missionary in...Brazil! We're pretty excited, to say the least. We watched him open his call letter on Skype. He had a few friends plus his brother and sisters who live near him all together as he opened it. (The picture on the right is from Skype, so not great quality, but better than just listening over the phone to the event!) His mission is called the Porto Alegre North Mission. When we first heard that, we were thinking he would be close to the equator, but after doing a little research, we have learned just how big Brazil really is, and his mission is in the southern part of Brazil, where he will get some chilly weather.
We don't know that much about the culture, so we will be doing more research over the next few months (he leaves in late August) to see what we can learn about the food, the weather, the people, and the Church in that part of the world.
As you can see in the cute picture above (he came home from a school field trip one day with that around his neck), this is something Marshall has looked forward to his whole life--what a great blessing it will be for him to be able to devote two years of his life to full-time service of the Lord, finding and teaching those who are receptive to hearing about the restored Church of Jesus Christ. He will leave as a teenage boy, and return as a young man, much more mature in his knowledge of the gospel, with a love in his heart for the people he served and with a deep foundation upon which to build his life.
