Garrett turned 18 in February, but was still in the middle of his senior year of high school. He was not extremely anxious to submit his mission papers . Baseball season was rapidly approaching and he had discovered that having an amazing girlfriend was really important and super fun. Russ and I agreed that we wanted serving a mission to be Garrett's decision and did our very best not to put any pressure on him. Would keep quiet about it at least until school was out. Garrett finished school and graduated May 19,2016. Still He dragged his Missionary feet. He played club baseball with our local college and worked full-time for Russ. By July almost all of his friends had received their mission calls and most were gone. He started to get bored and decided to commit fully to his decision to serve. the paper work began He arranged appointments with the bishop, and stake president I finally got into the middle and arranged dentist visits, doctor appointments, and helped arrange wisdom teeth removal plans. He didn't realize how much was involved submitting papers.
He was ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood on Sunday, (Sept 11, 2016)
then went to the temple during the following week.
once everything was completed He had one final interview with the stake president to review his papers and they were off to the first presidency, and it was time for us to just sit back and wait. AlthoughGarrett had full faith that the Lord would send him where he was needed-He expressed a desire to family only that he hoped he could go somewhere foreign, speaking Spanish(since he had taken three years of Spanish in high school). We were told to expect about 2-3 weeks before the call would arrive. we were told by kids tracking mission calls that if the postage was under$1.50 that the call would most likely be stateside.and if over$1.50 "possibly" foreign- this according to the calls issued in our area of StGeorge.
On Wednesday, August 23, 2016, a large envelope arrived in our mailbox.the postage on the large envelope was $1.99 oh-dear!! Because the call arrived late in the day and we wanted as many family members who wanted to attend the opening to be able to, we sent out an announcement to family and friends that Garrettt would open his call on Friday evening. It was going to be hard for all of us to wait two more days, but figured that was our best option. Finally, on Friday evening after family and friends arrivedGarrett opened his call he read, "Elder Hyde you have been called to serve in the Peru.Lima.West mission. Yay- Foreign and Spanish speaking, but not so scary that mom wouldn't be able to sleep- haha ha. ALL were excited about the call He was to report the MTC(orCCM) in Peru on November15,2016.
