Matthew received his mission call for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to serve in El Salvador and Belize! (He leaves in October.) It's always so bittersweet taking mission pictures - especially since Matthew is my nephew! He and his dad flew from Florida (where they live) so that Matt could go through the temple surrounded by so many family members. I asked on my Facebook and Instagram what advice you'd give Matthew as he prepares to go out and serve for two years and these are the responses I got;

"The advice I always give is remember it's "line upon line." Just because you're not seeing results from your efforts working with someone doesn't mean you're wasting time. My family is notorious for taking forever to make the decision to get baptized. Some of them met with missionaries for years. But every single missionary was still an important part of that journey."

"Follow the Mission rules."

"Love the people"

"El Salvador is an amazing mission!!! My husband went there. The people are so kind, the land is beautiful and the pupusas are delicious! He’ll love it!"

"Don't drink the tap water."

"Love the people. Loving then might mean letting them go and stopping teaching them. Or it means serving them no matter what you get out of it. Or learning about their culture and why they are the way they are and letting them know that you care about them and respect them. It broke my heart when missionaries went their whole missions working and never actually cared about the people and didn't respect them."

"To trust and rely on the Lord more than he or she ever has before and if you don’t know how to do it, then figure it out!"

     I'd say those are some pretty solid pieces of advice! I'm so excited for Matthew to go out and serve. He is going to be an amazing missionary. Since he flew out to Utah, we took advantage of being in the same place to take some mission pictures! Since he was going to be going through the LDS Oquirrh Mountain Temple, that's where we went! We also used the last big of light to hit up Daybreak Lake. The air was so smokey that it made for a perfectly pink sunset. Awesome for pictures, terrible for my asthma. By the end of the shoot I sounded like I had been a smoker for the past 20 years!