Hello, I'm Travis Skene, most of you reading this (haha hopefully somebody is) probably know me really well or somewhat well or maybe not at all. I have been called to serve as a Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church).
Next week on Wednesday (November 9th, 2011) I leave for the Russia Rostov-Na-Donu Mission to serve the Lord of 2 years! I got my call on August 9th, 2011. I'll actually be leaving to the Missionary Training Center aka MTC first for about 11 or 12 weeks, then I'll actually be in Russia, regardless, I'm so excited to be serving the Lord in Russia and working as hard as I can to be a great missionary! Even though I had a rough road getting here, (I wasn't always into the church and worthy to go), that's in the past and I'm ready to get outta' here and pay my dues to the Lord and his people for at least 2 years, who knows, maybe I'll get an extension.
As far as advice for future or aspiring missionaries after opening your call, getting prepared isn't easy, and I haven't done a fantastic job of it, but I got better, it's a difficult transition. I would say that to make sure you really get into the church doctrine, go to missionary prep and temple prep classes, read your scriptures or preach my gospel, preferably both, and go through the temple as soon as you feel ready. I went through the temple last week and getting my endowments was absolutely awesome, and I should have done it right after I got my call, but oh well, life goes on.
I hope and pray that I can get companions that I can get along with, and I don't think that will be too hard, I think I'm pretty easy going and get along with others well, but who knows? Even if I don't get great companions I know that everything happens for a reason and I need to stay diligent no matter the circumstance. The only fears I have are learning the Russian language and the companions. I took about 5 years of German, one of which was AP (Advanced Placement or College Level), and I put that I wanted to go to a German speaking mission multiple times and I was pretty confident that I would get called to one as I had ancestry there, spoke an okay amount of the language, and loved the culture. These thoughts were erased quickly when I opened my call and read that I had been called to serve in the Russia Rostov-Na-Donu mission. I'm so thankful that I'm going there however, and I know that's where I need to be and calls are truly inspired by the Lord, if they weren't, the Church wouldn't be sending me to a place I'm barely familiar with.
My mother and/or sister will be managing my blog an Facebook when I leave, I'll post my missionary address for mail and my missionary email address soon on this blog and on Facebook. Add me on Facebook if you wanna keep up with me if you already haven't. I'm listed under Travis Skene, you'll probably see a lot of Star Wars stuff under my profile unless I remove it.
Goodbye (до свидания in Russian) for now! I'll be sure to keep you all updated!
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