Christmas call.

Our first missionary call home. This is one of four we will get during Eldrew's mission. Sorry to be so late reporting on it. We got a little carried away with the holidays.

Eldrew arranged the call and time via email on the prep day before Christmas. We gathered the whole family for the call at 2pm on Christmas Day. Eldrew is a missionary who obeys the mission rules. He made sure that we  understood that only family couuld be on the call.

When the big moment came, the phone rang and we all ran into the office to put him on speaker. It was great to hear his voice. He was calling on a member's cell phone. He was in good spirits, happy, upbeat, joking around...and sort of awkward...not knowing what to say.

By the rules, Eldrew kept his call to 40 minutes. Every five minutes or so, he tell us how much time he has left. The whole family peppered him with questions about how he is doing, what its like to be on a mission, about his new area, etc. etc.

Eldrew is of the opinion that he is going to be in his new area for a while. His companion goes home in March and will most likely remain in the area until the end of his mission. That being the case, Eldrew will probably stay and extra month or two after to assure missionary continuity in the area. If that's true, his next transfer will be maybe April or May. Of course, it is all up to the needs of the mission and the inspiration of his mission president. An interesting note...Eldrew's new companion sort of came with the territory. The area Eldrew is serving in was a part of the Texas Houston East Mission...the area moved into Eldrew's mission as a part of a boundary shift when a Stake was reorganized. His companion was already there and assigned to the Texas Houston East mission. So...his companion got transferred into a new mission for the last few months of his mission.

We discovered that Eldrew would prefer mail sent to his mission home and not to his apartment address. It seems to work out better that way.

So...the correct address is:

Elder Andrew Bellomy

Texas Houston South Mission

4627 Austin Parkway

Sugar Land, TX 77479-2146

On a side note, we Googled Eldrew's new apartment address and found a Google street view photo of the home. We won't post it here...but it is really sort of odd and cool to have so much information about where he is serving. I will show the general area that he is at in relation to Houston.


View Larger Map

At the end of the call, I got the chance to have a minute or two alone talking to Eldrew. It was very special. Susan got to finish the call with Eldrew one-on-one as the time ran out. She came out wiping away tears.

It made for a GREAT Christmas!