Finish all Four Years of Seminary!
Did you know some countries require a special license that our LDS missionaries must obtain? If you have not completed all four years of Seminary, you are not eligible for this license so you will be limited in the number of countries to which you can be assigned.
Missionaries are now asked to bring a four-generation pedigree chart with the missionary's name on the first line. They are also encouraged to bring a few stories about their ancestors. They are also encouraged to become familiar with FamilySearch. This is something you have had the opportunity to do since Primary. Prepare now! Gather family names and also family stories - like our favorite stories about ancestors who participated in various wars, they were a pretty rowdy bunch!
Immunizations: some shots require a waiting period between the first and booster shot. Make sure your shots are all up to date, including boosters. If you have not had immunizations, that will limit where you can be called to serve.
Winter clothing: we are sending money for winter clothing for Calvin. Because the climate for his mission is farther North than we are, extends to the Magnetic North Pole (and almost to the North Pole), and we're not sure how far North he will be serving, we figure it's best just to give him money to buy the clothing there in Canada. We would never be able to find clothing rated for that climate here. If he buys it there, he won't have to pay duty on it.
Small sewing kit: most of the sewing kits I know of have 5 or 6 different colors of thread on a cardboard spool, 2 or 3 needles, perhaps a needle threader, snaps, a few buttons, blunt-edged scissors, and that's about it. I thought about what Calvin would really need in a sewing kit. This is what I put in his sewing kit, which fit in a hard, hinged glasses case (which we had on hand)
*2 bobbins of thread: I bought extra bobbins for my sewing machine and I wound one with white thread (for his dress shirts) and one with black thread (for his suits and pants and ties). You may want to wind a bobbin with blue thread too. That way he has LOTS of thread just in case.
*Buttons: whenever we get a dress shirt, I take the extra buttons and put them in my button tin. I also save the little plastic bag and I was able to put buttons for his sewing kit in this small, just-the-right-sized bag! The same goes for when we get a new suit. So I put the buttons in from Calvin's new suits, and added some other suit-appropriate buttons, as well as pants-appropriate buttons and extra white shirt buttons. Whenever my husband wears through his suits, dress pants, or his white shirts, I always salvage the buttons before I throw the material away.
*Hooks and eyes, and snaps: 5 pairs of each should be enough. You can always send these in a package if they need more, because they won't take up much room.
*3 - 5 needles of different sizes. Make sure one is a tapestry needle with a blunt edge. When suit pants or sweaters get pulls in them, you can push the tapestry needle to the inside of the garment, through the hole created by the pull, thread the "pull" in the needle eye, and pull the thread to the inside. I put the needles through a piece of ribbon so that they won't get lost in the kit.
*Needle threader: I just happened to have one on hand. This isn't a necessity, but nice to have because sometimes boys aren't as proficient in threading needles.
*Scissors: I found a pair of "mustache trimming" scissors at our local WalMart. They have sharp points which are good for picking at smaller stitches, and I figure that Calvin can use them for not only sewing repairs, but also trimming his hair if he needs to. Be alerted though: if your missionary has these type of scissors in their sewing kit, make sure they CHECK the bag UNDER the plane. DO NOT put it in the carry on, otherwise it will be confiscated.
Have an extra SD card for their camera. Calvin has 2 cards (we might increase the number to 3 cards) that way he has one for his camera and can send one home for us to download his pictures. Then he can send the other one once we send the one we have back to him. We can also put photos from us on the card we send back to him. *grin* He doesn't have to keep these photos on his card, but he can know how much we love him.
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