No Farewell, but a Great Beginning!

Welcome to another missionary blog! While Michael Stewart serves a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this blog will record his weekly experiences. Every week Michael will email home to his mother and father, and those emails will be re-posted right here. Occasionally pictures from his mission will also be included with posted letters, so keep an eye out for those! Submit your email address on the bottom right of this page or "follow" this blog using a blogger account and you will automatically be notified every time it is updated.

Michael enters the Provo Missionary Training Center (MTC) on Wednesday January 25th, and from that point through the duration of his mission there will be a few ways to contact him.

IN THE MTC: For his first nine weeks Michael will receive training in the Provo MTC and anyone can mail him a letter to his MTC address; this address will be listed on the right side of this page starting on Friday January 20th. Messages can also be sent to Michael using  dearelder.com which offers free message delivery to any missionary in the MTC. To use the dearelder service simply select "Provo MTC" from the mission name drop down menu and click "Write a Letter". Don't worry too much about filling in address information on the website, as long as Michael's name and mission name are listed, he will get your letter the very same day!

IN THE MISSION FIELD: After nine weeks of intense Spanish language training and gospel study, Michael will travel down to St. George and begin his life as a full time proselyting missionary. He will be assigned to work in different areas within his mission boundaries, and could potentially move locations every 6 weeks.To reach him in southern Utah you can always send a physical letter or package to the address listed on the right side of this page, and it will then be forwarded to wherever Michael is located. Michael's mission president has asked that all letters and packages be sent using the United States Post Office only. FedEx and UPS packages cannot be forwarded to him.

Letters are the lifeblood of missionaries, so write away! Michael's focus on his mission will be 100% on serving the Lord and helping all of the people that he meets, so he asks that you keep that in mind when communicating with him. Please don't send him any books, magazines, or music that are not church related.

Michael and his sister JeanMarie both spoke in church this last Sunday and expressed great excitement about serving missions. The Stewart family counts it a very high privilege to have two children serving as missionaries at the same time, and would love to share all of their upcoming experiences with as many people as possible!

                               JeanMarie and Michael Stewart at their missionary farewell