missionaryMAC

This past weekend (11/14-11/16) I had the opportunity to attend the National LCMS Servant Event Leadership Conference. My future coworker, Chris Hill, was able to fly from El Paso to attend as well. The event was held at the Our Lady of the Snows Shrine in Belleville, IL, a wonderful facility that took amazing care of us. Plus they have one of those deals where you can drive through and look at a whole bunch of Christmas lights, and they turned them on Saturday night...it was perfect with the SNOW!!! The conference included devotions, hymn sings, Bible studies, breakout sessions, a worship service (which we skipped to reunite with the group from St. Paul's that went to Ysleta in July 2008...), and a commissioning service. It was great to make some new contacts (we managed to generate 3-4 groups that may be interested in coming down to El Paso sometime), meet others who have been to Ysleta and love it (like the group from Caro, MI, who built the new sanctuary at San Lucas in Anapra)

Although I get reports on my account from LCMS every Friday, I couldn't check last week's until yesterday afternoon because I was at Heit's Point all weekend as a counselor for a Confirmation retreat, and we had to leave before I could check it on Friday. When I did though, I was met with exciting news: I now have the first year (plus a little more) completely taken care of! That is one of LCMS's requirements for anyone serving over 12 months--the first year technically needs to be covered before leaving for the field. Not that I was worried about making it to that milestone at all--in fact I am uncharacteristically not worried about reaching my overall goal for that matter--but it means I can officially go! T-minus a little over 2 months!

So LCMS likes to send me a lot of mail and I got one today that I wanted to share--my "Solemn Appointment." So official sounding...I feel like I should frame it like a degree or something (I'll have one of those too in a month and a half now!). Here is the opening paragraph: "To Ms. Erin Mackenzie of Saint Paul Lutheran Church in Des Peres, Missouri Having called on the Lord, our God, for guidance and in the exercise of authority with which He has vested in His church, we, the members of the Board for Mission Services of The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in lawful meeting on July 29, 2008, have appointed you to the office of Long-term missionary and herewith extend to you this formal notification of your solemn appointment. " Pretty cool, huh? School is going pretty well too. I no longer spend every free second working on my honors project because it's DONE! Well, not like REALLY done, but entirely written, revised once, sent to my committee of professors,