The Call

So you might have heard I'm serving a mission. But where exactly am I going? That's the big question: 

Well lucky for you, I'm writing a blog post to clear that up. My call was worded like this:

"Dear Sister Stewart, You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Madagascar Antananarivo Mission. In addition to your calling to share the gospel, you will be assigned to serve in the Reunion Mission Region. You should report to the Ghana Missionary Training Center on Friday, September 6, 2013. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the French language."

So yes I'm called to the Madagascar mission but I'm also uniquely called to "the Reunion Mission Region". Madagascar is an island and it has all these little islands around it. One of them is called Reunion island and is owned by France. 

That's where the whole "French speaking" comes into play. And most likely where I'll be spending most of my mission. I talked to two RM's from my mission who served in the exact same place and were also called to the "Reunion Mission Region". One of them never even touched foot on Madagascar - for the entire 24 months he didn't go to Madagascar - even though that was his mission. So that could happen to me. I serve in Reunion the whole time - one tiny island speaking French and never make it to the "mainland" and meet King Julian. The other RM (a sister) DID go to Madagascar for some months. Like an area of a mission, the assignment is totally dependent upon the mission president. It's simply whether or not he feels inspired to place you there. If I DO go to Madagascar, I won't speak French anymore. I'll need to learn Malagasy on the fly. And things might be pretty different from Reunion since Madagascar is one of the poorer countries in Africa. 

What is Réunion like? Why I'm glad you asked since I'm about to tell you.

First off -- Reunion Island is a part of France. It IS France. Not a territory. But an actual part of France. Best analogy: It is the Hawaii of France. For me to be able to go there, I have to get a visa from the French government. Luckily, that means that Reunion is a pretty nice place. It's a first world country unlike some other African states. It's a beautiful island with soft nice beaches, jungly interior and topped by a volcano! It's got it all.

Luckily, I'm pretty sure it doesn't erupt tons anymore...but you never know. But even with all this nature, Reunion still has a large population of 800,000 people and large cities. It's largest city is St. Denis located on the north end of the island with about 130,000 people. 

The main dish on Réunion is called "carri". And essentially is a dish of rice with a thicker sauce and some type of meat. "Carri" comes in all sorts of different ways, there is chicken carri, spicy carri, shrimp carri...etc. It's sort of like Indian spiced chicken - in fact many of the same spices are used. The culture is quite a mix of islander/African and French influences. 

Ultimately, I'm SOO excited and willing to serve wherever the Lord will assign me!!