For better or worse.
**As I was writing this blog post, the only song I could think of to fit the present situation, was an explicit Eminem song, (not exactly the right choice for a mission blog) and then my favorite Beatles song came to mind and fits even more perfect....
Ob la di, ob la da life goes oooonnnn brah,
la la la la life goes on
Last week I said my bittersweet adios to my best friend Elder Landon Bickley and he is now in the MTC preparing to serve in the Mexico City East mission. 
I can't even begin to say how grateful I am for this boy in my life. I am so proud of him and will definitely miss all the laughs.
From the "Hot Tamale" leather onesie at DSN to his Lil' Jon impersonations, from his obsession with soft shoeing to his Canadian and Korean accents...
Then Sunday after church I was drivin through St George with Martis and Paul and it hit me,
I'm leaving in 3 WEEKS!!
Uhhh.. I'm not ready at all, how did this come so fast??
The next day I was in California, our last family trip before me and Madison peace out, and we were getting ready to leave for Disneyland,
the h a p p i e s t place on e a r t h
...Right? Well as we were about to leave the hotel room, I got a phone call from my stake prez....
telling me I had some visa complications dealing with my FBI clearance and that dumb trespassing ticket I got in high school
(remember when we all tried to go to that "haunted house" but never made it past the driveway, thought my $$$ money and community service hours were enough to cover it, I was wrong.)
well since I was cited for it, although never convicted for anything, Portugal won't grant me a Visa.
They aren't accepting any new hooligans...
"H stands for hooligan"
and my stake prez told me at this point my options are
A. Wait 6 months (or longer) for an expungement,
OR
B. leave on time, but get my mission reassigned
He told me I need to make my decision by tomorrow and hung up.
The initial shock was devastating.
-I had my heart set on Portugal for the last 5 months.
-I did NOT want to wait any longer.
-I already suffered for that ticket (multiple times)
-Anddddd to top it off we never even made it inside the "haunted house" so it for sure wasn't even worth it.
But after i mulled it over for a little, I really felt okay, I knew that everything happens for a reason and it would allll work out.
All i wanted to do was go to the temple to figure out what I'm supposed to do, but unfortunately it was a monday and it was closed...
After talking to the FBI, MTC and everyone else, we figured out I could have my expungement done in 8 weeks.
Not ideal, but that's a lot shorter than the 6 months I was first told
Soooo my MTC date has now been changed to May 15th.
My countdown went from 3 weeks back up to 9.
It's a bummer, but I know that it's all on the Lord's time table and everything will work out like its supposed to.
Soooo yeah it's been a rough week.
On a brighter note:
1. I'm in Disneyland
2. I'm still going to Portugal
3. I went to the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis concert for my 3rd time last week
4. He gave us another shout out.
5. Anddd We recently discovered midnight sushi with $6 Vegas rolls
So life is still gooooood.
x o x o,
not as soon to be, Irma Dumas
