Mission Shopping and Packing

When Aidan got his call, one of the first things we did was look at what he would need to take and start shopping. Luckily, we had over four months to do our shopping. But, just like Christmas shopping, we ended up doing quite a bit of it last minute. It was interesting to see how much he needed to take in comparison to what Ren had to take to Angola. Their clothing requirements were almost identical, but Ren had to take two years' worth of toiletries and Aidan only had to take enough for his MTC stay since it sounds like he'll be able to buy most of those things in Honduras. One interesting thing to note as well is that just the week before Aidan left, the church changed the suit requirement for his mission (and others in warm climates) and no longer require the missionary to take a suit jacket. Because we already had Aidan's, he reported in it (as did all of the other missionaries we saw in the airport) and I'm actually glad. I think he looked sharp and I'm glad it would have kept him warm on the long plane trip.

I joined an AWESOME Facebook group of Honduras Tegucigalpa Mission moms and they were extremely helpful in deciding what specific things to buy and especially what things to send that weren't on the list in his mission call (like a mosquito net, shoe dryers, etc). It was (and continues to be) and invaluable resource!

Here are some pics of our shopping and packing adventures. Enjoy!

We did most of our main shopping at Missionary Mall. We did this for Ren and after I price matched after the fact, I found I could have gotten things for less. So, I haggled a bit at Missionary Mall this time and felt like we got the best price and you can't beat the convenience of getting it all at one place. Score.

Oh, my cute Aidan. I miss him so much.

Most of my last minute shopping happened online. But here is one of a few impromptu shopping trips to get some of the things we needed at the end.

The weekend before Aidan left, we spread all of his stuff all over the family room floor and sorted it to decide the best way to pack it. It looked like quite a disorganized mess (okay, let's be honest... it was a disorganized mess).

Within a day, though, I had ironed all of his shirts...

And packed most of the stuff in his suitcases...

And by the morning the day of his flight, it was all packed nicely in his suitcases, and they weren't even bulging....

We weighed them to make sure they were under the limit, but I wasn't sure how accurate our luggage scale was. When we got to the airport, they weighed them (and would have charged us if they were over 50 pounds each)...and.... drumrollll......

Phew!! We all laughed how close we came to the limit. (Technically, he was supposed to leave about 12 pounds in his luggage for training materials he'd get at the MTC, but I figured he could carry those in his carry-on when he travels for Honduras.)