UP, UP & AWAY...

Sister Cornwall is in transit to "the field".

The below photo was e-mailed to us (Mom & Dad Cornwall) by a very thoughtful person who is employed at the Salt Lake Airport. His practice is to take photos of outgoing missionaries, gather e-mails and send out the pictures. This photo is the female contingent of the 26 missionaries going to Brazil today. Of the 26 only Rachel and her two MTC companions are going to their assigned missions. The rest will stay in the Sao Paulo MTC.
During Sister Cornwall's layover in Detroit she was able to call, only one call, and only to her parents. For over an hour we got to listen to this wonderful, bubbly missionary and hear of her gratitude for the learning opportunities she has had in the last 8 weeks and her excitement to get out of "theory" and into "practice". First we talked about her luggage and the fact that her large piece came in right at 49 pounds. Yeah! She reportedly is traveling lighter than most all the other missionaries and thinks that this is perfect. The airport - the outside world - was an interesting experience, she thought No!, No! No! to the news of and from the "real" world. She has enjoyed not worrying about regular life. Her focus these past several weeks has particularly helped her learn how easy it is to talk about the gospel and how natural it is to recommend it's blessings to others in their day to day lives. She said how disappointed she was to sit by a 'member' on the flight to Detroit.

Last evening Elder Richard Hinckley, who is over the missionary dept. spoke to them and counseled the missionaries to be the best you that you can be. Sister Cornwall humbly expressed how thankful she is that the language has not been a challenge and how excited she is to be immersed to really learn more and better. She talked about her feelings of how short a mission is and how grateful she is to have made this decision and the monumental growth she has had, which would have taken her "10 years" in any other walk of life. She talked of companionship life and how helpful that is to personal growth.

We talked of how anxious we all are of what will happen in the next 48 hours - after a 10 1/2 hour flight to Sao Paulo, then a 5 hour layover and a 3 hour flight to Salvador. She will meet her Mission President and his wife, then be greeted by her companion (whom she will be with 24/7 for the next 6 or 12 or 18 or... weeks) and travel to her area and abode and where she will sleep and study and pray every day.

Sister Cornwall expressed she has no regrets for her Provo MTC experience and shared how good she feels about the path she has taken and her excitement to be going far away and to be a missionary.

Dad C.

p.s. Sister Cornwall mentioned about how much she loves her shoes and the compliments she continues to get about them.