Mother's Day call

(This is from Elder Crowther's mom):  We were able to Skype with Josh for an hour on Mother's Day.  He surprised us by calling his dad's phone and saying, "I'm going to be on Skype in one hour.  Be ready."  It was literally an 8-second conversation; David could scarcely believed it had happened.

Josh is still working hard, dealing with the challenges of being in a new ward and area and searching for investigators.  He said he struggles with declaring the gospel with boldness v. overbearance.  He described an encounter with a lady where they kept going back and forth until the woman finally said, "Okay, you're right, but don't talk to me about this anymore."  He's still learning 22 months into the mission. :)

We spent a lot of time talking about our visit to Korea to pick him up.  He definitely wants to spend our only Sunday there in Jeonju, the area he has been in since last October.  He also wants to take his dad to Pyongtaek to get new suits together.  He's looking forward to exploring Seoul, since he has only seen the airport, and we realized that when we fly in, it will actually be him coming to the airport to get us!  We told him we want balloons and banners saying, "Welcome family!"  

His sisters learned the Korean word for "older brother" which is oppa and kept calling him that.  He would laugh and shake his head.  As he watched the girls banter and interact, he looked at his dad and said, "How have you survived without me?"  David laughed and said, "I need you back, son."  Josh smiled, "Don't worry, Dad, I've got your back."

Over and over, he would look at us and smile and say, "My family....my family...."  He misses us, I think.  We miss him, too.  We prayed together, with him praying in Korean, and there were many tears throughout and after.  

We love our Josh.