Happy 20th Birthday!!!

It was transfer day on Derrek's birthday and wanted to make sure he had a good day.  There is a Sister that lives about 2 hours away from Columbus (she is now in the Cincinnati mission) and has been, upon request, helping moms in the Columbus, Ohio mission by delivering a cake, balloons, and a treat bag.  I am a part of the Missionary Moms Facebook Group and they had mentioned that if you wanted to do this for your son/daughter, to contact her.  I really wanted to do this for Derrek, but at the same time hated asking someone to do it, especially since I didn't even know her.  But, I realized that she offered because she wanted to do this and I thought it would really be great.  I would want some mom to contact me and do this for her son if I was on the other side of things.  So, I contacted Tina.  She has this down!  She started asking me about Derrek (favorite color, cake flavor, silly toys, candy, etc).  She was going to Columbus for transfers to do a couple other birthday surprises for other missionaries and she said that Hilliard is on her way home, so if Derrek wasn't at transfers, she could still get it to him.  She told me that she did see him at transfers, but didn't realize it was him because I had told her he was staying in Hilliard and she didn't expect to be looking for him at the mission home.  But, she was able to contact him, thanks to Mike Wihl who gave me his cell number so that I could give it to Tina to get in touch with Derrek.  Here are pictures of that occasion!

 So, I guess the moral of the story is, you have gifts and talents that can be used to brighten someone's day...start small and then over time, like Tina, we can be doing it for the whole mission :).  Tina said that her son served in the Oklahoma City Mission and there were moms there that did it for her son and that always stuck with her.  This will definitely stick with me and when I have a chance, I would like to do it for our missionaries, too, passing on what someone did for me :).  Thank you, Tina!!!