A Missionary's Tale : There and Back Again. By Bilbo Fisher

August 7th
The day had finally come . Brandon departs for his two year London England South Mission. We had an early morning and arrived at the Calgary airport at 9:00am, said our last goodbyes and he was in the air by 11:00am. Although he was reluctant to give hugs and kisses goodbye, as Brandon always is, we will miss him very much and we know he will miss us.

We are so proud of our missionary! Although two years is a very long time to be away, we know this is the place where he needs to be. We are excited to see Brandon transform into a great missionary and excited to share his experiences with you!

August 8th

He arrived at Chicago and made it through into England easily. "Chicago wasn't too hard.", he said. He says he didn't sleep at all on this 7 hour flight, yet he does not feel jet lag. The only problem is he forgot his razor at home.

August 14th

We received an email from Brandon containing information about his companions and details of MTC and Temple Square:

"I already have a companion here in the mtc named Elder Hart. He's awesome, slightly shy. It's his birthday tomorrow and we're buying him cake today. It's p-day today so I may be able to pick up a razor for myself. I've been using my room mates electric razor so far. I have 4 room mates and they're all wonderful. There is someone in my district from Cardston. He's awesome to. I don't think we've known each other before. Apparently my Canadian accent is thicker than his. I didn't know I had an accent but everyone says it's noticable. The mtc is really nice. The food is good, there are lots of plants and a really lovely pond. Everything is green and clean. We went in the temple today. Good temple. The temple square is almost perfectly kept. All the bushes and even trees are trimmed in perfect rectangular shapes, the grass is cut ridiculously short and the lawns or gardens are perfectly flat. It looks fake like golf grass. We did meet some apostles, President Ballard, Elder Holland and Elder Nelson. So far its been a good experience. I feel like I'm already learning. I haven't seen much culture yet because we are pretty much isolated at the mtc and most of the elders and sisters here are American. But maybe I'll see some things today for p-day. I'll be sure to take pictures."

August 22nd

As Brandon promised, we received a few pictures in the next email. We received the the group photo in front of the MTC sign.

He also sent a picture of the Preston Temple.

This is the last picture he send that he took on top of a Double Decker bus. He didn't have time to write much this day but this is the little bit he did have to say:
"All the buildings here are really cool looking. My new companion is from Raymond. My new area is South Croydon Surrey."