Entering the MTC

Our grandson, Matthew, spoke in Church today, prior to leaving for his mission to Arizona.  It was such a blessing to hear him speak before we leave.  He's a great young man and he taught some important principles to us today. He enters the MTC in November.

So.....do you know who the first person was to enter the MTC?  Actually, it was Moses, who took the Children of Israel to the "empty sea....”

Tomorrow we will enter the MTC to begin our own week of training, prior to leaving for Anaheim.  It will be our third experience there, and we know it will be challenging. The MTC will not be "empty."  We will be surrounded by hundreds of faithful and enthusiastic missionaries, all preparing to go and serve throughout the world.

Missionary training just keeps getting better. A lot of things have changed since our last mission. After receiving this mission call to Anaheim, we put our packet away for a few weeks and got busy with all the tasks we thought we should complete before we leave.  When we re-examined our call packet about a week ago, we panicked.  Many things have been added to pre-MTC training and we almost missed it! We had overlooked important instructions regarding new on-line missionary training. This was new to us. First, we were encouraged to create our own personal Mormon Profile and put it on-line.  (Any member of the Church can create a personal profile, whether you are a missionary or not).

The pre-MTC training also included numerous videos about proper use of mobile devices in missionary work, including safeguards for the use of technology.   There are six pre-mission "District" training videos that are very helpful in learning how to work with your companion and teach with the Spirit. There are courses on family history work, learning a language, adjustments to missionary life, and several study and teacher practice lessons. All missionaries, including senior couples, are asked to complete this training prior to entering the MTC.  We worked hard to finish it.  It was well worth the effort.  We now feel better prepared, and won't go the MTC empty.   

       -Don-

The Long Farewell

We spoke in our ward Sacrament Meeting this morning. Since this is our third mission, we figured all our friends and extended family have heard enough from us already, so we just invited our kids and grandkids (who have also heard enough from us already, but they're stuck with us). I wasn't prepared for the overwhelming feelings of love I would have for them, and for our ward members, as I sat on the stand waiting for my turn to speak. It was harder than I thought it would be. To say that we will miss our daughters, their husbands, our grandchildren, and our friends and neighbors is an understatement. Six months really isn't such a long time these days, but it will be a sacrifice to leave them all again. We are cherishing every moment with them right now.

There really is no such thing as a "farewell" anymore, but we were asked to speak about senior missions, in general, and all the opportunities that are available for couples who wish to serve - either at home or away - for 6 months, a year, 18 months, or 2 years. A lot has changed in the past few years for senior missionaries. There is more flexibility. You can request a specific length of time for your service, share how much you are able to contribute financially, and even request what type of service you'd like to do and where you would like to do it. There is such a need for senior missionaries throughout the world that every effort is made to honor requests. Of course, if you are needed more badly somewhere other than where you requested, you may be assigned somewhere that is a total surprise. (See our last blog, Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust.)

We talked about our motivation for leaving on a mission again: gratitude. Pure and simple gratitude. We are so grateful for the way the gospel of Jesus Christ has blessed us and our family that we want to share it with others. It's a small sacrifice on our part for all that we have received. To have been so blessed to come to know and love our Savior, Jesus Christ through the covenants we've made, the scriptures that we have access to, the words of modern prophets and the power of the Priesthood makes us want to help those who are ready to hear it and who need it to help them deal with the burdens, trials and temptations of our day.

Don talked about the brand-new Church website designed specifically to link senior missionaries with part-time and full-time service opportunities. There are at least 30 different types of missions that seniors can serve in locations both near and far. You can take a look at the website by searching lds.org/mss or just google Senior Missionary Opportunities. There are so many ways that senior couples can make a difference in the world!

Preparing to serve a mission is both exciting and unnerving (at least for me). Even when you feel strongly that the time is right, it's hard to push the send button on your application; it's hard to wait for your call to arrive; and it's hard to walk away from your life and into the MTC. It IS a sacrifice, after all, but I can say that we are nearly ready to go - and we are excited to serve!

So now we are in countdown mode. The long farewell has begun. We are saying good-bye to a lot of people and also a lot of last-minute activities this week:  dentist, doctors, haircuts, neighbors, Relief Society and Elders' Quorum presidencies, and most of all, children and grandchildren. The long farewell has begun.

    -Pat-

Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust

Here we go again! Nearly five years after returning from our last mission, we've decided we want to serve another mission. It was something we'd been considering (sort of off and on) since we returned home from England in January 2014, but somewhere during the middle of this summer, it just seemed to both of us that the time was right. We filled out and submitted our application in record time - maybe a week or ten days - and then started playing the waiting game which is probably THE hardest thing about going on a mission. Senior missionaries are allowed to submit 3 - 6 requests about where they would like to go and what type of mission they would like to serve. We definitely wanted to serve a temple mission this time and submitted a few requests to locations that have been near and dear to our hearts, knowing that the Church Missionary Department does try to accommodate senior missionaries because they need them so badly. Of course, we had promised our stake president that we would serve wherever needed and we did work hard to keep an open mind, but our hearts were really set on some of those temples that we love....

Boy, were we surprised when our call arrived!

Monday, August 6th, the big white envelope came in the mail just as we were loading our car for a family reunion in Park City, about an hour from our home. That night, with nearly all our kids and grandkids crammed into a rented condo, we opened the envelope.

"You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the California Anaheim Mission. Your primary assignment is to labor as a member and leader support missionary."

Our hearts skipped a beat. What? Our kids laughed and said, "Do they know this family?  They'll have a hard time keeping us from visiting you!" (We've since learned that our one bedroom apartment just 5 minutes from Disneyland won't be big enough for them to visit.) We grinned and reminded ourselves of the verse we learned in the MTC before leaving on our first mission:  Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape!

And from that moment on, we began to think of all the reasons why this might be the perfect call for us. I guess we probably won't really know until we have served for awhile or even until we are home again, but these are some of the reasons we've come up with so far:

1-We'll be leaving several months earlier than we expected, which means we'll be home several months before we expected, too. That's bringing it's own set of tender mercies already.

2-We'll be home just after Emily's baby is born. :))  On the day we opened our mission call, Josh and Emily announced that they will be having a second baby!

3-We'll be snowbirds this year, which means no snow for us! That wasn't what we planned, but we like it!

4-Having lived in Southern California, we're really familiar with the freeways and how to get around. After spending 2 years driving on the left side of the road last time, freeways sound easy!

5-We can take our own car packed full of lots of stuff. Two suitcases of clothes on a foreign mission can get really old.

6-We don't have to open new phone and bank accounts this time.

7-With only a one hour time difference, we won't be on Skype with our family in the middle of the night.

8-There'll be a Fosters' Freeze somewhere nearby. (You probably have to have grown up in California to get that one.)

9-We know and love many things about Southern California already and now we will have the opportunity to know and love some of it's people.

10-Any opportunity to serve and to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, regardless of the location, is a privilege.

On the night we opened our call, our awesome 21-year-old grandson, Noah, said, "Grandma, you're going to need faith, trust, and pixie dust!"  I think he summed it up perfectly.
                                                                                                                                    - Pat -