Called to Serve...

On Sept. 28, 2017 we received our mission call to serve in the Illinois Nauvoo Mission, leaving on April 2, 2018.  All three of our kids were up in Logan attending Utah State so we just did a group Skype as we opened our call.

How it all came about…

Scott and I have always planned on serving a mission.  We would talk about it now and then as our kids were growing up.  Our thought was to go after all of our kids were home from their missions.  It always seemed so far into the future.  But still we prepared bit by bit. 

When Pres. Thomas S. Monson announced that sister missionaries could begin serving at the age of 19, our family was immediately affected.  Cami decided she wanted to serve which fast-forwarded our own mission timeline. Cami left to serve in the Argentina Posadas Mission in August of 2013, Matthew left for the El Salvador Santa Ana Mission in July of 2014 and Zachary went to the California Irvine Mission in August of 2015.

One day in March of 2017 I mentioned to Scott that the time was close at hand for us to decide if and when we would serve.  Zachary would be home from his mission in August which meant we could go after that.  We talked to the bishop and he began the application process.

When people found out that we were planning on submitting our mission they would ask where we wanted to serve.  After saying we would like to go to Nauvoo, most would ask us if we knew someone who was there or had some connection because there were so many senior couples who request Nauvoo.  If not, they felt like our chances of actually going to Nauvoo were slim to none.  It became a little discouraging.  However, we both felt strongly that Nauvoo was the place we would serve, even though we had no personal connection with anyone there.

We began working on our mission papers in July.  It didn’t take long to get them filled out.  Our goal was to have everything ready to go by the middle of August because the senior missionary website said they began accepting applications for Nauvoo on August first. 

One Sunday morning Scott was reading the senior missionary website and discovered that the church had changed the date for missionary applications for Nauvoo from August first to September first.  That worked out just fine for us. 

On Sunday, August 10th we had our interview with Bishop Bill Hind at 7:00 then met with Pres. Ryan Davis at 7:45.  We told him that we actually couldn’t submit our papers until September.  He said he’d do his part and have everything ready to go on September 1^st.

After anxiously waiting for four weeks we finally received our call on Thursday, Sept. 28th. We Skyped with our kids in Logan.  When we opened the envelope Scott jumped the gun and didn't wait to read the letter together. He jumped right to the sentence that said where we were assigned. We were pleasantly surprised to read that we were heading to the Illinois Nauvoo Mission, leaving on April 2, 2018.