Mission #1

We accepted our call and the assignment to serve in Hong Kong the night we received our call. I added a line about my concerns with my military background and being able to serve in Hong Kong. The next day, I got a call from the missionary department saying they read my acceptance note and had consulted with the Church's legal department. They wanted to know if I had ever had a military assignment in China. Since I had not, they had no concerns so neither did I. The week we got our call, I completed the visa applications to get into Hong Kong and sent them to the missionary department. The next week, Elder and Sister Davis reached out to us with an introductory call sharing that they would be training us in the MTC in July. They explained that different departments review missionary applications and have an opportunity to make recommendations when they feel prompted. They felt strong impressions to recommend that we be considered for an Area Welfare Specialist assignment. They also...

We received our mission call on 18 Jan 2022. We gathered our available family in our home to open our call. Bethany read the call as I quickly skimmed to the location. She paused reading with emotions and wanted me to read. I had already seen a glimpse that we were assigned to serve in Hong Kong, China. It was quite a shock as we had listed our preferences to serve in Portugal (temple, office, or MLS), Cincinnati, Ohio (office), Illinois (temple), Salt Lake City visitor's center (historic site), Australia (office), and New Zealand (self-reliance). Our report date was the 4th of July and our assignment was to serve as Area Welfare Specialists. What? We didn't choose any assignments in Asia and our four selected categories only had temple, office, MLS, and historic sites. Worldwide humanitarian wasn't one of our category choices. We quickly realized that God wanted us in Asia. It was so exciting to receive a call and assignment to where our oldest son had served about 10 year...

On 4 Dec 2021, I was working with Bishop Mills on some bishopric matters early in the morning. I texted him that we were also interested in serving in the Provo City Center Temple and that we were about a year out from being ready to embark on missions depending on how Abi's experience at college would be in 2022 as she became more independent. She was 18 years old and a month away from leaving the nest to attend BYU. Pondering that morning, I had an impression that we could be ready to serve our first senior mission as early as 1 Jul 2022 after our second granddaughter would be born in June. I shared this impression with Bethany and she said, "Okay!" It was conveniently time for our monthly fasting so we made the timing and length of mission service a matter of prayer and the main purpose of our fast that we could receive the revelation we needed. By 6:30 pm, that evening, we submitted our request online to Bishop Mills who opened our application so we could start medica...