We Hoped They'd Call us on a Mission!

 Jeff and I have been talking about going on a mission for our church since we got married really. We have just known that was something we wanted to do. The past couple of years we have become restless and unsure of where we needed to settle down. We looked for houses closer to children, talked about building a house in Blanding, and missed Hawaii every day. 

Then this year, we realized that we might be feeling aimless because now was the time. We realized this, on or around October of 2022. I have been teaching for a total of 14 years. It wasn't until we moved to Blanding that I felt I had finally achieved my dream job. I have been teaching 8th-grade Language Arts and loving it for the last 5 years. The students, the staff, and my content area. I joked that they would have to wheel me out because I was never leaving. I knew leaving my job was going to be too hard. Never say never.

 Shortly after we decided it was time to put our papers in,  we both got cold feet and decided we would just wait another year. Jeff's mom, sweet Verdy B wasn't doing that great. We went to see her for Christmas and spent some very sweet time with her singing songs and holding her hand. It was clear to us then, to our surprise, that might be the last time we would see her in this life. We couldn't feel right about leaving on a mission right away and decided we would wait until she passed. Well, she did. She joined Calvin her sweetheart, their daughter Freeda and many other family members and friends on the other side of the veil on January on the 22nd. Though our hearts are broken she has moved on, we are grateful she is no longer in pain. We envision her dancing her days away with Calvin and carrying on the messages of Christ that she lived and loved so well.

We spent three bliss-filled days with EVERY member of our family. All our children and grandchildren during the funeral. I loved every second as we all came together to celebrate a woman who really set the example for what Jeff and I wanted our family to be. Whole. One. A unit, not steps, and biologicals. Adopted and Not. We just wanted to love each member of our family with unconditional love as she had all of us. We both woke up one morning and looked at each other and said, "Now what?"

 If you know us very well, you know we suck at decisions. We flip-flop to both our chagrin, but we do it anyway. After much contemplation, Jeff said to me one morning, "Okay. Here is what we are going to do. We are going to put our papers in and we are going to put Phoenix, Arizona as the only place we want to serve. I have been helping to run the scanning center. They people in Salt Lake want me to keep working with them.  There are missions for just scanning and three of them just opened up in the Phoenix Area."

 Prior to this, we had discussed going to Korea because that is where he served when he was young. I have always wanted to go to Japan so we kicked it around too. Then, Jeff started feeling England, and I thought why not Hawaii. We both struggle to travel and the world just seems so crazy, that his Arizona plan felt RIGHT! We were thinking all the time about possibly moving there anyway. So, yeah, I'm in. We made the necessary appointments, did all the things, had our interviews and our papers were in! Now all we had to do was wait. 

Waiting is haarrrddd. For real! I have so much more empathy for those young adults who are waiting to find out where they are going. We tried not to focus too much on it, but it was always near in our thoughts. We had been asked multiple times during the process, "If you don't get Arizona do you still want to go." To which we of course answered yes! As we waited we realized that there was a very real possibility that our plan was not the Lord's. I kept thinking there is no way we are gonna get to go to Arizona. That isn't a sacrifice! Our children are there and we will just really be content and busy with the work and with them. 

Just when we started to feel like it was going to be a full month before we heard, a text message came through to both our phones that stated, "Your mission call is ready to be viewed."

I happened to be in Price, Utah with a group of students for a quiz bowl tournament. Only days before, we had promised each other we wouldn't open it without the other one. As soon as the text came through on my phone, I called Jeff. No sooner had he answered than I asked, "Did you..." He responded resoundingly, "YUP!" I asked him what we were going to do because I wouldn't be home until 6:30 or 7:00 p.m.! To which he responded, "I don't know." I told him there was no way we could wait, but the quiz meet was starting and I would have to call him on our break. 

The break painstakingly came and I called him. I had decided we needed to open it and we could record our reactions via our phones.  Waiting until 7 p.m. just wasn't going to happen. No matter our promise we would both end up opening it without the other. I didn't want that. As we get on the call, Jeff informs me that he has been on the mission website and the jobs in Arizona are still posted. 

I will include a video of the call as soon as I can. For now, I will just leave this photo of a map. The map is the area in which we will be serving the Lord for the next 23 months starting July 17th. Jeff made a call to the people in Salt Lake and they said that we will mostly serve in Springfield, Missouri at a library where their scanner is housed.

The moral of this story is, even when it's right you might be wrong. No worries. The Lord lights the way.