When is the time ever right?

Hanna and I were married in June of 2012.  We felt so blessed to have found each other.  We loved being together.  Life was bliss.  We felt so blessed!

As a token of gratitude to God, who we felt had somehow managed to put us together, we pledged a life of service.  This wasn't hard to do as the one thing we love to do more than anything else is to serve together, side by side.  We both feel an intense satisfaction in serving and doing good together, whether it be within our church, in the business field, in the mission field, in scouting, or within our own family.

Since we first started courting, that pledge has lead us to send four of our children out into the mission field and support them in various ways while they served.  Florida, Ohio, Germany and Utah.  We talked often of our own plans to be able to serve a full-time mission and anticipated that day.  We finally set the goal that when Luigi, our youngest, left on his mission, we would leave also.

As that day approached last summer, we talked more of serving "our" mission.  But as is typical, fears and concerns took over.  We took a good look at our finances.  We felt we were in a position to retire if we needed to.  We would barely get by, but we could do it.  We looked at our firm, which is part of our retirement.  It wasn't quite where we felt it needed to be yet.  And Luigi, the baby of the combined family, wouldn't he need our help when he returned from his mission?  And our ward, certainly they would struggle with us leaving.  Who would teach seminary?  Who would be the Scoutmaster? And what about Hanna's aging mother who relied on us for help? 

We delayed our plans in an attempt to solidify things better.  We even talked about waiting five more years.

Last fall, things seemed to be going very well. Life was good. We both had lost weight, felt healthy, the firm was thriving, we had two children in the mission field.  And then within a matter of weeks it all fell apart.  Trials and tribulations are a part of life, but these few memorable weeks were over the top.  Our business's data fell victim to a Ransomware Virus, which means we had lost access to ALL of our client's tax data, many of their business records, and our own business records.  We no longer even had a list of who our clients were.  Tax returns in various stages of completion were piled up in our office helplessly waiting for the extended tax deadline with no software or data to finish them with.  Our insurance company, that was supposed to help in these situations, abandoned us.  There was a good chance we would be out of business within weeks.

A routine blood draw for a boy scout physical exam tested positive for cancer.  More testing and probing was needed.  I began to prepare for the worst.

My own dad, nearly at the same time, was found to have a cancerous tumor, needing invasive surgery.

Our former daughter-in-law curtly forbid us to ever see our grandchildren again.

And amidst all that, Luigi chose to come home early from his mission after serving only a few months.

We went into a "one day at a time" mode, trying to survive in bite-sized pieces the days as they went by, feeling like we were fighting just to breathe.  My only real solution to any of this was prayer and a blessing, which I begged for in tears and was given.  The main theme of the blessing, words that echoed through it several times, was "don't ever give up."

What followed a few weeks later was miraculous.  Within about a week, all of the problems and challenges took care of themselves.  Our data, which had been considered lost forever by the local IT experts, was restored overnight by an unknown company our Office Administrator found in Scotland.  More tests and prodding produced evidence that there was no cancer.  Dad's surgery was successful and he is doing well.

We found ourselves sitting in the Portland Temple wondering how this happened.  Just how were we quickly thrown into the depths of despair, and then, miraculously, rescued from it just as quickly? We were awestruck and overcome with gratitude.  We truly felt like someone was really watching over us.  As we sat there, the spirit whispered to me strongly that we MUST serve our mission now.  NOW was the time.  As I leaned over to whisper that to my bride, she turned and whispered to me "We need to serve our mission."  She had received the exact same impression that I had at the exact same time.

Immediately our concerns and fears and questions flowed to our minds.  Our business?  Our home?  Our finances?  Our church and scouting positions?  Hanna's mom?  Even, our cat?  One by one, the spirit told us what those answers and solutions were.  Several hours later, we left the temple, fully sure that we were urgently needed in the mission field, right now.  We knew exactly how the arrangements would look and how we would get by.

We called our Bishop as soon as we got home.

Deciding when to serve is a tough decision.  The longer we put it off, the better our finances would be.  Yet, the higher the chances of our health declining.  It's a crossing graph and very hard to predict when the health line and the finance line will intersect.

But the answer is clear for us.  The time to serve is right now.  If we keep putting it off waiting for that magical time when all affairs are in order, that day will never come.

So off we go.  Faith and listening to the spirit are key.  We are secure in the knowledge that we have been assured by God that everything will be fine.