WE'RE GONNA BE MISSIONARIES!!!!! Receiving the call.

At this point in our lives, getting the mail is a routine chore, not an exciting event.  Unless it is Christmas time and there is a good chance that the green mail box will be full of Greeting cards from long lost friends and family members, it really is just full of bills, annoying advertisements, and more bills.  So, our usual routine involves getting the mail once a week, on Monday morning, taking the pile of goods to work and there throwing out the numerous ads and paying the few bills we still get.

But that all changed the day we expected we could have a chance of receiving our mission call. Suddenly we were hurrying home JUST to get the mail.

With many hours of research on line where I found countless stories, mostly guesses, as to how the missionary call system works, along with a blog or two from people who claimed to have actually worked in the missionary department, plus lengthy discussions with the Full-time Elders, all four of them who served in our ward, we put together our best case assumption of how the process of processing a mission call takes place.

It appears that the application goes through a series of inspections by various departments or persons who review it for completeness, medical issues, and other special issues.  Once those are dealt with, and approval is given, it is then placed into the pipeline and in a first-come, first-served order and one-by-one, an apostle pulls them and assigns them to a mission.  This assignment usually happens on a Friday, but not always.  And then the magical missionary department somehow assembles the 1200 – 1500 weekly calls and prepares them for mailing.  Most of the time, the calls are mailed on a Tuesday, but not always.

And we figured out that when the Bishop and Stake President version of the missionary portal changes from “in process” to “assigned”, the call should be in the mail.

At the same time, our version of the portal changes from “thank you for submitting your application to your Priesthood Leader, you will hear from him soon” to “please enter your PIN”.

So daily for about two weeks, I signed on to the portal every morning (some days in the evening too, and well, during lunch as well) to see if it was asking for a PIN.

Imagine the scene on Tuesday morning, February 13^th, when the page of the portal changed and said, “Enter your PIN here”!  I literally squealed and showed it to Hanna.  We had been assigned!  The call itself was likely being mailed THAT VERY DAY!!  Our mission was becoming a reality.  Finally.

And thus started the routine of checking the mail daily.  At least.

My research on the US Postal Service’s web site indicated that a letter mailed in Salt Lake City would arrive in Spokane in up to fifteen days.  Now THAT was incredibly helpful!!

We put together a mental chart of when others had received their calls.  It was scattered through nearly every day of the week from Thursday clear to Monday.

We decided it may come on Thursday but tried not to get our hopes up. Regardless, we hurried home to check, and, no not Thursday.

I then proclaimed there was an 80% chance that it would come on Friday.  We made a special trip home to get the mail on Friday before going out to dinner.  Not there.

Certainly, it would come on Saturday!  This would be awesome timing as we could then take it to church the next day and show it to my scouts.  But no, it did not come on Saturday.  And this was horrible as Monday was a holiday and there would be no mail.  We would have to wait until Tuesday, which in our feeble studies, was unreal.  We knew of NO ONE who had received their call on a Tuesday.

To not jinx it, we did not get the mail on Tuesday until later in the evening after returning home from a busy day of late work, dinner and errands.  And THERE IT WAS!  And to make it more special, it was my birthday.  We received our call on my birthday!  Best birthday present EVER!

Over the previous several weeks, we had many friends and family ask if they were going to be invited to our mission call opening party.  While this is a great tradition, especially among the youth, we didn’t feel good about having such a public display made of the tender moment of opening our call.  We felt it was an intimate time, a time to be alone as a couple.  And so it was.

I had already opened a mission call 38 years earlier almost to the day.  So I felt it best to let Hanna open the call and read it out loud.  We would first pray together.

After all that applying, being poked by medical professionals, interviewing, praying and waiting, we were so relieved that the call was here finally, that we were going to be missionaries, that it felt surreal.  We just sat and stared at the envelope for a long time, grateful that we were indeed, going to be missionaries.

Finally, we prayed.  A prayer of gratitude.  A prayer that we would have faith in the inspiration that dictated where and how we would serve.  A prayer that we would serve hard and well.

And then the call was opened.  Hanna read it slowly, fighting back tears.  A call to the California Santa Rosa Mission as Member and Leadership Services Missionaries.  But then the powerful sentences of the letter kicked in and we were both touched. 

“……the Lord will bless you with increased knowledge and testimony of the Restoration and of the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“As you serve with all your heart, might, and strength, the Lord will lead you to those who are prepared…..”

“The Lord will reward you for the goodness of your life.  Greater blessings and more happiness than you have yet experienced await you as you humbly and prayerfully serve the Lord in this labor of love among His children.”

A powerfully spiritual and intimate experience took place in those moments, driving us even closer to each other as a couple, and even closer to our Savior as our Lord.