Elder Stewart-Longhurst Mission to Santa Rosa, CA

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 war...

I've had several friends ask if the church called us in and told us we needed to go on a mission.  No, that is not how it happened.  It doesn't work that way.  The Holy Spirit of God was the one that called us.  While we sat in that cool upper balcony in the Celestial room in the Portland temple.  The spirit clearly told both Hanna and me that we were to serve and that we were to serve right now. The first step in the official process is to tell our Bishop what had happened.  We did that within days of arriving home from Portland.  Our largest fear of this meeting with our Bishop is that he would tell us that our experience in the temple was not real and that the Lord really wanted us to continue to serve locally with the youth in our congregation.  They need a good Scoutmaster.  They need a good Seminary Teacher.  We expressed that fear to our wonderful Bishop right up front after we broke the news to him.  He just smiled and...

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 w...

At the age of 19, I was very unsure of myself and what my future held.  But, being a dutiful son and member of my church, I chose to serve a two-year full-time mission.  On March 1st, 1980, I was called to serve in the Chile Concepcion mission. A full-time mission was a new start for me.  My first new companions and roommates in the Missionary Training Center knew nothing about me, other than like them, I had a desire to serve the Lord.  I cherished that new start and set out to make the best of it. At first, I was a bit timid and unsure of myself.  I was secluded away from all the glory one receives when you are called to the work and it was now time to shut up and put up.  I questioned my beliefs and the motivation for my decision to serve.  I prayed earnestly with an intent to know for myself what I should do and believe.  A strong spiritual manifestation soon came and I then dug in with all my might. I soon became the overachiever. ...