Deciding to Serve a Mission

 This past year, my husband and I decided together to serve a senior mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many decisions had to be made. Are we ready to go? When should we go? How long would we serve? What kind of assignment would we want? And where in the world would we go?

The church website asks many questions to help us decide. Do we want to speak a foreign language? Do we want to serve in the USA or overseas? What skills or talents do you have? Can we adapt to foreign cultures and food? Do we need to be close to medical facilities?

I logged onto the church website (ChurchofJesusChrist .org) and searched “senior missionary opportunities”. I saw current needs in Papua New Guinea, Africa, India, Madagascar, New Zealand, Romania, Indonesia, and other exotic and tropical locations. Together, we decided not to make a location selection, but instead write “send us anywhere you need us” on our application.

Of course, we would accept any assignment but our preference was to serve in a foreign country. We also decided to request an assignment doing humanitarian service which involves helping those in need.

The application process included health and dental exams and making sure our immunizations were up to date. Our next step was to meet with our bishop and advise him of our desire to serve a mission. We also had a face-to-face meeting with our local church stake president. Next our application was submitted to church headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the twelve apostles reviews our application and makes an assignment usually within a couple of weeks.

An assignment was made and we received an email with our official call to serve a mission. It was opened with family and friends on Tuesday, August 30, 2022. The time frame was about six months from when we decided to serve a mission to receiving our call to serve.

There is much anticipation to receiving a call, as it will determine where we will spend the next eighteen months of our lives. But we trust the Lord is with us in these efforts to serve others anywhere in the world. We opened and read the “call letter” aloud to discover the joyous news, we’re going to the Baltic Mission starting January 2, 2023. We both had to look it up on the map as we were not familiar with the location. We learned it included the countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. This is considered the Europe North Area which borders Russia, Belarus, and Poland.