Another Adventure Begins: California San Jose Mission

TUESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2017

I turned 72 today. Sunday morning at 9:30 we met with our stake president, James Blair, (Oak Hills Stake, Provo, Utah) and completed the last leg of our application for another mission. Since returning home from our 18-month mission to Frankfurt, Germany in July of 2016, Elaine and I have become increasingly moved to do something more with our lives than just be here at home. As we look ahead, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting increasingly brighter, and we have talked frequently about what we want to accomplish in the next ten years. We just do not know what the future holds. In ten years, we will be both be in our 80’s, and that may be all the time we have left together; maybe not even that. When we were young, we had our entire lives before us, and we just lived life as it came. But now, as we find our time in mortality constrained by age, we want to ensure that we make every minute count.

       It took me a few months to recover from the rigorous 18-months of doing mental health counseling for ten missions throughout Europe. During this recovery time, we talked often about down-sizing and moving into a smaller, no-yard-maintenance home. We scoured Utah county and beyond for places, and never found anything that really attracted us. We were drawn to the Sunriver +55 community in Saint George for its good weather and many amenities, but could never feel that the life-style was right for us. And so, for the next 18-months, we spent our time involved with family and improving our home. We put on a new roof, expanded the garden plot and raised vegetables, improved the lawns and flower gardens, built a large deck in the backyard (with my son-inlaw’s help), replaced carpet and kitchen appliances. I got involved again with painting and woodcarving. Our son, Ken, commissioned me to do a painting of the Rock Islands in Palau as a Christmas gift for his wife, Teruko, who comes from Palau. It was a fun challenge, and the painting turned out very nice. I did other paintings of bears and mountain landscapes. I purchased a ban saw and did a wood sculpture of a grizzly bear to go with the buffalo I had done earlier. I made silhouettes of bears, buffalo, and elk, and wheeled bear and buffalo toys for Christmas gifts. Elaine and I both served in the primary of our 4^th ward: she played the piano and I helped teach the 11-year olds. We also enjoyed being back close to our son, Blake, who is still in prison. We enjoy visiting him frequently and being close enough that he feels our love and support.

       Yet, in all this activity, looming in the back of our minds was an uneasiness, a restlessness, that we should serve the Lord on another mission. We have always felt that we were blessed with early retirement and the financial means to serve the Lord. I have particularly felt that my patriarchal blessing dictates that I am to spend my time spreading truth abroad and at home. Yet, we vacillated on making this decision, sometimes feeling that we should go, and other times feeling that we weren’t ready yet. At times, we were tempted to feel justified in relaxing and having fun together. After all, we have spent much of our married lives in the mission field throughout the world, representing the Savior, and serving in the church.

Then, in March of 2017, we took a trip to San Diego, just to get away from the cold and into more pleasant weather. While there, I hurt my rotator cuff on my left shoulder, separating the tendon completely from the bone. Although painful, I endured it until July when Dr. Scott Jackson (a former mission president in Madrid, Spain for whom I served as mental health advisor) performed surgery. We were told it would take up to 12 months to fully heal, so, we just accepted that the next year would be recovery time. I received a blessing from Gerald Bradshaw (my sister, Marilyn’s husband) and Walter Whipple (home teacher) the night before surgery, and I made a secret promise to Heavenly Father that if my shoulder could heal quickly and fully, that we would serve another full-time mission. After much physical therapy, my shoulder has healed enough that the doctor says it is “fully healed,” although it needs a lot of strengthening. I consider 4 months rapid healing, and I felt obliged to honor my promise to the Lord to serve another mission.

We explored various mission opportunities on the church’s website and felt drawn mostly to military relations. I had strong impressions that Elaine and I could do much good among LDS military young adults and families because we have gone through everything that they are going through, even having a spouse go off to war and come home wounded. We know the vicissitudes of military life. We met with friends who had served military relations missions, and came away more uncertain that this was for us. I wanted to just throw our names in the hat and go wherever we were asked, but Elaine was a bit fearful of that, although I’m sure she would have done whatever. We remained somewhat dubious about a mission, and decided that we would give ourselves more months to work on the shoulder. We decided that we would focus on attending the temple every week, do family history work, care for our children and grandchildren, and provide service in the neighborhood. In our daily prayers, we continued to petition the Lord to bless us with guidance as to how we should spend our days.

Then, came a remarkable answer to prayer. I was sitting in the foyer of the Provo Temple after a session, waiting for Elaine to come out of the dressing room, when a senior missionary man came into the foyer and I felt immediately drawn to him. Our eyes met, and I felt like I should say something to him, but only waved as he went past. He seemed like he wanted to talk with me, too, but he walked on past, but then returned and introduced himself. I did not know this man, but he said to me, “How soon are you going to serve a mission?” This surprised me, and I told him of our two previous missions and that I was waiting for my shoulder to heal before going again. He said, “When I saw your face, I felt that the Lord needs you in the mission field. You are someone who can do much good for the work.”

This astonished me, that the Lord would use this man to send a clear, unequivocal answer to my question about serving another mission, and I took it as a direct answer to prayer. I told Elaine about the incident, and we decided right then and there that we needed to act. After that, we have had no questions in our mind that another mission is the thing that would please the Lord. We immediately began our mission application. I received a written endorsement from Dr Jackson regarding my shoulder, we finished our dental and physical evaluation, and submitted it to Aaron Jackson (ward bishop). The rest is history. We are now waiting to receive our mission call and assignment. I turn 72 years-old today!!

Some of you may wonder why we feel so driven to always be going off somewhere on a mission, when we have six children and 23 grandchildren, and 2 great grandchildren close by. Why don’t we enjoy our family and spend our time being grandparents? Why, at our age, not be satisfied with serving in the ward or stake and staying at home? I can only answer this way: there is important work to do right here at home in the ward and stake. We are so grateful to and admire those who perform this vital work. But the Lord also needs senior missionaries in the field to bless the lives of those who yet sit in darkness. He has called through his prophet for those who can to pick up their sickles and come into the field, which is still white and ready to harvest. This call draws us to leave our families and comforts of home and go into the field. Our children have work to do to raise their children and prepare them for righteous service. We want our grandsons and granddaughters to serve the Lord, and we want to lead from the front until we are too old to go out. Mostly, we want to respond to the Lord’s call for workers. We love him and we love his work.

22 DECEMBER 2017

Today we received our call to serve another full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A great Christmas present! This is our third mission together as husband and wife, and my fourth mission. My first mission at age 19 was to Berlin, Germany (Nov 1964-Mar 1967). Our first mission as a married couple was a mental health mission at BYU-Hawaii on Oahu (2007-09). Our second was as mental health advisors to the Europe Area in Frankfurt, Germany (2015-2016). This call is military relations in the California San Jose Mission at Monterey. We will be serving LDS military personnel and families stationed at Monterey and working to establish positive relations with military chaplains and commanders. It is 12 months in length and we enter the Missionary Training Center (MTC) at Provo, Utah on Monday, 5 February 2018.