Ready, Set, and GO!

Having joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as young marrieds in 1974, we have long looked forward to the day when we could serve a full-time mission, which would have to wait until we’d raised our family and were able to retire.  With a lot of careful planning and economizing, we made our last house payment and could see the time quickly approaching, as 2012 wound down.  In the early weeks of 2013, we began our application process online and soon completed all the necessary medical and dental exams and submitted our application, committing to a two-year mission and leaving the parameters wide open, as to what type of work we would do and where in the world we might go.

A few weeks later, in March, we received a large white envelope in the mail, from Salt Lake City.  We quickly arranged a big Google Chat session with all our kids too far away to be with us in person as we opened our letters (we each received our own).  This is what we read:

Dear Elder/Sister Shamrell,

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You are assigned to labor in the Philippines Urdaneta Mission.  Your primary assignment is to labor as a member and leader support missionary.  It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 23 months. You should report to the Provo Missionary Training Center on Monday, July 8, 2013.

Urdaneta

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So, now we knew!  The Philippines!  This news was really exciting, a little scary, and we knew that it was right and that we would go.

We also knew we had a lot to do to get ready to go, now that we had a destination and a date in mind.  We emailed with our mission president and his wife in Urdaneta, visited with friends who had lived in the Philippines before, and began to learn a little Tagalog.  We got our house ready to hand over to our son and his family, who would live there during our absence.  We visited with various dear local family members and friends we wouldn't see again for two years.  We sold both our vehicles.  We had a hundred little things to take care of and, with some help from son Scott, who finished up things we didn't finish, we took off for Salt Lake City on July 5.

We spent that weekend in the home of our daughter, Margie, and her family.  She hosted another gathering of dear friends who came to wish us well.  Then on Monday morning, Margie drove us to Provo, to the MTC. . . . where we will leave this blog entry.   : )