February 4, 2021
Here we go! Our first mission (adventure) blog post. We’ll try our best not to be wordy but it’s a challenge. I’ll set the stage…
25+ years ago, two single parents met one evening for the first time in the Washington DC temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sparing the details, we’d both subscribed to a video dating service (that’s how they did it back then) but had never met. Such a “strange” coincidence (more of these to come) to run into each other there — both followed a “feeling” to go to the temple that night. The software engineer who served a mission in France/Switzerland meets the social worker who’d lived in France and also in Taiwan. The dream of a French-speaking mission was created in our hearts from that moment on. Dream born.
A marriage a few months later, and 25+ years of “Brady Bunch” adventures (and a wee bit of drama, we must confess), brought us to 2020. So excited get our last child off to college, to put our affairs in order, and to put in our senior couple mission papers. That’s where the fun began.
It’s probably not helpful to linger on all of the ups and downs that have happened. Suffice it to say that this past year was a time full of surprises for everyone. Both of us knew that we needed to be out serving.
,into some of the ups and downs, we want to openly thank our Heavenly Father for all of the blessings we have received during this time. It was a very surreal mix of promptings, blessings, tender mercies pushing us forward — at the very same time roadblock after roadblock put in our way. The positive push forward: our house sale was a relative breeze and a blessing, with numerous promptings to do different things, just helping us feel “it’s ok, it’s gonna be okay”. However, the progress was a little weird. It felt like it was only moving forward ONE PIECE AT A TIME. Not more than that.
The push backs made it “roller-coastery” — a good would come, often followed by a bad, and sometimes an ugly. The “thanks but no thanks to your serving” in the early days of 2020 was particularly “heart/dream brutal.” It sometimes made us feel like we were “serial killers” for wanting to sacrifice time and money to serve other people! This was only our heart’s reaction of course. There was, after all, a raging pandemic in the world. We were not the only “victims” of that, and of course it was not personal. But a heart that yearns can be bruised so easily.
Our hearts longed to go overseas – France and Taiwan being the obvious choices. We did feel good about going some place on our own and just serve. (See D&C 56:26 “For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things”) However, France continues to be completely locked down, and Taiwan apparently was not to be. However, as we awaited our formal call, my heart considered if we HAD to stay in the states where we would long to go. My heart got its wish, and on October 20, 2020, we opened our mission call to New York City, New York mission with our family and friends on the zoom call. So much to be grateful for!
October through January was a mixture of getting a house, readying it to rent, moving from an airbnb in Mesa (lovely one bedroom-Bob and I never had that simple life so it was kinda fun!), helping girls get an apartment, closing down my practice (heart-wrenching), etc.
The next snag came November 30th, when we received an email, postponing our departure date. Sigh… truthfully we were wearying at this point, but had already felt determined — “we are DEFINITELY going SOMEWHERE!” In council with our stake president, we proceeded with the plan to go come what may, utilize the idea of serving locally from New York, and made plans to go about the time our original call date was — February 1st.
So on January 25th, with our car loaded to the brim (thank goodness for Bob’s packing expertise), we headed for the Big Apple. Exhausted but honoring our hearts’ desire to serve together and “go and do”, we actually, with the Lord’s guidance and help, are writing this blog post, sitting in a hotel room in Dobbs Ferry, New York. These two hearts are pretty excited about the next couple of years of service, the closeness and adventures to be had. We are so grateful to be granted our hearts’ 25 year wish to serve Him, and His children. We pray He will bless our efforts, inspire our hearts and minds, and give us the strength to do His will.