I Hope They Call Me On A Mission....Paper work and Appointments....Oh My!

It's been almost a year now since my son graduated from school.  I guess we thought he would already be on his mission.  What we did not realize was all the paper work and appointments that you have to go through to just apply to go on a Mission.  I'm not even sure that is correct "apply to go on a mission."  My son did all his applications to college on his own.  I never saw anything that he sent in.  He was accepted to all the colleges that he applied to so he must have done well.  But to me it seems the process to go on a mission was ten times harder than the application to go to college.
I would advise if you want to leave soon after you graduate from high school to start the process while in high school. I didn't realize there would be so many forms to fill out.  Not only are there forms to fill out there are doctor appointments, and dentist appointments.  Appointments with Bishops and Stake presidents and more papers to fill out.  The process for my son seemed to take months, I think maybe he dragged his feet a little on it all.  We started the process in May of  2016 and the final paper work was not mailed out till November of 2016.  My son chose to deffer college until after his mission so all those months of paper work and appointments were also filled with his working a full time job that helped him save money to pay for the mission.  I was glad for those months as I drove him to work every morning and just got to watch him grow and change.
     The appointments to the doctors were to make sure he was healthy and able to serve any type of mission.  We also made sure he was up to date on all his vaccinations.  The dentist appointments were the same were his teeth healthy, were there any problems.  We had all of his wisdom teeth taken out.  I can see why they would want this done, having an infected wisdom tooth is not fun.  That happened to me when I first moved away from home and was living in New Jersey.    At this stage of the mission process you are not really thinking that you are preparing your child to leave you.  I don't think they are really thinking of that departure either.
G.G.