Called To Serve Him... All the things we had to do to send my son on his mission...

Once my son received his mission call there was a lot of work to do.  Thankfully we had about 5 months to do everything.

This is a photo of the front cover of the book that is sent to the future Missionary.  Inside are all the instructions on what needs to be done to be ready to leave on your mission. I left the reading of the book to my son and husband. I wanted my son to be responsible for the preparations that needed to be done.  I did enjoy taking him places and helping him, but he was in charge of knowing what needed to be done and organizing it.
 The fist thing we had to do was get him a passport.  Which should have been easy, but because he never liked driving and did not take his driving test it was a bit of a problem.  You have to have a non temporary form of identification to get a passport, so his learners permit was not accepted.  So we had to go to the DMV and have him take the driving test and get his license before he could apply for his passport.  Thankfully it all worked out.  Once he had his passport he then had to get a travel visa.  These two items caused us a bit of stress, but of course it all worked out.

When you travel to certain countries you sometimes have to get special immunizations.  My son had to get immunizations for Typhoid.  You can't go to your doctor for this, you have to go to the state health department.  They gave him this box of pills which he had to take every other day for a week.

Missionaries are only allowed to wear certain types of clothing.  So there was a lot of clothing that we had to buy.

 My husband is not enthused about my wanting to take photos at the clothing store.  I think I annoyed everyone during the last few months with my wanting one more photo...

My son's favorite color is purple, so he got all purple ties for his mission.  While he is away I carry a purple pen in my work uniform so that I can think of him.

My husband is glad to see Skinny Ties are back in style...  It was fun and expensive to buy all the clothes my son needed.  We also had to buy suitcases to pack everything in...

The last few weeks before my son left I kept asking, do you need to pack suntan lotion, allergy medicine??  He kept saying I don't think so...Then finally opened the book of instructions and there was this list of things to buy.  We spent about 4 hours one day buying all the last minute items.  My son got a very generous tip at his work which paid for all of it.  I won't say how much the tip was or where he worked, but if you know him you will know where he worked and getting a tip usually never happens.  He felt very blessed by it all.  Heavenly Father provided for us in so many ways while preparing for this mission.  It was a very lovely and spiritual thing to live through.

When my son was in 7th grade he told all his friends he would someday serve a mission.  They all thought he meant he was going to be a spy and go on some top secret mission for the government.  While that is not the case, it seemed some days like that, with packages coming in the mail, and instructions on where he was going.  A few days before leaving he received this book to start practicing speaking Spanish... It seemed very much like he was leaving on some secret mission...
Looking back it seemed like the first few months went really slow, but the last month it flew by a little too fast for all of us.
G.G.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission...The Call To Serve.....

Finally in December he recieved that big envelope in the mail that held his future call in it.

We all had to wait till my husband got home from work to open it.  I think that was the hard part, having the envelope there, but waiting to open it.  Where would he be going??

We have a video of him opening his mission call.  which I have tried to upload, but unfortunately at this time it is to long.  I'm going to try to edit it. 

Here he is getting ready to open the his mission call.  Inside the envelope is a letter telling him where he is called to serve and a booklet with all the things that need to be done before he leaves on his mission.  Looking back I realize I should have read through that booklet.  But I wanted my son to be in charge of preparing.  My Son was called to serve in Mexico.  I can say that he was happy.  I have watched the video a few times this week, and he just looked happy about this call.  From December to April we have been going through and doing all the work it takes to send a young man off on a mission.  If I thought all the appointments and such were a lot to apply to serve a mission.  All the preparation after receiving the call is about as daunting.  It was a learning experience for our whole family.  Since December I have thought a lot about Hannah from the Old Testament.  Wanting to have a child and promising to give him to the Lord.  How hard it must have been for her to give her young son to the priest at the Temple.  It has been a hard few months helping my son to prepare to leave, but in my heart I have known that it was the right thing for him.  This was one of his dreams ever since he was a young boy.  I'm very proud of him and his choices.
G.G.

I Hope They Call Me On A Mission.....Waiting for the Call....

This is another short post...Once all the appointments and paper work are done the application to serve a mission gets sent to the church headquarters.  Other than helping in the doctor and dentist appointments I wasn't involved much in this process.  My son and the Bishop worked together to get this part accomplished.  I wanted my son as a young adult to be in charge of these changes in his life. I think it was a good experience for him.  At some point in November 2016 all his paper work was submitted.

And then you wait.  The wait is usually about 2 weeks.  So every day you check the mail box looking for a big envelope.  I have to say it was the first time in a year that I was excited to look in the mailbox.  The previous year going to the mailbox caused anxiety for me as I was taking care of a legal issue and while it all ended very positively for me most of the correspondence was through the mail and sometimes just thinking of it was not fun.  But waiting for "The Call" that was fun.

I think the other thing about waiting for "The Call" is that everyone had their hopes of where my son might go.  I was hoping he would go to England or Scotland as that is where our ancestors are from.  My daughter probably hoped he would go to Japan as she loves Japan. My husband was thinking he might go back to New Jersey.  My son just hoped he did not go somewhere in Utah.  Friends and family members made guesses on my facebook page.  My brother came the closest to where he got called to by guessing New Mexico... This part was all very much like planning a vacation, you are planning and dreaming but nothing is really real or set.  There is more relaxed day dreaming than there is reality.

G.G.

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.