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Pg 10 - Assignment & Testimony

This adventure really started years again when Ann and I determined that we wanted to serve a mission together after we retired.  It stemmed from the great spiritual time I had experienced while serving a mission in Germany from 1970 to 1972.  From conference talks by church leaders and admonitions from the prophet we determined that we should submit our missionary application just prior to retirement.  In June of 2010 Greg Waters (my boss at work) came to me with a retirement option that we just could not pass on.  Greg and I had been talking for about five years about how we each wanted to retire early and the time was perfect for Ann and I.  Greg and I reached an agreement on the date, January 28th, 2011 and that really set everything in motion.

Ann and I gave prayerful consideration to what we should do and the first week of November 2010 we had interviews with Bishop Gallacher and President Walker and our application was submitted.  We did not select a location to serve but having discussed the application process with our past Houston Stake President who was serving in Frankfurt, Germany as Director of Temporal Affairs for Europe, we were pretty confident that we'd be called to serve in Europe somewhere.  More specifically back in Germany.

Then on January 6th, 2011 we received in the mail that large white envelope that members who submit missionary applications have grown to recognize.  We made arrangements with family members to be on the phone for the opening of the envelope.  All our parents and kids joined in with us as we opened to see where we were assigned.  Upon opening and reading that we had been "called to serve as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and you are assigned to labor in the New Zealand Wellington Mission with a primary assignment to labor with Family History Records Preservation we were ecstatic!  We knew immediately that our Heavenly Father knew who we were and that this was where he wanted us to serve.  There was no hesitancy in writing our acceptance letters back to the Missionary Department.

Below are a few pictures of the trek to the
Mission Training Center....




Here we are with the traditional large white envelope from Salt Lake City.


Ann really wants to get that envelope open.  I'm trying to record all the guesses and she's cutting up.


Here we are holding up our two letters calling us to the New Zealand Wellington mission assigned to work on "Records Preservation".


This is one of the two letters we received



Prior to departing each missionary is set apart (given a blessing and confirmation of assignment) and blessed to serve by their Stake President.  Here we are with President Ralph Walker, a great servant of the Lord, just after being set apart.


We were very lucky to have Mollie and Paul along with Kim and Warren with Kaylee, Nicole and Taylor there to witness our setting apart.  It made the experience even that much greater.


Here we are with Mollie & Paul getting ready for them to take us to the Denver airport to get our mission started.
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