August 3rd, 2008

On this Sunday morning I was looking at lds.org, the website for the church. Just for fun I clicked on the link Mission and Service opportunities.

With a few more clicks I arrived at the page which lists all the missions in the church and the cost to serve in each one. Little did I know those clicks would change the course of our life.

Dennis asked me what I was doing, and when I told him, he said print a copy of that for me (which should have been my first clue, but it wasn't). Minutes later he said, Judy, maybe we've been doing this backwards. We keep talking about going on a mission as soon as we get our affairs in order. Maybe we should tell the Lord we are willing to serve a mission, and let Him help us get ready. Why don't we make an appointment with Bishop Messer and tell him what we're thinking, and ask him to pray with us this week and ask the Lord if the time for us to serve is now.

We met with Bishop Messer, who agreed to make it a matter of prayer. I think we even said we would meet again next Sunday.

That day Bishop initiated the Missionary Online Recommendation.

By the end of the week, Dennis had:
*applied for his passport
*renewed his driver's license
*started filling out mission papers online
*made an appointment to see his doctor
And
*ordered two Books of Mormon- in Portuguese.

Meanwhile, I was praying about it.