A call to serve.

We have been called to serve as self reliance missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for a period of 23 months beginning on January 15th, 2018 in the France Lyon Mission.

The purpose of this blog is to record and to communicate some of our experiences to family and friends as we serve the people of France. The coming 5 weeks will be filled with final preparations for our journey to France, but the past 4 months have also been a time of preparation, especially for Janet, who has been diligently learning French.

In April of 2017 we hurried to submit our mission papers before leaving to serve as tour guides at the Paris France Temple open house. We had been asked to return to the South Pacific Area as ITEP/TVET missionaries where we had previously served, and that is what we had put on our application.  We had been told that we might be assigned to serve at Saineha High School in the country of Tonga, and were excited to return to the South Pacific area where we had learned to love the wonderful people there.

Much to our surprise, we returned from France 6 weeks later to find that our papers had not yet been submitted by our stake. We were disappointed to learn that we would have to wait another 4 to 6 weeks to receive our calling, but realized that we were in the Lord's hands, and would wait on Him.

On Thursday, July 20th, while I was driving my van full of telescopes from a star party for my daughter, Kim's, school class officers to a star party for my son, Paul's stake, Janet called.  She informed me that our mission call had come, but wanted to open it together.  I told her to open it, which she promptly did.  She started reading it to me over the hands-free phone in my van: "Dear Elder and Sister Sumner, You are hereby called to serve as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  You are assigned to serve in the..."  At this point she paused and said, "Oh my gosh!"  I could hardly contain my anticipation as she said, "Are you ready for this?"

My heart skipped a beat as she continued reading "...in the France Lyon Mission."  I and Janet were both overjoyed and immediately knew it was the right calling for us and that it came from the Lord through his chosen apostles and prophet.  Then I thought of those in the South Pacific Area who would be disappointed.  It was a sad experience to compose and send an email to the South Pacific Area leaders announcing our calling to a different part of the Lord's vineyard. They, of course, were gracious in their acknowledgement of our new calling.

What we wondered at the time was whether or not the delay in sending in our papers was to give us experience in France.  At the Paris France Temple open house, we had met and worked with a wonderful full time missionary couple from Idaho, Elder and Sister Geddes. They had told us about how wonderful their mission was and had invited us to replace them when their mission was over.  We replied, of course, that we had already submitted our papers to go back to the South Pacific Area.  Little did we know then that we would actually be called to replace them!