We were disappointed but not discouraged because we know that our lives are always in the Lord's hands. The Lord knew we needed that time for Janet's recovery. Janet has worked very hard to regain the balance and coordination she would need to serve another mission. Little did we know the blessing the Lord had reserved for us.
On August 31st we received a package in the mail. When I told Janet our mission call had come, at first she didn't believe me because it had come so quickly. We opened it together and read: Dear Elder and Sister Sumner, You have been called to serve as temple missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. You have been called to serve in the Paris France temple for a period of 23 months! (exclamation point added)
We felt excited, worried, and humbled all at the same time. Our call asked us to report to the Salt Lake Temple on February 12, 2019, which I found disappointing. Janet, however, was glad we'd be able to spend one last Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families and have more time to work on her French.
Since the following Monday was Labor Day (on which we did the 5K Temple to Temple walk/run in Provo with our families) I couldn't call the church senior temple missionary office. I wanted to let them know that we already had valid visas from the previous call to serve in the France Lyon Mission. When I called Tuesday morning, I was answered by an answering machine, so I just left a message that we already had our visas. Much to our amazement, we received a call back that very afternoon. The call was from a childhood friend of mine, Darrel Danielson, who was then working in that department. He asked if we would be willing to serve earlier,... much earlier! He wanted to know if we could be ready to report to the Salt Lake Temple on October 8th! Wow! I was elated, but Janet was not. But being the dutiful wife that she is, she agreed to go along!!!! We had to scramble to get everything done and get packed, but we did it.
We spent three wonderfully spirit-filled days at the Salt Lake Temple being prepared for our new calling. On Friday, October 12th, we boarded a plane and flew to Paris, arriving on Saturday, October 13th.
I'm writing this blog on Sunday, October 28th because we have been without wifi in our apartment, but are "borrowing" a wifi connection from another senior missionary couple. We'll have more to say about our first two or three weeks in France and more pictures on our next blog. By the way, we were an hour early for church today because we didn't know that France switched over to "winter time" as they call going off daylight savings time here. I enjoyed playing the grand piano in the chapel at Versailles for an hour while Janet sat and listened.
