A New Calling

As most of you already know, Janet had a stroke on January 25th, 2018, the very day we were to leave for France.  About a month later, we were given a medical release and told we would have to wait 6 months before resubmitting mission papers.

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.

Week MTC

Janet and I spent this past week, January 15th through January 19th, at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, Utah.  Here we are standing before the large map posted in the main hall in front of the cafeteria.  It is traditional for missionaries to a picture taken of themselves pointing to the area where they will serve. My short arms couldn't quite reach up to France.

Ninety three couples arrived on Monday morning.  This picture was taken Tuesday morning as we waited to hear the announcement of the new First Presidency.  You can see that seniors are like everyone else when they have a minute: out come the cell phones. We were no exception. 

We were assigned to work in small groups called districts. From left to right are  Elder Van Leewuen, our morning instructor, Elder and Sister Purrington, who are going to serve as office missionaries in Fiji, and Elder and Sister Lee, who will serving as office missionaries in Hanoi, Viet Nam.

Sister Luke was our afternoon instructor.  The instructors were all much younger than us, but they had served missions and understood and knew the missionary instruction book, "Teach My Gospel" really well.  Their teaching was filled with the spirit and with love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We learned a lot and enjoyed their teaching.

We got to practice teaching another senior couple, Elder and Sister May, and they got to practice teaching us.  They are going to serve in Paraguay as records preservation missionaries. We got to know them well enough to realize that we have much in common and learned to love them in the short time we had together.

Teaching building, T4, had wonderful wall size murals at both ends of the building on each floor. Here Elder Sumner is visiting with a young Joseph Smith ;-).  The realism of all of the pictures and the fact that they were back-lit on semi transparent screens made them almost seem 3-D.

Our MTC experience was very different from the one we had three and one half years ago, (Except that we still gained at 5 pounds eating the good food). We got to know other senior couples better, but the spirit was still the same. We learned that we need to be bold in sharing our testimonies of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  We were reminded that while in His service, the Lord will bless us with the knowledge and skill we need to serve Him.

Next Monday and Tuesday we have two more days of training specifically for our calling as self-reliance missionaries at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, and then fly to Lyon via Amsterdam on Thursday, January 25th.  We can hardly wait!!

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!