Felt Mission Adventure: Let the Mission Begin!

In the Beginning…
Our desire to serve a full-time mission actually began way back when we were first married in 1970. We both came to the same conclusion at that time that one day "when we were old enough" we wanted to go on a senior couple's mission.

In September 2012 Gary really felt impressed that the time to begin submitting our mission application had now arrived. Charleen wasn't all for it at that time, partly because she had just enjoyed the summer with grandchildren and working in her garden. But, after thinking about it for a week, she finally said, "sure, let's call Bishop Knudsen."

Preparation was mainly getting our physicals completed, and dental work done by our favorite dentist John Bishop. We also needed updating on some of our vaccinations. Then we filled out papers - lots of papers, to turn into our Bishop, Stake President, and then sent on to Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City, UT.

During that time we had our daughter Liana staying with us, along with her son Ethan and mother-in-law Grandma Marquis. We were helping Liana while she was being treated at the University of Utah Medical Center. She went home after Christmas.

In January of 2013, Charleen felt like she needed to visit her mother in CA who is now 80. She also wanted to let her brother and sister know that we were going on a mission for the Church and that we could be anywhere in the world for the next two years. Her mom is failing and she was not so sure her mom would be here in two years and wanted to spend some time visiting before we left.

We came home from CA and put our house up for sale on February 13, 2013. We then completed our papers on February 18th. On March 4th we had our interview with our Stake President, Chad Allred, and he then turned the papers in to Salt Lake. From that point we waited to receive our mission assignment.

The Agony and the Ecstasy!

Waiting for a mission call is torture. Wanting to know where we will go, and when. Will we need to learn a foreign language? Will we need a million vaccinations? What will living conditions be like? What will the people be like? What will the climate be like? What will the food be like? Will there be spiders (one of Gary's fears)? Will the "facilities" include outhouses (another of Gary's fears)? What kind of bugs will we encounter? Can we drink the water (one of Charleen's fears)? And, on and on!

We waited for four looong weeks. Our neighbor Chris Miller who works at the Church Missionary Department kept telling us it takes 5 to 6 weeks for Senior Missionaries. We kept on waiting!

One week before our call came Gary went to the mail box to check and see if our "large white envelope" had arrived. Sure enough there was a large white envelope face down in the box, except it wasn't THE "white envelope". Charleen came home from the store and Gary jokingly showed her the envelope and she said "No" and then he turned it over - it was from Humana - our health insurance company. Of course, Charleen was kind of bummed.

We decide to play a joke on our son Brian. So we texted him that a white envelope had finally come in the mail. He texted back, with excitement and told us he would have to call us back in a few minutes because he was on another work phone call. We were planning to have a special family conference call when we opened the envelope and hoped that he, in the meantime before calling us back, would not set that call up with everyone. Fortunately, he didn't and when he called back we told him it was only a white envelope from Humana.So, now he too was bummed.

And we all continued to wait! We also continued to wait for the sale of our home which needed to take place before we could leave for the mission...

The Mission Call

On April 4th, THE letter arrived for "Elder and Sister Felt" calling us as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to serve for 23 months in the CA Oakland/San Francisco Mission! We were to report to the Missionary Training Center in Provo, UT on June 3rd...

Finally!

Behold the Majesty of the Lord in Action!
With a reporting date a mere two months away, a lot of miracles were needed:

(1) Our home needed to sell and, to date, we had not yet had anyone show any interest in our home; and, with time going quickly, we would also need a buyer with exceptional qualifications to close a sale in time.

(2) We needed to find and buy the right new home in Idaho Falls where we then planned on having our daughter Liana and her family live in and take care of it while we would be away. So, we also needed a seller who could close quickly.

(3) We needed to move our household from UT and Liana's household in ID to the new home in time.

Well, with an assignment from the Lord himself through His prophet, our faith was such that we knew this would all happen - we just did not know when it would begin. But, eventually, begin it did - and all we could do was "hold on for the ride"!

Our home sold on April 17th (to a family led to it by the Spirit who, coincidentally, came from our son Paul's ward in CO) and we had our favored home in Idaho Falls under contract the very next day. Everyone involved was, not surprisingly, in a hurry to close and we closed both transactions completely by May 15th!

Then came the move out of UT, and double move in of ID with lots of help from our great ward in UT then two great wards in ID, and a return to UT for farewell talks in church there on May 26th.

By June 1st, all was accomplished, with property from two households settled in to our new home, goodbyes said, and we were off to the Missionary Training Center.

Saying Goodbye

Saying our Goodbyes to the Ponderosa Ward.