Monday, December 14, 2015

Getting started is more than half the battle!

This blog is started by Janette and John to describe a mission we plan to serve for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the LDS church) in 2016 and 2017.  This will be a "Seniors' Mission", of a service or humanitarian type, although that has yet to be fully decided.

As of today, we are still in the application phase -  we've been trying for about 3 months to get our paperwork ready.  This includes providing personal information, stating preferences for type of mission and area of service, arranging for out of country emergency medical insurance, and getting our general health and dental information up to date.

We often wondered why the young people in the LDS church took so long to apply, once they had decided to go on a mission.  Now we know - it just takes time, particularly if you have any medical or dental issues to resolve.  The church wants you to enter your mission in good health, so that you can focus on service and not on personal issues.  We keep telling ourselves: "Be patient!  The Lord is in charge of the process, not us, and our preparations will evolve at their own pace".  Easy enough to say; not so easy to do.

I just hope we don't trip over the quote Sam Gamgee attributed to his gaffer: "It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish".