How did we get here?

Last year, 2012, Mark received an email from an acquaintance alerting French-speaking returned missionaries that there was a need for a couple to serve in Paris, France as a director for the young single adults program. It sounded interesting so we contacted the individual in charge but no response. It was one of those situations of "We will call you". Strike One.

I thought if we go on another mission the chances of going to a French-speaking country again was great so I suggested Mark take on the duty of teaching me to speak the language. Some days it seems that I have learned little but it has given Mark a chance to expand his fluency. We read Principes de L'Evangile one word at a time and then a phrase at a time then a paragraph. I will have to live to 100 years to become pas mal in speaking.

In June, 2012 we paid off our mortgage which gave us a little more wiggle room in our budget so we decided we could go on another couple mission.

The church announced a lot of new missions, a large number in South America. Mark studied Spanish and I was a missionary in Bolivia so it was a possibility that we might go to a new Spanish-speaking mission or possibly to a Portuguese-speaking mission, Portuguese is a romance language, right? I guess we dallied too long because all mission office couples were called in early spring.

A member of our stake presidency told us of a need for a couple to serve in Australia, I was good with that because I have always wanted to go to Australia. Nothing came of it, but I liked that idea.

Mark's friend at the Provo Temple (he has an assignment there each Saturday afternoon/evening) was called to be a mission president and he needed to find (recruit) someone to serve in a mission office in Asia. We had served in the West Indies Mission office so we knew what tasks were assigned to the office couple. After a month or so, Mark's friend told us that someone else had been assigned by the area authority.

We had submitted our papers when the Asian thing was a possibility, so the Missionary Department of the Church called in a panic worried that we just couldn't get a visa to go to this Asian nation on time. We told them what we knew about there being another couple assigned to that mission so they had to process that information. Strike Two.

Three strikes and you are out right? We were not certain what would happen with our application. A stake clerk calling in behalf of the Church Missionary Department and asked us if we could increase the amount of money we had indicated we had available to sustain us during the mission. [Note: On the mission application you are asked how much money you are able to spend each month. Each mission has an average amount one would need depending on the mission, some missions are $1,000 a month up to $3,500. An example would be the amount we had to have to serve in the West Indies, which was $1,600.] Our response to this query was to commit to go higher. We then looked at the charts and determined the missions that required the larger amount. They were Victoria, British Columbia, Brisbane Australia, Montreal, Moscow, Russia, and a few others. Looking good, we thought.

On April 9th we opened our large white packet and read that we have been called to serve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Kinshasa as Perpetual Education Fund Self-Reliance missionaries serving in the PEF/Self-Reliance office speaking French. My first response, "Africa?" "Congo?" "French?"

We enter the Provo Missionary Training Center July 22nd for a week of training, then a second week of PEF training also here in Provo. Then a seventeen-hour flight from here to there.

We are now involved in all the "to dos" required to travel to a foreign country such as passports,visas, immunizations for EVERYTHING, clothing for a hot place, medications for 18 months (almost impossible to accomplish), what to do with the house, etc. etc.

This is a wonderful opportunity for us to use our skills to help members in the DR Congo improve their chances to become self-reliant and to provide for the needs of their families.