February 21, 2016

It has been 7 weeks since we have got our call. Time is flying by as we prepare. We have done a lot but still have a lot more to do. Here is a few things we have done.

We called the MTC to begin Spanish tutoring sessions. They offer a pre-missionary tutoring for Senior Missionaries. We had an orientation soon after we signed up. We were introduced to some on-line training materials and told that tutors would be contacting us shortly. So we began to use the training material in our daily Spanish study. We have been diligent in our study, spending 3-4 hours a day studying the language. Unfortunately, the tutors did not call for over 4 weeks. There are two tutors, one teaches learning techniques and the other teaches the language. We now have a techniques tutor and Michelle has the language tutor. I still have not gotten a language tutor, although the rumor is that one is assigned. Our Spanish is improving, but it is not coming back as fast as I had hoped.

We have had to get new passports, new driver's licences, new debit cards, and new credit cards. We have also had to get certified birth certificates, letters from our local police department saying we are good citizens without police records and letters from our Doctors saying we are healthy. These have all had to be authenticated by the Lieutenant. Governor (UT) or the Secretary of State (CA). We have had shots, Doctors, eye exams, dentist treatments and bought a lot of white shirts and socks. We have had to change our mailing addresses and email addresses to dozens of accounts. We are going through all of our stuff, throwing away a lot, taking more to DI boxing the rest. We have had to set up a transfer account with a bank in Managua in order to transfer money from our home account to the bank in the mission. I can see why a lot of Senior missionaries don't want to leave home.

We are going to rent our home to a young couple, Ryan and Erika Chalk. They are both returned missionaries, students and newly married. We feel very good about them taking care of our home. We have set up a separate bank account with Becky having a power of attorney to the account.

We still have some more shopping to do, sort and pack up things and a few more doctors appointments. I am sure glad we had 31/2 months to prepare.

Michelle and I have been planning to serve a mission together for most of our married life. We timed our application submission with the hope that we would be able to open our mission call at our family reunion. However, when Saturday, December 26 came along and we still had not received our call in the mail, we thought we would not have that opportunity. We also found out that the normal time to get a call for Senior Missionaries was 5-6 weeks, so we were not very optimistic we would get our call during the family reunion. But we kept praying that we would. On Monday, December 28, our neighbor called us at Bear Lake and told us it had come and offered to bring it to us. Paul met Adam and Amy Liscombe (our neighbor) in Logan that afternoon and we opened the call that evening with all of our children and grandchildren. We have been assigned to serve in the Nicaragua Managua North Mission. We enter the MTC on April 11 and will serve for 23 months. Michelle has been called as the Mission Nurse Specialist and I will serve as a Member and Leader Support Missionary. Paul and Steve were especially excited because they also served in Central America. They started telling us all about the area, the good, bad and the ugly. We finally had to tell them to stop telling us about the bad and the ugly because it was getting us concerned about our safety. 

We both were overwhelmed that we were called to a Spanish speaking mission. We had indicated in our application that we preferred an English speaking mission, but the Lord had other needs. Elder Swick of the Seventy had given me council three years earlier, when we were released as a Stake Presidency, to relearn Spanish. So I had been working on that a little by reading Preach my Gospel in Spanish, but I had not been very diligent in doing that. We asked our sons to give us blessings. Paul gave Michelle and beautiful blessing that reduced her anxiety considerably and John gave me a beautiful blessing that gave me great comfort. 

We are frantically studying Spanish. We are excited and yet nervous. My Spanish needs a lot of work and Michelle is just beginning to learn it. She is speaking Spanish with a French accent (she took several years of French in High School), which is very cute.