The Call

We met with President Ross on Tuesday, March 5, 2013 and submitted our mission papers. At that time he told us we should expect a response in about 3 weeks. The missionary section of the church website said it could take up to 6 weeks. President Ross told us to call him in about 4 weeks if we didn't get our call. We waited somewhat patiently (checking the mailbox every day) for 4 weeks and still did not receive our call. The next day we called President Ross and told him it hadn't come yet. He did some checking for us and said it hadn't been processed yet and it turns out that it takes longer for Senior missionaries to get their call, maybe as long as 6 weeks. We were getting pretty anxious when after 6 weeks we still hadn't received it. Our Bishop told us on Sunday, April14th that it had been assigned and we should receive it very soon. Then another week went by without a call. We had moved out of our house and all of our mail was being forwarded starting April 20th. Finally, on Monday, April 22nd I called the post office to ask them what happens when you get your mail forwarded. The customer service lady told me that it would get sent back to Colorado Springs, CO to get a forwarding stamp on it. I then explained how we were anxiously waiting for our mission call and I told her that it would be in a large white envelope. She, Jacquie, said she would check with our mail carrier later that day to see if anything like that had shown up for delivery. To my elated surprise Jacquie called me back at 4:00 that afternoon and said our carrier had it and she would hold it for me to pick up. We rushed to the post office in Olathe and got our special package. We then went to Dairy Queen and bought an ice cream cake for the celebration. We called all of the family and let them know that we got the call. We arranged to skype with Melissa's and David's families from Bruce's house where the rest of the family gathered to open our call. At 6:30 PM we had everyone together and opened the package. I read that our call was to the Philippines Manila mission to serve as Perpetual Education Fund/Self-Reliance missionaries and we were to report to the MTC on Monday, July 22nd. Everyone was excited for us and surprised that we would be going to the Philippines.