Ever since our marriage on Dec. 12th, 1985, Bruce and I decided we wanted to serve an LDS mission together when our children were raised. Bruce served a full-time mission at age 19 during 1980-81 in Pennsylvania, Harrisburg. My parents, John and Sharon Boud, were Bruce's first mission presidents. I was able to see missionaries in full action and even go knocking on doors to proclaim the gospel with full time missionaries as a teenager. We enjoyed the missionaries coming and going from the mission home, having cottage meetings, and firesides weekly in our home. You could say the missionary spirit was in our blood at a young age.
As Bruce and I knelt across the alter in the Salt Lake Temple on our wedding day, we covenanted to give our all to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to sacrifice our time, talents, and blessings to God. We have been extremely blessed in our lives. We certainly have had our challenges and setbacks as life deals us all. but we feel we have been strengthened by enduring them. We'd love to serve and give back to the Lord however we are able.
Last year in 2021, Bruce started investigating the L.D.S. senior missionary website. He called down to special projects in Salt Lake City seeing the Zimbabwe temple construction mission was available. I had voiced my desire years ago to serve in Africa. He discussed our desire to serve and his contractor, including commercial, qualifications at the time. The special projects committee told Bruce the Zimbabwe mission was already filled. Slightly disappointed at that time, we set a goal to go on a mission together by 2022. I told Bruce, I would retire at age 60 or before then if the opportunity became available sooner.
By June 2022, we prepared our mission papers for submission. We stated we could be prepared to leave by October 2022, when I retired from nursing. After investigating the senior mission opportunities on the church's website, we choose to serve out of the country. We were able to submit our top 8 choices in varying places: 3 humanitarian/welfare in Africa (2 in Ghana, Botswana), 3 missionary-leadership missions in New Zealand, one in Thailand, and the Zimbabwe temple construction was still listed as available. We assumed they hadn't taken it off the list, but we would apply for it any way. Bruce really desired to help build a temple as his first choice and it was the only one listed. I was happy to also serve in this capacity rather than a medical type of humanitarian mission as a nurse.
Within a week after submitting our papers, Bruce felt he should call down to the special projects committee one last time to let them know we submitted our papers. They stated they would love to interview us as soon as possible. Evidently, the Zimbabwe temple construction opportunity had not been filled yet. We were on vacation in Lake Powell but interviewed with the temple construction representatives the following Monday. They interviewed us to see if we were a good fit. After our Zoom interview, they wanted to stop our online submission so they could offer the temple construction mission to us on approval.
On July 26, 2022, we received a missionary call from our prophet, Russell M. Nelson. We have been called to "represent the Lord as a minister of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ." We have been assigned to labor in Zimbabwe Harare Mission. Our primary assignment is to serve as temple construction missionaries and begin our service on Dec. 12, 2022. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles "welcomed us to our full-time missionary service to proclaim the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to help build His kingdom on earth. We trust that we will savor the honor and privilege of bringing souls to the Master by losing ourselves in the work."
Patiently, we are waiting for our visas to Zimbabwe so we can embark upon our new adventure. We possibly don’t leave for Africa until January or February. We'll be entering the Mission Training Center on our 37th wedding anniversary, Dec. 12, 2022. We will give our farewell speeches on Dec. 11th, 2022, at the Mendon Stake Center. We’ll be set apart as full-time missionaries that afternoon. Saying good-bye to our home, family, friends, and especially those 10 beautiful grandchildren will be difficult; but we know they will all be blessed in our service.
