LEAVING

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Judy and Ed take us to the airport in Kalispell. Though we are several hours early, Judy doesn't want to leave us until the plane takes off. She's had experience with Delta (Doesn't Ever Leave the Airport). I don't really want them to leave either, but it's one more milestone down. We've said our goodbyes, handed over our home to the full time missionaries (eek!), and now we've made it to the airport.

  When we land in SLC, Johnny's longtime friend picks us up and takes us to his home in Orem. He and his wife take us to a wonderful Chinese dinner at P.F. Chang's. I could live on lettuce wraps! The next morning we go to church with them and then they invite us to a special fireside later that will be given for temple workers at the Oequirrh Mountain temple. Elder Kristoferson will be speaking. We accept the invitiation.

  The minute we walk into the chapel a good friend from Kalispell sees us and runs to greet us. What a wonderful surprise! We haven't seen Debi Myers for years. She just happens to work at the temple. Elder Kristoferson gives a wonderful talk (of course) on staying clean. We go up to meet him and shake hands. What a burden is on these General Authorities! Each person who wants to meet him is greeted kindly and sincerely. He gives of himself liberally to all who wait.

  Monday morning our good friends Barry and Vira take us to the Provo MTC and drop us off, leaving us in the kind and helpful hands of four missionaries who take our luggage and show us to our room. Unfortunately, the room is occupied: luggage and personal items are scattered inside. I cringe when I see the size of the room. We have four large suitcases and two carry on's. Once we get the luggage inside there will not be enough room to walk around the bed!

  The missionaries are kind and patient. They promise not to desert us and they split up, some staying with the luggage and some guiding us back to the beginning. We are given another key to another room. This one is on the third floor and is much larger. Unfortunately, it is also currently occupied and we return again to get another one. We get another key, go to another room, and guess what? It is occupied also. The fourth room we try is a winner. It is one of the big rooms, much like a very nice hotel room. It is right across from both the fitness room and the ice machine. Jackpot!

  We have no time to unpack before we attend our first meeting and divide into groups of four couples. There are 30 or 35 senior couples in our group. Six of them, including us, are going to the Philippines. We attend meetings until the evening meal, which is served in a cafeteria much like the one at BYU. This one, however, is filled with wall to wall missionaries. We are in very good company. Once dinner is over, we get to go to our rooms and unpack. Our schedule looks very full for the week!

  The next day we start Preach My Gospel classes and training. Our teachers are young returned missionaries. They're excellent teachers and very fun. Tuesday night we attend a special fireside celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Provo MTC. Elder Holland gives an opening talk and Elder Nelson gives the keynote talk detailing the history of the Missionary training program. Several other general authorities are also in attendance. There are close to 2,000 missionaries in the room and the spirit is very strong.

  The next night, during our 'free' time after dinner we start Tagalog tutoring with the tutor we worked with on Skype before we left. Brian is a wonderful teacher. There's one other couple in the class with us and the time flies by. Brian makes a comment that really strikes me. He said that if we made it a goal and were determined to become fluent in Tagalog, we would. So I made the commitment. It's a little hard, though. We literally do not have time to study it at all when we are not in our 2 hour tutoring sessions at night. We go from one class to another, hit the cafeteria 3 times a day, and sleep like the dead at night. I wake up early every morning and walk the treadmill for 25 minutes most every am.

  The week passes quickly, but it seems like we've been here forever. We go to our departure fireside the Sunday before we leave. There are 400 missionaries going out this week. Many of them are going to Mexico, many to the Philippines, and the rest are going virtually to every corner of the earth. One senior couple is going to Thailand to a rural area for member support. Our friend's daughter went there on her mission and we heard stories of spiders literally as big as dinner plates. We do not pass these stories on. Others are going to Russia, the West Indies, various states in the US, Korea, East Africa, Indonesia, and Figi, to name some.

  Monday we are back at it. This week is specific training for our calling as nurse specialist and nurse specialist assistant. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what Johnny would be doing, but we go to SLC at the church office buildings and we find out. I discover that he is very well suited to medical work. I'd forgotten he'd started med school before he went into the army. We get some specific information about our calls.

  The Preach My Gospel training is going well, but I am very worried about my rusty nursing skills. The first day is mostly medical people talking about the history of the medical program in the mission field and the various problems they've have had getting it going. I don't feel the spirit at all in the meetings and I wonder what we're really doing. Is the Lord working with us? How in the world am I going to measure up to this? Everyone around us is hugely qualified in medicine: life-long professionals dedicated to their careers and to church service. They are inventors and movers and shakers.

We are in the church office building and members are working all around us, managing the affairs of the kingdom, but many do not seem very happy. I expected to find much more joy in the service of the Lord. We rush back to Provo just in time to grab a quick dinner before going to our Tagalog tutoring.

  Tuesday we're back in Provo for nurse's training, thank heavens! We've found we've been seriously over-scheduled for this week. We will have to skip the training on Thursday altogether because we're flying out Thursday afternoon. We will miss our last Tagalog tutoring also: there's no other time to finish packing! The nurse training is very good. The doctor who presented a lot of it is also the Patriarch for his stake and is a very spiritual man. He keeps the medical work and the gospel integrated and I am very inspired again. We will be supporting our young missionaries from the other side of the world who are leaving their homes to go preach the gospel (for the most part) to their native peoples. They come from assorted backgrounds with various challenges and hardships. I feel deeply honored to be called to serve them. We get very specific training on the issues we will probably face and the resources we have to deal with them. I find myself feeling confident that the Lord will bless us and we will be able to fulfill the assignments and responsibilities He has called us to. No tutoring tonight because Tuesday is fireside. We are so exhausted that we go to our room instead. We do our laundry and pack all the things we won't be using before we leave and fall into bed again.

  Wednesday it's back to SLC for more training. It is very interesting. We do mental health issues. I'm surprised how prevalent mental health problems are with the young missionaries. People who are prone to perfectionism can have a lot of trouble. Don't know why that would surprise me: it's true for most people. We go up for an hour long presentation in the Welfare Department on the various projects they have going around the world. One of the couples in our group is going to east Africa on a welfare mission. That's ALL of east Africa-they'll be traveling quite a bit in some very...different places. We now see what they will be doing and what kinds of conditions they will be living in. The Philippines MTC looks like a very cushy mission call!!!

  Wednesday evening we're too tired to do anything but sleep. We spend several hours in the morning packing, weighing, and re-packing our luggage, making sure each bag is less than 49.8 pounds (the scale is in the exercise room). Almost before we know it, it's time to meet our driver down at the travel office. We take our carry on luggage and go down, then Johnny recruits a few missionaries to follow him back up and bring the rest of the bags down for us. 

 I stand in the hallway waiting for them to return, missionaries flowing past me like a never ending river and I realized I feel like crying. I keep my expression neutral but tears are trickling down my face. I refuse to draw attention to them by wiping them away. Several young missionaries that we've talked with over the last 10 days come to talk to me, excited and happy for us finally getting to leave for our mission. I feel like an idiot because I can't keep my eyes from leaking. I tell them I'm happy to be going as I brush tears off my face. They understand completely. Finally we're in the van and off to the airport. Johnny sits up front and chats with the driver the whole way and I sit in the back and let the tears fall.

  By the time we get there, I'm feeling much better. I feel very self-conscious of the black badge on my clothing and feel a serious responsibility to act as the Lord would want me to. I also wonder if it will draw the ire of anti-Mormons. I square my shoulders and follow Johnny into the airport. The porter helping us is a returned missionary and is very friendly. When we get to the counter they weigh our very carefully packed bags and each one comes in at over 52 pounds! I think Delta has a scam going. They say, “don't worry, as long as they're within 2 pounds we don't bother with it”. But as he finishes our check-in the agent tells us that because we're not flying internationally with Delta, we only get 88 pounds each total instead of the 100 pounds we were told. So we have to pay extra anyway and we might as well not have left Johnny's extra pair of shoes, three pairs of brand new slacks, my purse, our shampoo and all the other stuff that weighed too much after we packed all the paperwork we'd accumulated in classes. Er.

  We finally take off from SLC. It's a small plane. We're headed to San Francisco and I'm not looking forward to the 14.5 hour flight across the ocean at all. First, we have a 6 hour layover in San Francisco, which is a good, a great! thing because Johnny's son, Scot is going to meet us at the airport with his pregnant wife and two kids and go to dinner with us! We're really looking forward to seeing them, but I'm a little worried I'll be a zombie after the last couple months. 

 I still feel very vulnerable and fearful that I won't be able to fill my own shoes on this mission. Johnny and I aren't even in seats next to each other on the flight, but a nice woman offers up her seat so we can sit together. I sleep most of the way and feel disoriented and insecure when we land in San Francisco. While waiting in the jetway for Johnny to pick up his carry-on a young blond woman passes me in the crowd going by. She looks me in the eye, squeezes my arm gently, and says earnestly, “Goodbye.” In that one word I sense all that she doesn't say as she moves on with the crowd. My heart swells and I know Heavenly Father cares. I am so grateful for the gospel that makes us all family, even if we don't know on another. I'm grateful for this unknown sister's support and the support of all our friends and family at home in Eureka and in other places. It takes a village to send out missionaries! Thank you all so very much for loving us, and praying for us, and supporting us in so many ways. We love you dearly and will miss you.