Our Papers Are In!

Our missionary applications have now been officially submitted!   All the planning, praying, pondering leading up to this have been a powerful time for us.

I feel like I'm standing on the precipice of a great dividing line in my life.  In John Steinbeck's novel, The Pearl, he tells the story of a poor Mexican-Indian man named Kino who finds a giant pearl.  There is a line in the book about how Kino and his wife, Juana, would forever be changed by that pearl.  They would always think of their life as what happened before the pearl and what came after the pearl.  Sadly, in the book the pearl represents great tragedy.   This mission will be quite opposite from that.  But it will be a marker experience for us without a doubt.

I am reminded of when Larry and I built the pond in our backyard last year.

We started out with just an idea, thinking it would be nice to have a water feature up close to the house so we could hear the flowing water.  (For a long time we had the IDEA that at some point we would go on a mission together).

We happened to pick up a pre-formed liner from our neighbors at a yard sale. They had planned on building one in their yard but never quite got around to it.  (Larry's friend, Bruce Beckstrand, put in HIS papers to go on a mission - making us think more seriously about it ourselves).

The spot we had picked for putting the pond had a tree growing smack in the middle of it, so that had to be removed.   That was REALLY work.  (We had some barriers that needed to be rooted out - my attachment to my job, our fears about leaving our family and worry over the expense)

We found a place in where we could get the kind of rocks we were looking for and got a rock permit.
Then we set about the hard work of hauling a truck load of rocks.

When we got out to the spot where the rocks were my big strong man played billy goat and climbed the side of the hill to haul them over to where I was.  Then I would pick them up and take them the 100 yards or so to where the truck was parked.  Rock by rock by rock we had some great teamwork going on.

(All through the planning and preparations putting our applications together we have worked together as a team.  We have supported each other through each step of the process.  I'm sure we'll have lots more of that in days to come.)

After Larry carefully dug the hole for the pond, poured a layer of sand to support the liner, then leveled it carefully, we worked together to place the rocks .  There was more than a little second guessing as we moved them back and forth, this way and that, until we finally had them arranged in a way that was pleasing to both of us.

As we have explored options for this mission - should we say we needed to stateside or be open to an international assignment -   how long should we serve for?  What type of mission should we request?  All of that we had to carefully communicate with each other and with the Lord until everything settled in just right.   Like the pond you see pictured above, we ended up with something very special.

Now the count down begins, waiting for our official call.

Why This Is My Last Class

As of today, I am all done being a part-time college teacher.  Final exams are all over. Spring 2014 grades are now posted and all my administrative paperwork turned in. I am officially finished with my work as an adjunct instructor of Sociology.  

Over the past 20 years, I taught for 5 community colleges and 2 universities. Guessing I taught 3 terms each year with an average of 30 students per term, that means I worked with about 1,200 students over the course of my career.
 

Teaching has never been my primary job. I have held a variety of positions with different organizations as we have moved from state to state, ranging from exec director of non profits to coordinating grant programs. Still, it was the adjunct teaching I did one or two nights each week, or even the distance-learning classes I taught online, that gave me the most satisfaction.  

In many ways, it has been my role as a teacher that has shaped my sense of worth and personal identity.  When I was in the classroom, whether face-to-face or virtual, I would get into "flow" experiences and feel like I was truly doing what I was born to do.

So turning in grades for the very last time feels like something a lot bigger that simply quitting a job.  I feel as if I am giving up a core part of who I am. Even though I am absolutely certain that our decision to go on this mission is the right choice, this is one of the sacrifices I will make that feels really hard.

This is the lecture I posted on Blackbord in our unit on Religion and Society to explain to my students why I would not be back next term:

Why This is My Last Class

A few of you already know that this is going to be my last term teaching. In this learning unit I will explain why that is.  

At the end of the year, my husband and I are planning on moving to New Zealand for two years to serve a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.   I’m quitting my job, putting everything I own in storage, and leaving behind dear friends, family, and my beloved basset hound, Morgan the Wonder Dog.  I am leaving everything that feels safe and familiar to go to a part of the world I know very little about.  I am doing this because of a deep spiritual commitment I feel to my faith, and a belief that this sacrifice will result in deeper meaning in my life.

In your text book it says: “religion is the way people make sense of their world” (Conley. 2013. P. 613.). Emile Durkheim called religion “a fundamental and permanent aspect of humanity”(Conley. 2013. P. 622.). Whether you personally agree or disagree with the tenants of any particular religion, it is clearly evident that matters of faith have been important to human beings in one fashion or another in nearly every society.

One of the challenges of American life is that we have so many different types of beliefs.  Even though half the population of this country rate God as very important in their life (Conley. 2013. P. 625.), how “God” is defined and what it means to follow one’s faith can be very different from one person to the next.

Humans are social beings. Rather than doing things based on instinct, we rely on social experience to teach us what is appropriate or important in how we think and behave. Some of the people I know have reacted to the news of my choice to go on a mission with praise and admiration.  Others think I am misguided and foolish to give up a good job to go volunteer for my church, especially since I will have to pay all my own living expenses to do so. 

We define who we are in relation to others. We are sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. We are members of clubs, employees of companies, neighbors and friends. How we experience our lives is very much shaped by who we feel connected to or apart from. One of the challenges we all face is how we cope when our opinions, beliefs, values or choices are very different from others we share close social bonds with. For those of us who feel deeply connected to deity or to a specific church family, those ties can have a strong influence on the choices we make in our lives. 

Right now, in many social circles, religion is considered taboo to talk openly about. Why do you think that is?  Does that custom serve us well?   How might our society be different if people in general were more inclined to ask “What is your faith?” instead of “What do you do for a living?” when they first meet? 

The American practice of asking “What do you do?” has everything to do with quickly summing up matters of status.  It gives us a shorthand way of knowing how much respect or deference we will be expected to show the other person. When meeting in a social situation does it really matter if the person you are talking with is a plumber or an attorney?  Generally not. But in a class based society, we tend to categorize people by profession. Their job title gives us clues about how much education they are likely to have and what their level of income is.  Those pieces of information carry a lot of weight about who gets what life chances in the way our world is arranged.

It is essential in a pluralistic culture to develop tolerance for those who have different religious views from our own.  But how we develop cultural norms around the way we express our beliefs related to faith could follow different paths.  

Increasingly, our society is becoming more secularized.  Rather than putting matters of faith and religion first in our lives, may people today put careers and material success at the top of their priorities.   When asked what is most important to them, the automatic answers may be things like family, good health,  core beliefs.  But if you look at how people actually spend the bulk of their time and energy,  it is quite often lopsided toward work and the accumulation of prestige or things.

I truly love my jobs (both teaching and what I do for the non-profit where I am employed). But at the end of the day, I do not want it to say on my tombstone that I was really good at my job. I want my life to have meaning and purpose beyond titles and accomplishments or gathering up more shiny things. It is because of my deeply held beliefs about the nature of God and what the real purpose of this life is that I am walking away from my life here in Boise to serve as a missionary for two years, where ever I may be sent.  


For your assigned work in this unit, you will need to understand the various terms and theories described in your text and the associated online lectures. I will never ask you to explain or defend your own personal beliefs.  You do not have to tell me anything about your own religious views.   That being said, I challenge you to think about whatever your beliefs are.  

You do not have to answer any of these questions for me, but here are a few things you may want to consider for yourself:

How do you integrate your ideas about religion into your daily life?  How do you assess what is true and important or what is not?  To what extent do you align your personal choices of what you do with what you say you believe?  

That, more than anything else, is what religion comes down to.   How human beings make meaning, and how that meaning shapes the way we lead our lives is at the very heart of sociology.

Dalton, Conley.  (2013).  You May Ask Yourself.  Third Edition. New York, NY.  W.W Norton.

The Downsizing Begins

Over the next few months I will need to sort through all of our STUFF and get rid of a lot of it.  Everything we own will be getting packed up and going into storage, so anything we don't actually use or truly love needs to find a new home.  Like a lot of Americans, we have collected an awful lot of things we don't really need.  What is it with this practice of surrounding ourselves with material things?  I welcome the opportunity to clear out a lot of it.

Some things, however, are more difficult than others to decide what to keep and what to part with.

One of the first things I'm trying to get sorted out is my collection of many books.  I have about six book cases of books that are a combination of novels, sociology books,  church books, some classics, some how-to, and a few totally random.   In this day and age where many folks are doing most of their reading on an electronic devise, some would say old fashioned bound books are too cumbersome to bother with.  I do have a Kindle reader and enjoy it for a lot of reasons.  However,  I will always be a lover of  real books.  I enjoy the feel of them.  I like turning their pages.  I appreciate the way they look all lined up on the shelves in my home.  Some are a bit ratty with lots of notes written in the margins and page corners turned here and there.  Others have been treated more gently, having been purchased or gifted to me as much for their beauty as for the words on the pages.

It's really rather silly to be so attached to some of these books that I know for certain I will never read again. Still, I'm finding it difficult to part with many of them. Some of these books feel like old friends.  I've spent many hours curled up with a book, getting lost in the stories and characters.

It's a very good thing we won't be leaving here for several months.  This downsizing / organizing task we have to do is going to be a challenge.

Our Mission Photos

We recently went to JC Penneys Portrait Studio to have our formal pictures taken for our mission application.  I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out.  In addition to using whichever one of these we pick for our mission application, it will also go on our plaque.  Our congregation here, called "Shamrock Ward" has a tradition of  making a plaque for every missionary who serves from there.  These are displayed in the foyer of the church the whole time the missionary is gone to help keep members thinking of them and remembering those serving in their prayers.  It will show our faces, where we are serving and have a favorite scripture which we will need to choose.  Since this is something we will always keep as a special memento of our mission I was glad I was having a rare good hair day when we had them done!

We also had our new passport pictures taken and have now sent off our application for those.  We have our old ones which are still valid right now, but they would expire before our mission was done so it's important we get this taken care of.  When the new ones arrive we will need to send them off to the mission travel department in Salt Lake City so they can apply for our visas.  It's easy to enter New Zealand for a short time as a tourist, but living there for over a year takes a whole different level of approval.

We have a whole list of things we need to do to complete our application and get ready to serve.  At times it feels a little bit overwhelming.  But we are on track, checking off each task one by one.

Trusting Personal Inspiration

(Huffington Post Article About New Zealand)

In addition to doing lots of reading about various aspects of serving a senior mission, I've also been doing my homework to learn all I can about living in New Zealand.  Some would say that is is very premature to begin getting so fascinated about a place I may not even be going to.  However, I feel very confident that is exactly where we will serve.  Here's why:  I believe in direct communication with my creator through prayer.  I have prayed mightily to understand His will for us at this time. Mind you, I have never one time said "Please can we go to New Zealand".   Instead, I've said "Please help us know where and how you would have us serve".

When we were given New Zealand as one of the possible options, I felt almost an electric jolt go through my entire body telling me that was the place where we needed to be.  Independent of my experience, my husband also had a strong impression that this was the mission for us.  Afterward, we again went to the Lord in prayer, asking for confirmation of the feelings we had.  Our prayers have been answered through distinct, personal impressions, feelings, and thoughts that are for us serve as very real evidence of  Heavenly Father knowing us personally and wanting what is best for us.  I have such a peaceful, confident certainty about this, that for me there is no doubt about where we will be going.  The Lord wants us in New Zealand.  I'm sure of that.  

I suspect that over the next two years we will have many experiences of being guided by the spirit and having prayers answered in deeply personal ways.   I look forward to growing more fluent in my ability to recognize the promptings of the spirit, to listen to - and more importantly FOLLOW the inspiration and answers that I receive.

Here are some of the resources on that topic that I've also been studying:

Nov 1989 - Elder Richard G. Scott - Learning to Recognize Answers to Prayer
Oct 2010 -  Elder D. Todd Christofferson - How Can I Make Daily Prayer More Meaningful?
Oct 2010 - Visiting Teaching Message - Seeking and Receiving Personal Revelation 
May 2011 - Elder Kevin Pearson - The Power of Personal Prayer

These are all good, but that last one is particularly dear to me since Elder Pearson is the Area President over the Pacific.  He lives and works in New Zealand.

I know that God lives and that He truly does hear and answer my prayers.

Doing My Research

From MormonNewsroom

I've been reading everything I can find about Senior Missions.  I've learned quite a bit.

I particularly enjoyed watching video clips of various senior missionaries around the world talking about their experiences which can be found HERE.

There is also some great information about Senior Missions over at a blog called Mormon Soprano.

I have spent hours going from one website to the next, picking up bits of information and encouragement along the way.   Taking the leap of faith to do this is a HUGE step for both Larry and I.  I'm excited.  I'm nervous.  I'm grateful we get this opportunity.  I'm scared about all we are leaving behind.  But most of all, I am absolutely certain that this is the right decision.  I know that serving a full time mission with my eternal companion for the next two years is exactly where the Lord wants me to be.

Even though our application is not yet submitted, now that the final decision is made it's all starting to feel more real.  It's not longer simply a conversation about possibilities.  We ARE going to do this.  I can't wait!

The Application Process

We are going through the process of filling out our "papers" (which are really all done online now so there is no actual paper involved).  The application to serve a mission requires physicals, FBI background checks, fingerprinting, chest X rays, dental screening and a whole bunch of questions to answer.  Piece by piece we are working our way through the process.

Today Larry passed his stress test with flying colors. He looks a little funny with shaved/sanded places all over his body where the electrodes that monitored him were place, but his heart is healthy and strong! My physical is next week. Once that is done we have checked off everything on our list and can officially submit our application.

Feeling excited!

Moving Forward

After our phone conversation a couple days ago with Sister Tomlinson, Larry and I did some serious prayer time to be sure we were on track with following the spirit, not just chasing what would seem exciting or fun for us.  Once we were sure, I sent an email to Sister Tomlinson saying we were quite sure the Family History mission in New Zealand would work for us.

In response, this was in my email today:

"Brother and Sister Bennett,

It is wonderful to hear from you and your feel your commitment to serving the Lord. 

The next step is to provide me your full names, stake and ward, and then in the comments field of your paperwork place the following statement “we have been specifically requested to serve as Family History Area Specialists in Auckland New Zealand” 

Please keep in contact with us. We love to hear the heartwarming experiences couples have as they prepare to serve missions. Please let us know if we can help in any other ways."

WOW! Things are moving. Now, this is NOT the same as our official call. It is possible that we COULD still get sent somewhere else. However, the Mission Coordinator we spoke with said it is quite rare for that to happen after a particular mission has been identified, discussed, and prayerfully confirmed. We will go anywhere our official call sends us. But for now, we are moving forward with plans for New Zealand!

Guided by the Spirit

Our mission planning process is really starting to accelerate.

We have found what feels like the right fit for us BOTH.  We want to serve as Family History missionaries.  We've prayed about it together and individually. We both feel like this would be a type of service we could do well and that it would be pleasing to our Father in Heaven.

The next piece is to determine where we might serve.  Today we we had a great phone conversation with Sister Tomlinson,  the coordinator over all the Family History Missions worldwide. She explained more about what a Family History mission entails and then shared with us the list of all the openings they have coming up - everything from Mesa, Arizona to Mongolia.

In December they will have an opening in New Zealand for a senior couple.  That particular mission serves the whole Pacific area,  so even though we would be based in Auckland, New Zealand we would be likely to travel a fair amount to some of the surrounding island nations as well. 

As we talked with her about this mission, I got goose bumps all over.  Larry and I looked at each other with big silly grins and it just felt RIGHT.  This was not simply a matter of wanting to go to a beautiful bucket list destination.  We both genuinely felt something like a spiritual key turning in a lock - like this was the FIT the Lord had in mind for us.

We have spent several days seeking confirmation through serious pondering, fasting and prayer. We are now sure a mission is right for us.  We want to stay open to any assignment we are asked to do. But for right now, it looks like we just may be serving in Middle Earth!

How To Know What Mission Is Right For Us

Photo from Google Images

In the popular  Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling (and the several movies patterned on those novels), young apprentice witches and warlocks attend a special school called "Hogworts".  At this school there are four different sections, called "houses": Gryffindor, Huffelpuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin.  Which house a student is placed in determines a great deal - who his/her mentors will be, who their peers are, what the emphasis of their study may take. In order to decide which house each student will be assigned to, the "Sorting Hat" is placed upon every students' head by turns. The hat's magic allows it to tap deep into the potential and nature of every boy and girl and then boldly announce what the right path for that student will be.

Sometimes I wish it was that easy to figure out what direction to take in life.

As Larry and I have continued to talk about the possibility of going on a mission, we are beginning to recognize there are many decision to make.

First, we have to determine when would be the right time for us to go.  This does not necessarily mean we are looking for the perfect window of time that would be the optimal for our other plans or what would be the most convenient.  The reality is, there will never be a perfect time to walk away from our home, our family, and all that is dear to us here.  Serving a mission has everything to do with setting aside our own wishes and tapping in to spiritual guidance to know what the Lord wants us to do.

Next, once we know when we are ready to make the commitment, we have to determine how long to sign up for. Young proselytizing elders serve for two years and the sister missionaries for 18 months.   Seniors, however, have more options.  There are many different kinds of missions.  Some last just 6 months, some a year, some 18 months, some 23 months.  We have to consider several different factors to figure out which of those is right for us.

Part of that will depend on where we go.  Ultimately it will be the church leaders who make the final decision of where we serve and in what capacity.  However, seniors are very much encouraged to study out the options of current opportunities and express whatever feels right for them.

For example, in the bulletin describing various mission opportunities it says there is an  "urgent need" for a senior couple to serve as " Public Affairs Specialist" missionaries in Samoa. What that involves would be to "assist the Public Affairs Director in providing information about the Church, it's beliefs, and leaders to the media, opinion leaders, interfaith groups, and the general public." I could see me really enjoying that.  Larry, however, does not feel like that would be a fit for him.   So we keep looking...

We have considered education missions, humanitarian aid, and a few other things.

This isn't at all the same as applying for a job.  In the LDS church, we believe a person "must be called of God and by the laying on of hands by one in authority"...  which means even if we pick something that sounds really good to us,  once we say we are ready to serve a mission we need to be ready to go ANYWHERE we get assigned and pretty much do whatever we are asked to do.  Wrapping our minds around that is a pretty big leap of faith.

One of the big "what ifs" is whether we say we are available for foreign or domestic.

As much as I my be intrigued by the idea of getting to experience going to a different country, there is PLENTY of good work to be done right here in the good ole' USA. I can see lots of reasons I would NOT be disappointed to stay stateside. It will be an adventure to watch it all unfold however it all turns out.

Since we do NOT have a sorting hat we will continue on doing what we have been doing - studying it out in our minds,  praying to be guided by spirit, and slowly inching forward to knowing that this really is the direction we are going to take.  We have plenty of second guessing ourselves.  We especially wonder about the impact leaving all our family for a long period may have.  Still, there is no denying the spiritual promptings we have had ever since this thing first started. That "still, small voice" we read about in the scriptures is getting pretty bold in our house.

Considering a Senior Mission

My sweet husband has been asked to coordinate the upcoming 50 year class reunion for Millard High School in Fillmore, Utah. Larry graduated in 1964 with a class of around 70 students.   About a dozen of those original graduates have since passed away and some others have lost contact - no one seems to know where they now live.  But as much as it is possible to do so, Larry is contacting everyone he can find to let them know about plans for this event.  He has enjoyed reconnecting with old friends and acquaintances  he had not spoken with for decades - some not since they graduated all those years ago.

While there were a few students who moved in or moved out over the years he went to high school, Larry had known many of them from their early elementary school days.

They have enjoyed sharing memories of days gone by and catching up with each other on where each person has landed in the ensuing years.

While many are looking forward to seeing one another at the reunion in July, a few have not replied at all or called to say they won't be available to attend, for one reason or another.  That is of course to be expected.  Some are still working or have family obligations. A few now live long distances away and are not in a position to make the trip.  Some, I suppose, may not have had a great experience in their high school years and simply are not interested in rehashing it. There was one response, however, that has caused Larry and I both to do some serious thinking about our  own situation.

Larry recently heard back from classmate Bruce Beckstrand, who told Larry that he and his wife, Debbie, would be unable to attend because they will be leaving the country to serve as Senior Missionaries in the small island nation of Tonga.  Bruce is a dentist and his wife worked as his hygienist, so they are going to run a dental clinic there.

This is not a surprise, really.  Since Fillmore was and is a strong Mormon community and nearly all of his fellow students were active LDS, it just makes sense that some of them would be following the prophet's invitation to serve Senior Missions. We have talked about it ourselves many times in the past.  On several occasions when we would see the printed list of Senior Mission Opportunities tacked to the bulletin board at church we'd flip through it, dreaming of the day we might one day be in a position to serve together ourselves. Still, a Senior Mission seemed like one of those "Someday, honey, we really ought to do this" sort of propositions that was still hanging out there in the unspecified future.

Hearing Bruce and Debbie are going on their mission this year prompted us to re-examine our own timetable for considering it.

I simply hadn't thought of myself as "senior" enough for a senior mission.   While my husband retired at the time we moved to Boise in 2010, I'm still busy with my career and felt like I had some important things yet to accomplish.

However, with a 12 year age gap between us, if we are serious about serving we really should not put it off till I reach traditional retirement age.  So we have started talking about it, considering, pondering, praying to know when might be the best time for us to answer the call to serve.

For years now we have heard messages from our Church leaders about the need for more seniors in the mission field. Our recent experience serving as Ward Missionaries in the Shamrock Ward was something we both felt really good about.  However, leaving home to serve a full time mission in some other place would be a very different sort of serving. There are so many different kinds of missions, and different places - both foreign and domestic - where we might be asked to go.  It is a big decision.  Increasingly, however, we are both beginning to feel it is not a matter of IF, but more a matter of WHEN.