Beating the January Blues, January 2014

January and February are typically "blue" months for me.  There's so much to look forward to from Halloween through the end of the year and then, BAM! January hits me like a big blast in the face.  I try to set goals (realistic ones) and try to stay warm, but I usually find myself in a sinking ship by about the second week in January.


My sweet husband, being the wonderful people helper that he is, suggested we go on a mission!  I have always wanted to go on a mission and have had the mission bug especially strong since Eric and Hannah are both out serving.  We have had the missionaries live with us in the past year and being surrounded by missionary work really gives you the missionary spirit!  Last Spring, our stake had a women's conference and the theme was missionary work.  I took a lot of notes and felt the Spirit telling me during the whole conference that we should go on a mission.  I have been hoping and praying for this opportunity for the whole past year.  The timing just hasn't been quite right until now.

We decided right away to go to the temple about this big decision!  Afterwards, I asked Mike how he felt and he said very excitedly, "It's a GO!"  We have a distinct but real window of opportunity to serve a six month mission.  Eric will be home from his mission in Georgia in a couple of weeks and will be with us until Summer term starts at BYU on June 23.  We have just over six months from then until Hannah comes home from her mission to Brazil.  We decided to go for it!

Another great impetus to our going on a mission now, is that my sister, Nancy and her husband, Dale, are also going on a mission.  They are going to serve an 18 month mission and he will be the Northeast Area Medical Advisor for 20 missions in the northeast U.S. and southeast Canada.  They will be based in Boston.  We thought it would be awesome if we could go to the Boston Mission as well.  We asked them what they would think if we requested that mission and they were thrilled!  The timing couldn't be more perfect.

We called our Bishop and got the paperwork rolling!  We talked to President Daniel Packard, President of the Massachusetts Boston Mission and asked if he would like us to come there.  He said he would love to have us and told us to put on our application that he "recruited" us.  He told us to have our Bishop and Stake President put that on their portion of the application as well and that he would let the missionary dept. know that he wanted us.  We were able to get our doctor and dentist appointments, paperwork completed, and our interviews with the Bishop and Stake President all completely finished in a week!  Everything was submitted to Salt Lake on January 28, 2014!

We are so excited and we chased those blues right out the door!  I traded in my blues for the anxiety that comes from waiting for a mission call!  Even though there was a 95% chance we would get to go to Boston within our timeframe, there was still that 5% chance we'd go someplace else!  There were several phone calls that came to our Stake President over the next several weeks, including, "Would the Moore's be willing to serve someplace else if needed?" and "Could they go a week later?" Of course, we said yes, but the suspense was building! 

More to come on our actual call and opening our "official" letter!  Needless to say, when you are blue, try to find a purpose outside yourself and pray to be able to serve the Lord and others. It usually works for me and it's definitely working this time around!

Our missionary application picture.