** DAY 6 -- Singing with Thousands of Other Missionaries

So much to do, so little time.  Today we go and see what the doc is going to tell me what I have to do to have that health I need to give all I have.  Will report on that tomorrow.

Trying to figure out the next few weeks.  We go in the MTC next Monday.  We will lodge there at the MTC as a Senior Couple until Friday, then go home to where we have been living for the last two years.  We enter the MTC again the following Monday as CES Missionaries until Wednesday, then home again.  Then Thursday we go to SLC, the headquarters as PEF missionaries.  We stay there one day, then we go home again.

Then on September 17th, early in the morning, we fly away.  So though we will be missionaries starting in six days, we will not be in the DR until September 17th.  The next two weeks will be mostly preparation.  We will have done all we can do to prepare our personal things and then we get taught, instructed, motivated, etc, and then we go.

So many people have been so kind, wishing us well, asking if there is anything they can do for us, wanting to help in getting ready, etc.  But so much of it has to be done by us.  There are still things to purchase.  There are things to move to the storage unit.  There are things to box up.  There are things to deliver to kids.  There are appreciation notes to give out.  There is things to study.  And so on.

Never did I ever think that getting ready to go on a mission was so time consuming.  And as my bishop bore witness many times, never did I realize that Satan would do so much to get us down, try to get us to lose sight of the dream, cause rifts between loved ones, urge us to lose faith in "things," and put obstacles in our way.

All I have to do is remember the commitment I made 42 years ago when I returned from the mission field that I would return with my eternal companion, then the vision and dream returns and I can't wait.  All I have to do is sing in my mind "Called to Serve" and I start weeping.  All I have to do is remember the glorious experience to be with thousands of dedicated missionaries in the MTC singing together with enthusiasm any song, with gusto, testimony, and love of our Father in Heaven.  I can't wait.