What it’s like waiting for an LDS mission call

Since you were in primary, you’ve been waiting to grow an “extra foot or two” so you could leave on your mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Now that you are finally ready “to teach and preach and do as missionaries do,” it is time to fill out those mission papers and receive that year-and-a-half to two-year call.

 

You begin by filling out mounds of paperwork.

At least it is all electronic now.

 

You ask yourself the hard questions, “How much do I really want to learn another language?”

So, you put down “very interested” and move on to the other questions where your answers don’t really matter.

 

And you have your interviews with your bishop and stake president.

Bishop:

 

Future Missionary:

Don’t let the nerves get to you.

 

They are finally in!

 

But now you have to wait.

Why isn’t this an automatic process like an ATM?

 

So you set up a Facebook page and invite all your family and friends to guess where you will go.

“Hey guys, I’ll be getting my mission call in the next couple of weeks, so now is your last chance to guess where I will be going.”

 

And everyone asks you where you want to go and where you don’t want to go.

And you lie and say you would be good with going wherever the Lord calls you.

 

And you daydream of all the good you are going to do on your mission.

You’ll be baptizing the nations and serving the less fortunate so well that President Thomas S. Monson will want to write you a personal letter congratulating you on your good work.

 

Then a week goes by and you think it will never come.

There is no way the actual mission can be a harder than waiting for the call.

 

And you start to get irritated when anyone asks you about it.

I don’t want to talk about it.

 

And you start checking your mailbox multiple times a day.

But it is never there.  It’s always bills and ads.

 

You get mad because your friends that turned in their papers around the same time as you are getting their mission calls.

Finally, your call arrives in the mail.

And, yes, it does feel like you’ve been accepted to Hogwarts.

 

So you take a picture of the envelope and post it online to tell everyone it has come.

But you can’t open it until later that night when all your friends can come over and you can connect with your extended family on Skype. (Why did you plan on opening your call with a bunch of people?)

 

At last, everyone is gathered together and you begin to read your call.

 

Only to find out someone has pranked you.

Really guys? Now isn’t the time.

 

You get your real call and begin reading.

It’s time. My whole life has led up to this moment.

 

You get to the name of your mission and pause because you can’t even read the name of your mission.

You have been called to the Ukraine Da-neip-er-protosk Mission. What? How am I supposed to serve there if I can’t even say the name of the city?!

 

And you realize you don’t know where that city is.

 

Or you’re relieved that you can read the name and you didn’t get called to one of those places you really didn’t want to go.

Because you knew you were lying to yourself all along.

 

But who cares, because you’re going on a mission.