One thing we discovered on our first mission in Germany was the joy of working with other senior missionaries.
Our Mission here in the Adriatic countries is unique because of the large number of older people serving. Many Missions throughout the world may have 1-3 couples that serve in the mission. We are so blessed to have 54 senior missionaries to serve with here.
Our Mission Leaders, Brian and Angelika Cordray and are the world's greatest recruiters of seniors.
We serve in a variety of different areas of responsibility. Our missionary assignment is MLS, Member Leader Support. We work as support for young missionaries and the local members of our church.
Some of the other areas of assignment are: our Mission medical advisor is Sister Ballou and Elder Ballou has several other administrative jobs.
Some are called to work in the office everyday to keep the mission running. The four serving in the office are currently all singles that are without a spouse. Sister Johnson is the Mission Secretary, Sister Draper is over finances, Sister Merrick and now Sister Jepson is over telephones and cars and Elder Newton is over legal and visas to keep us safe in the five different countries.
One couple are over all the apartments for us all to live in. Their job is super hard.
We are so lucky to have a couple that provide meals for all of our trainings and conferences.
Others, like our neighbors the Lambs that work as Humanitarian Missionaries that work with NGOs to help people not of our faith to better themselves financially. Others with this assignment help with employment of locals, helping the church with providing medical equipment and training for local hospitals, helping refugees to learn English or the local language.
Two couples, the Parkinsons and Goodriches work as councilors to the Mission Leaders to help in administrative affairs of the church in our five countries.
Elder and Sister Goodrich
I feel bad we don't have space to show all 54 of our Senior Missionaries that we are blessed to work with. They are all so committed to their work and in serving our Lord.
There are many other hats that we are asked to wear from time to time. The joke with us seniors is that we all wear multiple hats, I guess that makes time go fast and we feel a good sense of worth that we are helping people here and we are helping the work to move forward. The great things that we bring to our missions are our life time of experiences and knowledge that we have collected over the years. That really is the best talents we have to share.
As I stated in the beginning of this post, the relationships we build with these other seniors that have left their homes and families and put their lives on hold to come out to serve our Lord and our fellow man is amazing to me. We build friendship that will last for the rest of our lives. A senior elder told us the other day that when we retire our world and circle of friends usually gets smaller. By serving on a mission our world and circle of friends has increased greatly.
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