CALLED TO SERVE, Part 2

This blog entry is part 2 of the entry of my Mission experiences.


One of the first orders of business after I entered the Salt Lake Mission Home was to apply for my Ministerial Deferment from the draft. Those of us who were 1A could not be promised that the deferments could be obtained and that the possibility existed that we could still be drafted. However, the Chairman of the Military Relations Committee of the Church, Elder Gordon B. Hinckley, had a good relationship with Selective Service and the chance was pretty good we would get our 2Y deferments. He handled all the paperwork for everyone. I got mine.

The Salt Lake Mission Home was just west of Temple Square. The location of the Salt Lake Mission Home is now somewhere in the Conference Center. I was met at the airport by the girl in Salt Lake City I had been dating for a couple of summers, whenever she came to California to stay with her Aunt and Uncle. She drove me to the Mission Home and we made a date for her to pick me up on the day we finished as we could visit with family, friends, and yes, even girl friends… although we were expected to maintain Missionary Standards.

I was assigned a room with 3 other New England Mission Missionaries. I found out that there were 28 of us going to New England, the largest group of Missionaries ever sent to New England at one time. Our daily routine involved eating and classes. We had individual classes as well larger classes, and devotionals; being treated to talks by General Authorities and our Mission Home President and his wife. I remember one lesson we had on how to iron a shirt and how to cook a healthy breakfast. I cannot remember who the General Authorities were who spoke to us, but I would imagine that they are all gone now as they were old then. After dinner we had more classes, usually in small groups, working on memorizing the first discussion. Learning the first discussion was our goal while we were in the Salt Lake Mission Home.

In those days we were not set apart as missionaries by our Stake Presidents, but by a General Authority. Because there were only 15 operating Temples worldwide, many young missionaries came to the Mission Home without having been to the Temple. On one of the first days, we went to the Salt Lake Temple. Following the Temple session, we went to the room in the Temple where the General Authorities meet every Thursday and a member of the First Presidency spoke to us. It wasn’t President McKay, so it was either President Hugh B. Brown or President N. Eldon Tanner. Then we went to the Church Office Building where we were set apart as Missionaries by a General Authority. I was set apart by Elder Alma Sonne, an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

One afternoon we went shopping to pick up some of the last minute items we might need. We went to ZCMI downtown. These were the days before the big malls sprung up across from Temple Square. ZCMI was an old store with wooden floors and a musty odor. I didn’t have much money, but I did purchase a camera. I got a Kodak Instamatic for a few dollars. That was all I bought. Over the next two years I took lots of pictures with that little camera. It would later go with me to Vietnam.

Looking out of the window in our room, we had a beautiful view of the Salt Lake Temple and the Angle Moroni. I expect that as a group of 19 and 20 year olds staying together in a room, we were involved in the antics of young men. We all got along well, and we were assigned in companionships. I cannot remember the name of my companion, and I would never see him again during my Mission. I did learn, though, that he spent most of his mission in the maritime provinces of Canada. As we got ready to check out of our rooms, we had to make the beds with clean linins for the next group coming in. We short sheeted all the beds.

At the end of our time we were released to visit with family and friends for a few hours before we had to be back to the Salt Lake Mission Home for transportation to the Union Pacific Depot. My young lady friend picked me up and she took me to the “This Is the Place” Monument. The next time I would go to that historic monument was with Scott, when Jannie and I took him to Missionary Training Center for his Mission.

Back at the Mission Home we gathered our bags and were bussed to the Union Pacific Depot. It was a bustling place, filled with Missionaries in dark suits, waiting for trains to take them to their fields of labor. Our train was called and we boarded the train to Chicago. We didn’t have sleeping cars like in the movies, but had seats not unlike busses or airplanes. We had to eat in the dining car, and that was not inexpensive. As I remember, when we stopped at train depots along the way we got off the train and made a dash to a store and got goodies to take on the train. The train pulled out and late the next day we were getting off at a crossing in a rural area outside Chicago. A few minutes later some vans from the Mission in Chicago pulled up and transported us to Chicago O’Hare where we caught a flight to Boston. I remember we flew out on Delta Airlines. The seat I had was broken and would not stay in the upright position. I had to lean a little forward during take-off and landing. (A few years later I would fly Delta again and I swear it was the same airplane because the seat I was assigned had the same defect.) We were 28 Elders going to New England and were told that we were the first group of state-side Missionaries to be flown to our Missions. A pretty historic group, we were.

TO BE CONTINUED