I didn’t grow up singing I Hope They Call Me on a Mission because it probably hadn’t been written when I was growing up; but if it had, it was a Primary song and I didn’t go to Primary. I really don’t know when I started thinking I wanted to go on a mission. My activity in the Church was sporadic as I grew up. My mother was almost totally in active; we didn’t even go to Church on Easter and Christmas. But we went to Church every so often, and did go to a lot of the Ward Dinners. When we moved to Dallas Mom decided it was time for her to get back to Church, so we went to the Dallas Ward almost every week. I turned 12 and was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. When we moved to Los Angeles I don’t remember ever going to Church. We only lived in the Los Angeles area a short time when my parents divorced and we moved back to San Jose. We began going to Church again, and at age 14, I was ordained a Teacher. At 16 I became a Priest. I still didn’t know much about Missionaries.
I was the oldest Priest in our Ward. All my friends were a year younger than me, and we began talking about missions; we began having lessons in Priesthood Meeting that were designed to prepare us for Missionary service. Soon I graduated high school and started college. I began attending M-Men and Gleaners, although I still attended Priest Quorum as I was still a Priest. In those days you generally remained a Priest until you went on your Mission, or turned 20 (at least in my Ward – but then again, I was the oldest Priest and the first one I knew who actually turned 18). My friends at Church were still in high school and in the Priest Quorum. I continued attending Priest Quorum.
Shortly after I graduated in June 1963, I was approached by my Bishop, Murray Gardner, and asked to visit with him. He offered me a job. Our Ward building was still under construction and the Church used member labor to build the buildings. Part of that effort was calling young men to serve “Building Missions”. It was a way to get young men on missions and Church service who didn’t show interest in going on normal full-time missions. Building Missions usually lasted 18 months. Like full-time Missionaries, Building Missionaries had companions. The Building Missionary assigned to our ward, Elder Richard DeWolf, did not have a companion. I was hired by the Church to be his labor companion, working with him during the day.
I was working at the church building laying floor tile on November 22, 1963. I had the radio on and the music was interrupted with a news bulletin. President Kennedy had been shot while in a motorcade in Dallas. A few minutes later we all went home. I listened to the coverage on TV.
In my first semester of college I didn’t do very well. Spent too much time at the beach! I was put on academic probation and had one semester to bring my grade point average (GPA) back up to 2.0. The next semester I still kept going to the beach and earned a whopping 1.8 GPA, and then had to sit out a semester before I could re-enroll. The summer term did not count as my semester out. So I had the summer and the entire fall semester to do something. I worked at the Church for the end of 1963, and then Elder DeWolf got a companion. I got a job with the Parks and Recreation Department for the City of San Jose.
It was during that time I committed to the Lord, the Bishop, and to me that I was going to go on a Mission, how or when I was not sure. As I look back on my life, I hope that decision came out of a true commitment to serve the Lord and not to avoid the draft! The military draft was in full swing in those days, although Vietnam was some place very few people ever heard of and a story still buried deep in the newspaper. All young men age 18 were eligible to be drafted for two years of active duty service. However, the draft board didn’t usually draft in my area until age 20. I was 19 and easily received a student deferment from the draft. I lost the deferment later that year when the deferment expired. I couldn’t get a renewal because I was not in school. At that point, my draft status became 1A and I was available. If I was going to go on a Mission, I needed to act or the window of opportunity would close. I am going to give myself the benefit of the doubt that I went on a mission to serve the Lord and not to evade the draft.
I now had to convince my Mother that I needed to go because she had not been really supportive of the idea of my leaving home. Divorced and having recently lost 8 year-old Henry James in death after a life long struggle with diabetes and related problems, she seemed to want to keep her other children by her side. But to my surprise, she didn’t object, but did want to talk to Aunt Dee and Uncle Tom. Everyone in the family looked to Uncle Tom as the “Great Sage” in our family. It was Easter time and we were all in Capitola. One evening my mother broached the subject. Aunt Dee thought it a wonderful idea for me to serve a mission, but that I should finish my schooling first. But, I wasn’t in school, and I was draft eligible. Uncle Tom shocked everyone at the table. He thought about it then said he thought it would be a great learning experience for me and that I should go; it was just too bad I was going for the wrong Church. Then he roared with laughter because he said it took a Catholic to get a Mormon on his Mission. And I was going on a Mission!
The very next Sunday after I got home, I met with Bishop Gardner and he gave me the papers and I began the process of filling out the application, getting my physical and my dental work done. A few weeks later, all completed, I turned in the papers to the Bishop. Then I had to have my interview with the Stake President. The night of my interview the Stake President had been called out of town on business, so I had my interview with President Abraham, the First Counselor, and the father of my girlfriend. Talk about a probing interview. But things were in order and he signed the papers and sent them on to Salt Lake City. Then the waiting game began.
It was hard to find a full time job for the unskilled, right out of school, so I got a second part time job. I went to work at the new McDonald’s Hamburgers – “Over 3 Billion Served” – on Highway 9 in the spring of 65. Since the beginning of 64 I had worked for the San Jose Parks and Recreation Department as a playground supervisor. After I was off work at McD’s, I went straight to the playground. I can’t remember what date I put my papers in, but in July of 65 my sister brought an envelope to me at the swimming pool where I was working that day. It was my Mission Call and I was called to the New England Mission, and I had to be in the Salt Lake Mission Home September 22nd.
At my Missionary Farewell the member of the Bishopric conducting the Sacrament Meeting said that Elder Pritchard was “going to Boston and the New England Mission; the only English speaking Mission where one must first attend the Language Training Mission before going”. Of course that brought a good chuckle, but after arriving in Boston I understood what he was talking about. He was a good authority on the subject as he was from Boston.
Two of my best friends in the Priest Quorum Scott Smith and Jamie Ballentine, also received their calls and had to be in the Salt Lake Mission Home the same day. We flew out together, although we didn’t see each other once we were there. They were going on foreign missions (Uruguay and Germany), and I was on a stateside mission. After a couple of days in the Salt Lake Mission Home, they were sent to Provo and the Language Training Mission. These two missionary training facilities would shortly become the Missionary Training Center in Provo. At one point on my Mission there were 5 of us from our Priest Quorum all on missions at the same time. We started a “round-robin” letter so that we could all keep up with each other. We kept it up faithfully until we started going home, then it died out.
TO BE CONTINUED
0 Read My Post:
Post a Comment