 |
| The mailman delivering Ethan's mission call! |
 |
| Our security cameras picked up our mailman delivering Ethan's call! |
 |
| Ethan's mission call |
 |
| The call sits waiting to be opened |
 |
| Ethan and his call |
 |
| Ethan is afraid someone is going to open it before he does! |
I was surprised that Ethan's call wasn't stateside. I had prepared him to serve in the states, telling him that wherever he was called to serve, he had probably made a promise to someone in Heaven that he would find them and bring them the gospel. I figured that because of Ethan's diagnosis with ADHD and his medication for it, and the fact that our medical insurance does not cover medication or doctor visits outside of the United States, that Ethan would have to serve state-side. When he opened and started reading his call, and said, "S..." I thought for sure he was going to say "Salt Lake City." When he said, "South..." I thought he was going to say "South Dakota" or "South Carolina." So when he said "South Africa Durban," I was shocked! I didn't know how it was possible for him to serve outside the US, but I figured they had it all figured out and I was excited for him. He was excited too, and that night and over the next week we spent a lot of time looking over the mission website, reading about South Africa, looking at photos online, talking to other missionaries who had served there, etc.
About a week and a half after he received his call, James and I were at home for lunch when the phone rang. Our home phone doesn't have voicemail set up (we used to, but I only listened to the messages every couple months so it did more harm than good for people to be able to leave messages!) and we are hardly ever home during the day. So even the fact that they caught us at home was amazing. It was a lady from Missionary Medical. She said she had a neat story to tell me. She said that because of Ethan's ADHD and medication for it, his papers had been "flagged" at every step of the process that he had to serve stateside. When it got to the general authority to make the call, however, he assigned him to serve in South Africa. When she got ahold of his call, she went back and checked each step of the process again, and sure enough, it had been correctly flagged at each step, to serve stateside. She knew there must be some special reason that he was being sent to South Africa. She said she called our stake president 3 times to discuss the issue. I am not sure what was said in each conversation, but President Irene did tell James that he was told that the person sitting with the general authority said, "no, he has to serve stateside," and the general authority said, "no, he is supposed to serve in South Africa."
She also called Ethan's mission president and discussed the situation with him. She said that he is very excited for Ethan to come. She said that many foreign missions would not have had either doctors who could treat Ethan, or the medication that he needs for his ADHD. The mission president told her that indeed they do have a doctor in the mission who can treat ADHD, AND they have Ethan's specific kind of medication. She did some research to find out what it would cost, because the Church's medical insurance does not cover medication or medical care for pre-existing conditions, so it will be something we will have to pay. She was told it would cost 1,000 per month. She panicked, and then was told that was in their South African currency (rand), and that it would equal about $80 in US dollars. She said the doctor appointments, which he'd have to have twice at year, would also be about $80 US dollars. She asked if we could pay that, since it would come out of our pockets. I told her that we would. She said that we have to remind Ethan in every letter to take his medication, because if he doesn't, they will send him home, or reassign him to a different mission in the US. She also said he has to be very responsible with the money we put in his account, and not spend it on other things, like she said many missionaries with ADHD do (she said almost all of them buy backpacks, which I thought was funny!). She again reiterated that she doesn't know why, but Ethan is SUPPOSED to be in South Africa Durban. I wonder what he needs to accomplish there.
When I told Ethan about the whole experience, he was even more excited. I wasn't sure how many people we would tell about it, but last week he got up in fast and testimony meeting and told the whole ward about it, so I guess he's fine with us sharing it. I would love to someday interview that general authority and find out what kind of inspiration he had in making that assignment. I wonder how he envisioned Ethan there. I wonder what his special mission will be. I am grateful he has a mission president who is excited to welcome him with open arms. We have already received a letter from him, and we've started the VISA paperwork (which includes an FBI check, fingerprinting, sending them our bank statement, etc etc etc). The process has been tedious, but exciting. That's what we spent most of Spring Break doing. Visa photos, driving record, chest x-ray, typhoid shot, notarized signatures, etc. Paperwork. A necessary evil of missionary service! And we're not even done yet!
Mission assignments are inspired!
