I hope they call me on a mission –
There are a lot of positive things I have gotten from the LDS church. I think the church teaches people to immerse themselves in the scriptures in a way few churches do. Unfortunately we're also given specific ideas about what they mean in the correlated lessons, which discourages people from searching the scriptures with an open mind. There only seem to be a few well-trodden paths down which the Lord sends people. I.e. education, temple, mission, temple marriage, leadership positions, etc.. The idea of joining the Peace Corps, starting a homeless shelter, etc., don't generally seem to be on the list, but I digress.

From the time we joined the LDS church Wife of Bath and I have talked about serving a mission together. The idea of setting aside 18 months in full-time service to the Lord has always been appealing.

Even though it seems unlikely that the LDS church would send us on a mission at this point, I still have that desire to serve, planted through dozens of GC talks on the need for senior missionary couples.

The nice thing is that now we can pray about what the Lord wants us to do and pick one of many available agencies to volunteer for. We could serve international missions, or we could just pack up and move to, say, Spartanburg SC and be full-time volunteers for any number of relief organizations. We get to decide after much prayer and contemplation, rather than based on the ten seconds or so of inspiration sent to the President of the Church.

I hope they call me on a mission!