Ready For Assignment

Yesterday, my son’s mission call status was updated to “Ready For Assignment.”

Once a week, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles reviews new missionary applications and makes missionary assignments.  This usually happens on Fridays, but it can happen on other days of the week as well.

I often wondered about how this process actually happens.  It seems that it could easily be handled purely by computer–Mission X needs Y missionaries.  Missionary Z is available to serve and qualifies based on information provided in the online application.  All of this is easily programmable.

However, this isn’t how it happens.

President Henry B. Eyring, an Apostle and member of the First Presidency helps shed some light on the subject of how mission assignments are made:

“I have had [many] experiences feeling of the Holy Ghost…But I’ve never felt what I have felt as I have…participated in the assigning of missionaries…Because of technology, it is possible for us to have your picture and the information about you displayed. And then quickly, on that same screen, all the missions of the Church with all of their needs are displayed. Within minutes, and sometimes less than a minute, the impression comes so powerfully that it would be, if it were a single instance, something that you would never forget. Can you imagine sitting there for hours at a time, having that happen time after time without interruption? I testify to you that it is real…[The Lord] somehow not only knows you but loves you enough to ensure that your call is where He needs you to go to teach the children of our Heavenly Father.”

Pretty amazing.  Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the First Quorum of the Seventy gave an address in General Conference in April, 2010 entitled “The Divine Call of a Missionary” in which he shared his experience of being part of that weekly meeting in which mission assignments are made.  It is a great insight into how missionaries are called of God.

So the fact that my son’s mission call status is now “Ready for Assignment” means that the next time this meeting is held, it is possible that my son’s face will appear on the screen and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will greet him with “Hello, Elder Smith!”  He could be assigned to a field of labor within a week, and, if everything goes normally, the mission call letter will arrive at our home on the day before Thanksgiving.

But what else does “Ready for Assignment” mean?

For my son, I believe that he really is ready for assignment.  He has been preparing to serve the Lord as a missionary for quite some time now.  He graduated from seminary.  He is taking a missionary preparation course in his Young Single Adult ward.  He has a testimony of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.   I believe that he will be a good missionary.  He is the kind of young man that President Ezra Taft Benson spoke of when he said

Give me a young man who has kept himself morally clean and has faithfully attended his church meetings.  Give me a young man who has magnified his priesthood and has earned the Duty to God award and is an Eagle Scout.  Give me a young man who is a Seminary graduate and has a burning testimony of the Book of Mormon.  Give me such a young man and I will give you a young man who can perform miracles for the Lord in the mission field and throughout his life.

Yes, my son truly is “Ready for Assignment.”

His mother and I, however, are not ready, despite the fact that this is something that we have been praying for for a long time.  We’re not ready for him to move on to the next part of his life, even though we know how much growth he will experience as he puts his life into the service of the Lord for two years.  We aren’t ready, but we’re not sure if we ever would be ready, because we know that once he leaves, our family will be changed forever.

Yet we understand that it’s time to let him go.  There’s also a lot of excitement as we speculate about where he might be assigned.  Hopefully, it’ll only be about ten more days until that question is answered, as well as the question of when he will start his missionary service.  After that comes the flurry of preparation activities–buying suits and white shirts and ties and luggage, attending the temple as often as possible, and doing what it takes to put one’s non-missionary life on hold for two years.

He’s “Ready for Assignment” and we’re going to be on pins and needles until the assignment arrives.