New Beginnings!

                             ( L-R) Elder & Sister Thomas, Sister & President Workman

    Here we are, brand new missionaries entering our mission, the Family and Church History Headquarters Mission.  This is our mission President and his wife, President and Sister Workman. He is a great speaker and scriptorian; I love to hear him speak.  She is a gem.  We are very blessed to have them leading our mission.
     In our mission you spend the first two weeks getting oriented and learning all about computers (if you don't already know) and about FamilySearch, the Tree program and all other things genealogy. We would meet every morning at 7:30 for a devotional and then work with our individual trainers on our own family history between other informative presentations about the mission.  At the end of the two weeks we have what they call our "Go Forth Day" where we are given our assigned zone to serve in for the duration of our mission and then go to the temple.
    When we decided to serve another mission we both knew that we wanted to go back to Salt Lake to our previous mission field...and we knew we were needed there because the numbers of missionaries was so low.  So it wasn't a surprise when we got our call in the mail:  FCHH Mission in Salt Lake City, Utah.  We also wanted to serve with friends that we had served with before, specifically, Shon Watkins, a Church employee, and Sister Nancy Escobedo, a full time Church Service Missionary (she lives at home and serves).  They are in the Data Quality Zone which is one of about 23 zones in our mission.  There is a lot of research, working with patrons on the phone, sorting out FamilySearch problems, etc that goes on in that zone.  We were excited.  So when our names were read on our Go Forth Day and we stood expecting President Workman to say, "Elder and Sister Thomas, you will be serving in the Data Quality Zone," we were quite surprised to hear him say instead, "Elder and Sister Thomas, you will be serving in the Training Zone."  My mouth dropped to the floor.  Not only was it not what we'd asked for, it was where we had been for two weeks and it was a frightening place to serve for us.  
     Learning to recognize the Lord's will for each of us and then doing it is one of the most important things we do in this life.  Learning to trust the Lord is another.  We knew then that what we wanted was not what the Lord had in mind for us and we immediately decided to go forth determined to do our best (with shaking knees) and just trust that the Lord knows us better than we know ourselves and He will help us every step of the way.