M-Minus 0 - Day 1 - 18 July 2016

No more waiting. Today we signed in at the Missionary Training Center for five days of instruction prior to embarking for Kiev, Ukraine, for eighteen months. The day was unlike any we had ever experienced together. Yesterday we were set apart as missionaries, but today we got our "black badges", the symbol to LDS folk that a person is a missionary. Andy's reads "Старишина Гиббонс" (Russianized from Ukrainian), Marsha's reads "Cестра Гиббонс". Both of them then read, "Церква Иисуса Хриcта".

What an amazing group of senior missionary couples we met for the first time, each going to a different place, and each having fascinating stories to tell. We met cattle ranchers, school teachers, retired firemen, and retired business executives. We met the woman whose cancer is in remission sufficiently that she and her husband can accept a call. We met a lawyer who had taught law courses in Russia, and mothers with successful families and lots of grandchildren. Fascinating people, most of them past retirement and looking for significant service to their community and the world.

The variety of assignments these people have is surprising: women are traveling to Chicago to help with the needs of struggling single mothers, office clerks and organizational administrators, leadership support trainers, and gospel teachers. It was pointed out to us today that these missionaries are choosing a course that causes them to turn outward in service just at a time of life when most are turning inward and hanging up the gloves after a successful professional life.

We are humbled by the giving attitudes and vast and varied experience of this new set of friends, one of whom with his wife is being sent to rebuild homes in the Philippines, and others who will be English-language teachers in other countries.

We are most impressed by the assignment of some who will be assigned to work with a worldwide educational programs aimed at elevating the employability of people in many countries throughout the world, while providing the foundations for a lifetime of learning.