Years earlier my sister, Veva expressed that she wanted to serve a mission but wouldn't go on her own. I told her we could go together.
After retirement we were in Japan visiting Veva's son and his family and I said to Veva, "Our mission is on my list so when we get home were putting in our papers." She surprised me by saying, "We'll go home and pray about this."
"What!" I thought, it's on my list of things to do! I decided I would go alone if need be and of course Veva supported my decision and we went home to start the process.
Towards the end of March, while visiting Jeremy in Colorado we filled out papers and submitted them. We took care to erased all tracks on the computer so we could keep it a secret. I then asked my children to come to Veva's 70th surprise birthday party. Veva was turning 69 but they didn't know that. Not only did they not know Veva was really turning 69 it really was a surprise for them to be there when we opened our mission call.
The first part of April, Veva called me and said her Stake Pres. had called and said the Mission Head Quarters had called and asked if we would extend our mission. We had put in for a one year mission because Veva had kids in Japan and they would be coming home in about a year and a half. She informed me that she had said, "Yes"! We quickly hung up because my Stake Pres. was calling me. We were in shock about that time and to stay calm, I would tell Veva that we still might serve in the states. An 18 month mission did not guarantee that we would be going to a foreign mission.
The week the call was to come it still hadn't come on Wednesday or Thursday. Veva and I were worried because we had most of my kids coming and we were face timing those not able to make it. That would be 6 a.m for kids in Japan.We had set the birthday party for Friday afternoon (April 13, Veva's Birthday) which was plenty of time for our mission calls to get here.
Friday morning Veva called to say there was nothing in her mail box. We were heart sick! It looked like everyone would come and we would say, "We wanted to have you here when we opened our mission call but we will just have to call you when it comes and tell you where we are going"!
I didn't check my mail Friday until 1:00 pm because I couldn't stand the disappointment. With faith of a mustard seed I finally checked my mail and my call WAS THERE! We could have the surprise birthday and surprise mission call opening after all.
It was a fun experience with family and facetime, seeing the confused look on everyone's faces ; were we going on a mission? Was she 70 years old? Was this really a birthday party?
When we told our brothers and their wives they were shocked and supportive. (Of us leaving town, even the country!)
The following day Veva and I went to see Chris Reber in the hospital following her hip surgery. We checked Veva's mail box and her call had come.
We took Veva's unopened mission call to the hospital and told Chris that we wanted her to tell us if we were going together to the same place.
Chris was confused until we gave her the mission call and she recognized the envelope because she had received her own call in years past.