Thursday, August 22, we headed up (once again) to Bentonville--this time for the quarterly senior missionary gathering/district meeting. We went up a little early to have lunch with Elder Shields and Elder Smythe. Both of these missionaries had served in Ft. Smith although not at the same time. Elder Shields was there when we arrived in Ft. Smith and then was transferred out. He served as an assistant to the president for several months at the end of his mission. Elder Smythe served as our zone leader for 6 months in the fall and winter of last year. And then he served in Springdale so we are able to see him frequently at zone meetings and other activities. These are two outstanding missionaries and we loved sharing a bit of time with them before they headed home.
They had a very unusual opportunity. They were to go home the last transfer. Elder Smythe had this great desire to serve with Elder Shields, with who he had built a great friendship over the course of their service even though they were never companions. He mentioned that to President Hathaway in his first interview and mentioned that he would be willing to stay an extra month to serve with Elder Shields. Elder Smythe shared his idea of what he thought they could do in an extra month. Elder Hathaway laughed and said that probably wouldn't work especially right before they were to go home. Then 10 days later, President Hathaway called him back and said it was a go....and then he invited Elder Shields to also extend for a month. They were able to go on splits with every set of elders in the mission in that month and then report back to President Hathaway information about the work, the areas, the housing, everything which was a great help to him as a new mission president.
I asked them how their moms had reacted learning about two weeks before that their sons weren't coming home for 4 more weeks. Elder Shield's mom is a "go with the flow" mom, he said, but Elder Smythe said it took his mom a bit to come around to the idea--although she was very happy for him this past month for all of the great experiences they have had.
No comments:
Post a Comment