"farewell"

Our "farewell" will be on July 24. We will be speaking in Sacrament meeting at the West Mountain 1st ward. It is at 0900.

We learn more

We had dinner at the Mendenhall's.  They served the same mission 2 years ago.  They were in the same apartment we will be in and had the same assignment.  It was an interesting evening.  They were very excited about the mission and had a "great time"  They spend most of the time making sure we knew what restaurants and sights to visit.  His main job was to always answer the phone, helping coordinate the medical care of the missionaries.  He worked mainly with the mission Presidents' wives.  He took about 400 calls a month.
She produced a monthly medical newsletter and supported the mission President's wives. It was clear that Penny's responsibilities will be of her own making.  She was disappointed that Sister Mendenhall did not seem to get much of a chance to teach.
We will be free to travel anywhere in our area (see map below) and are actually encouraged to visit all the the 18 missions in the area.  We can call home anytime and with any frequency and receive and entertain visitors.
I am not sure about being "on call" 24/7 for 18 months, but the medical care is actually delivered by other physicians.
We will be in the MTC one week starting July 25 and then one week for special training in Salt Lake.  We will still be living at home during that time.  Darrin and Clarissa are kind enough not to make noises about getting us out of the house sooner.

DAD

Our mission area

We had the opportunity to talk with the missionaries we will be replacing.  They are responsible for the North American Central Area (see the map for the approximate boundaries). I do not know how many missions this represents but it looks like about 14.  We will be responsible for coordinating the medical needs of the missionaries, including the senior missionaries.  We have Nauvoo!  Because the area is so large, they are thinking about dividing it, if they can find enough docs.  We will be living in a two bedroom, two bath apartment in Downers Grove, IL.  This is the same mission that one of the members of our stake (John Mendenhall) served in a couple of years ago.  We will be meeting with him and his wife this week to get more information.

 We are learned about some of the differences in being a senior missionary.  They have health insurance at a reasonable rate.  They pay for travel to the MTC and to the mission field. We will not be staying in the MTC during our training.  We have one week at the MTC and then one week of training in Salt Lake.

Since one of the things that bothered Penny the most about medicine was the time apart, she is thinking that this will be a much better experience since we are always together, (I am also looking forward).  However one of the things that was hard about medicine was being on call.  I recently woke up to the realization that I will be on call 24/7 for 18 months!

We are both sure that this is were the Lord wants us at this time.

Greg and Penny (not "Elder and Sister" yet)