3/26/24
We submitted our mission papers on March 4, 2024. The missionary portal said it would take 5-6 weeks to receive our call. Our stake president said it would take 3-4 weeks. I figured we needed to plan for at least a month before it would come. Todd had done a bit of informal research (talking to people) about when mission calls arrive and he was sure it would come on a Tuesday. So, Tuesday, March 26th, three weeks after we had submitted our mission papers, he was ready and waiting for the call to come. We knew we would get a text and an email that informed us the call was waiting to be opened in our missionary portal. I was sure it was not coming that day. I think I wanted another week before I had to start all the work that I knew would begin when we received the call! Another week to pretend like our lives weren’t about to change like never before!
I went on a long walk that morning, had a lazy breakfast, and took my time. Todd was sure by 9:15 we would have the call. (One of his colleagues had received a text about her mission call at 9:16 on a Tuesday morning. This was the timeline he was counting on.) At about 8:30 I went to shower so that I would be ready and cute for pictures at 9:16 when we opened our mission call! (I was still skeptical. Todd was convinced.) I was out of the shower, combing my hair, when Todd came up the stairs with a smile on his face. I asked if we got our text and he said “Yes!” I did not believe him and thought he was teasing me. Just as I was about to say something my phone received a text and, yes, we had gotten our mission call! I absolutely freaked out. (This was the beginning of about four days of freaking out!)
I quickly finished dressing and we went to read our call together. We had previously decided to open the call, just the two of us. Todd had me read my letter to him and it went like this:
“Dear Sister Richardson: You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . . . You are assigned to labor in the Denmark Copenhagen Mission.”
After taking some time to do our formal call acceptance and to read through some of the information in the mission portal, we reached out to our kids to see when we could have a family call to share the news with them. I had thought we’d have an evening call when everyone was home from work. But, they couldn’t wait and neither could we! There was a hilarious and frantic bit of group texting to make things work. I didn’t want to share the news without all four girls and their husbands there. Dana and Isaac were both able to take a quick break from work for a video chat.
We spent that entire day texting and calling family and friends to share the news with them. We were going to Denmark to serve a mission! It seems so wild!