Senior missionary service overview: transcript
This transcript was generated automatically from the recording and may contain errors. It has not been manually verified. Time links return to that point in the video.
00:00:05 We've traveled quite a bit in our married life. We have been from northern Utah, clear down to southern Utah. We're not very great. I'm Jill Singleton. This is my husband Dwayne. I was totally shocked to go to the Philippines. Hold on tight! That's fast! I have been a widow for 30 years. My name is Sister Ellen Stone, and I literally looked on a mission as a great adventure. From a traffic standpoint, this is an adventure. The stroke here is unique. The maga's in it.
00:00:38 to the best I've ever tasted.
00:00:39 I'm sister Marilyn Owen, and this is my husband, Charles Owen.
00:00:43 So you like this?
00:00:45 This is good.
00:00:46 The whole chicken.
00:00:47 The whole chicken.
00:00:49 It's better than sitting home in the same queue
00:00:51 at the same church and the same thing doing the same
00:00:53 whatever.
00:00:54 You come out here, and you'll be stimulating.
00:00:56 This is so exciting.
00:00:58 Hi, I'm sister Robin Gunnell, and this is my husband, Steve.
00:01:01 When this is on, it says the Gunnells are home.
00:01:03 We have a great view, but best of all,
00:01:07 We are humanitarian missionaries here in the Philippines.
00:01:11 When we first came, we didn't have any idea what our responsibilities would be.
00:01:15 There were some hesitations about am I going to have to pound on doors?
00:01:18 There's a young man, I served in Germany.
00:01:20 And I think doors was one of the toughest experiences.
00:01:24 So that is not our mission at all, the pro-sliding.
00:01:26 I love it. You are beautiful.
00:01:29 You are not expected to live a life like the young missionaries to go out in Brazil.
00:01:35 So don't think about a senior mission the same way you think about a youth mission.
00:01:41 My particular assignment is the Family History Department.
00:01:45 So I spent a lot of time training these local Filipinos to act as church service missionaries
00:01:50 so they can help with family search.
00:01:53 Okay, Gregoria doesn't have her work done.
00:01:55 She's a gifted piano player, so she's totally involved with our area office choir.
00:02:00 It's just been a blessing because they love to sing.
00:02:03 And they sing well and with enthusiasm and that's part of how they worship.
00:02:15 When we found out that we would be working as a literacy project, I was thrilled.
00:02:20 Having been a first grade teacher, she has brought an extra special capability to all the school and literacy projects we've done.
00:02:28 I had this in my very own classroom which I love.
00:02:30 They have both applied their talents to the work at hand and turned it into something greater than then we could have imagined
00:02:37 Very good. And what does it say? You just have to have books to practice. So that's why we're so excited to be here today
00:02:43 Because look at all the practice and the project is for non-readers
00:02:47 They're little children who are not up to grade levels. They don't understand what's going on
00:02:52 They get frustrated and they drop out of school and at that point their their lot in life is cast
00:02:57 Are you finding some good ones?
00:02:58 Having a librarian or chapel is something new,
00:03:01 and it's always a delightful experience for the children,
00:03:04 and they just love it.
00:03:05 And there's thousands of kids across the country
00:03:07 that are now benefiting from this program.
00:03:10 To see how a little bit could help so much,
00:03:14 it's a huge blessing.
00:03:19 Our responsibility is primarily for wheelchairs.
00:03:23 I can put a wheelchair together.
00:03:25 Perfect.
00:03:25 Man fat and I try medium sometimes, but it together fast.
00:03:30 She's so strong I can barely hang on to it.
00:03:34 Only one time did I have the wheel on backwards.
00:03:38 Today we're at a teaching hospital
00:03:40 and they are assessing patients for prosthetics and wheelchairs.
00:03:45 They're fitted, they're customized,
00:03:47 they're really heads and shoulders
00:03:48 above any other quality of wheelchair
00:03:50 that can be available to them.
00:03:52 It's estimated that there's about 1 million people in the Philippines that need a wheelchair.
00:03:58 Many, many children that come in that have never been able to be mobile on their own.
00:04:05 They've laid on a floor or they have been carried by their parents some for a few years
00:04:11 and some for their entire life.
00:04:13 This is Anna and she was born with Club Feet and she's been using her grandmother's walker.
00:04:19 This is her first wheelchair that she'll have.
00:04:21 We don't just change that child's life, but we change families.
00:04:26 Parents now have the freedom to go places where they couldn't have carried this child in the past.
00:04:34 That's amazing to see how it helps those people, and they're so thankful.
00:04:40 Lord Jesus Christ commanded us to love Him, and how could we show that, loving our neighbors?
00:04:47 We get to be Heavenly Father's hands and do that.
00:04:50 I am also grateful for that. I'm just able to be a recipient of that.
00:04:54 This is a miracle.
00:05:03 I like that.
00:05:04 What are these back here?
00:05:05 There's a lot more flexibility with the senior mission, which surprised me.
00:05:09 Our schedule is as flexible as we need it to be.
00:05:12 I think the assumption now is we're smart enough to put our own to stay out of trouble
00:05:15 so we don't have to have such a rich amount of life.
00:05:18 You could really almost develop your own program.
00:05:22 and that's what we did with malnutrition is they assigned it to us and we were
00:05:26 given full reign to develop at how we wanted to to run with it with very little
00:05:32 supervision which was wonderful. Did we focus on those families that had acute
00:05:36 needs? The church is really really concerned with malnutrition in the world.
00:05:41 What are you next? Let's see how tall you are. We have a height station and a weight
00:05:45 station to be able to determine where they are and where they fit on that
00:05:49 malnutrition scale.
00:05:50 See that number?
00:05:51 That's how taught you are.
00:05:52 To see these kids, when they come in and they step on the scale, 17.0, sometimes I have to
00:05:58 leave the room because they're so thin.
00:06:01 And to help them is just amazing.
00:06:03 It's just amazing.
00:06:04 Not just give them food, but to teach them what to do.
00:06:06 So it stops the cycle.
00:06:08 We started with nothing.
00:06:10 Since it's a pilot, there were no manuals, no forms, no infrastructure, basically to
00:06:15 start from and then to be able to establish some kind of a process moving
00:06:19 forward to how they can address those individual needs. He was involved in
00:06:22 pharmaceutical sales and she just go get her. So it kind of fits into their
00:06:27 level of interest and some skill sets that they brought to their mission from
00:06:32 prior experience. Here's what we're recommending moving forward. It's
00:06:35 extremely successful and we look forward right now as a Philippines to be able
00:06:40 to expand that into the whole entire country. They really made difference. Me
00:06:44 and my wife have planned to be like them, to be like a senior couple missionary and help others.
00:06:51 Well the senior couples really bond. I'm sure it's that way in every area of the church.
00:06:56 And we'll get as many as 30 together on our Friday night dinners.
00:07:04 We've developed the blasting friendships. I'm sure that we'll carry on after we go home from
00:07:08 people we've met through. We're called this area self-reliant services
00:07:17 is his missionaries. This is our fifth mission. I'm a oral and maximal surgeon and this is my
00:07:22 assistant. The doctor and I work in the MTG Network Clinic. This is our fourth mission. I'm legal
00:07:29 counsel and assistant lieutenant working in the area office working with missionary
00:07:34 application. We are here in the Philippines as dentist. We receive such strength from the
00:07:40 other senior missionaries who always seem to say the right things or know the right things
00:07:44 or be able to be there, or just support.
00:07:47 I think you've got some weapons in your kids.
00:07:49 So when you talk about friends, oh my gosh.
00:07:54 How's the weather at home?
00:07:55 Clear it up.
00:07:56 It's going to be very cold tonight.
00:07:58 As I thought about serving a mission,
00:08:00 I thought about leaving my family, my children,
00:08:03 but especially my grandchildren.
00:08:05 Grandchildren?
00:08:06 Grandchildren.
00:08:07 Grandchildren?
00:08:07 Were we going to miss any major events with our kids,
00:08:10 baptism, graduation from high school?
00:08:13 For grandchildren, we're baptized while we've been gone.
00:08:16 We participated in both of those events by a FaceTime.
00:08:20 Well, Grandpa and I have to help with that when we get home.
00:08:23 You can stay in touch with them every day if you want.
00:08:26 We try to be very flexible with senior missionaries
00:08:28 to identify certain key family events,
00:08:31 and even here in the Philippines,
00:08:32 which for most of them is half a world away,
00:08:35 we've arranged for missionaries to travel home for a couple of weeks.
00:08:39 But we do also encourage families to come and see their parents while they're serving.
00:08:45 And I've had a niece and two nieces actually come.
00:08:48 Thank you to my two. Thank you for all that you've done.
00:08:51 I gotta tell ya, from the moment we got here, I struggled with Savior's words to Peter.
00:09:02 Love us thou these, and in my mind I'm thinking my grandchildren more than me.
00:09:09 And it's taken me months to work that through in my mind.
00:09:13 And I've come to the conclusion that, through loving the Savior and doing His work,
00:09:20 is the only way that I can have the love of those grandchildren throughout eternity,
00:09:25 that He's the one that's made that possible.
00:09:28 The best thing that we can do is just be here and work the best we can be
00:09:40 and take care of God's children over here as He takes care of our children.
00:10:03 Missionary Service has really brought us closer together.
00:10:14 And it's been incredible to be able to get to know each other again.
00:10:17 In my way, man.
00:10:20 It's nice.
00:10:22 I honestly have felt closer to my husband here than I have any place else.
00:10:27 The idea that I'm doing this work, which he is actively engaged in on the other side,
00:10:32 has brought that renewed relationship as well.
00:10:35 We had worked long enough for money, and it was time to work for the Lord that his retirement benefits were much better than what we were working for.
00:10:44 Senior missionaries, they're just irreplaceable. I mean, they feel a role that a junior missionary cannot feel.
00:10:50 If we don't have senior missionaries, I don't see how we could move forward toward the Lord.
00:10:58 we're out promoting the principles that Christ taught.
00:11:01 It is part of the work that's laying the groundwork for the return of our Savior.
00:11:05 You will be satisfied. You will feel a real swelling in your heart for doing
00:11:11 something good for the people you're serving and you're working with.
00:11:14 We're at home. Yes, I'm with my family, but I'll be with them for eternity.
00:11:18 And that's because I'm serving a mission now.
00:11:21 To the senior missionaries, we need Him.
00:11:24 We need Him.
00:11:25 Oh my god, come on friends.
00:11:27 Yes, please.
00:11:28 Yes, please.