Serving a Family History Mission

https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/serve-family-history-mission/

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has two main options for volunteers who wish to serve missions: Part-time Church Service Missionaries and Full-time Missionaries. Opportunities are available both to young men and women and for older married couples and individuals. Both my wife and I have been serving as Family History Church Service Missionaries for some time. We are now in the process of switching to full-time missionary service.

If you are interested in genealogy and family history, you will find many opportunities available to serve a family history oriented mission. As explained in the above blog post article, there are missionaries needed in many different areas of the world and for many different positions. Quoting from the article linked above:

The many available missionary opportunities available that center on several key areas and initiatives. Here’s a sampling of how missionaries are helping to advance the cause of family history:

• Records Preservation–Missionaries preserve historical records from archives, government buildings, and libraries the world over. These records contain evidence that is crucial for learning a family story. This service opportunity is primarily for full-time couples to serve together throughout the world.
• Records Operation Centers (ROC)–Missionaries process records and prepare them for indexing. There are currently six ROC locations where missionaries can serve, and there will soon be a serve-at-home option.
• Patron Support from Home–Missionaries provide research and FamilySearch site assistance from their home to patrons over the phone, online, and via email.

According to Arthur Johnson, workforce development manager for FamilySearch, this opportunity is currently a top priority. “There is a need right now for members to serve from home assisting patrons with their FamilySearch questions,” he says.

• Temple Square–Missionaries provide family history support on Temple Square and work with FamilySearch employees on special projects. They serve in the Family History Library, the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the Church History Library.
• FamilySearch Libraries–Missionaries provide research assistance and FamilySearch help to patrons in local areas. There are currently 15 locations available.
• Wiki–Missionaries writer or manage family history tips and instruction about areas of research on the FamilySearch Wiki.

My wife and I choose to apply for positions as Record Preservation Specialists and, although there are no guarantees concerning a specific calling, consideration is given for interests and qualifications in making assignments. We were subsequently called by the Church as Record Preservation Specialists in the Washington, D.C. North Mission to help digitize records in the Maryland State Archives.

There are, admittedly, a number of concerns that can be raised when considering a full-time mission as a "senior" couple. Since we have both been serving for years as Church Service Missionaries, the transition to full-time service does not seem as much of a challenge as it might otherwise appear. It also helps that we both have extensive backgrounds in computers, records, scanning, digitizing and family history.

After filling out our applications to serve as full-time missionaries, we "submitted the applications" once we had our interviews with our Bishop and Stake President. Our call to the Washington, D.C. North Mission came earlier than expected, but we still had a few months until we were supposed to report to the Missionary Training Center, right down the street from where we presently live.

It turns out that having this time to prepare was necessary and valuable. There were a number of arrangements that had to be made. For example, we will be gone for a year and we need to move our mail, especially bills, from paper to online. Moving banking, bill paying, mail and everything else online turns out to be a challenge, especially with banks. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say, we needed time to prepare even though we didn't think so before we started the process.

For some, leaving family and especially grandchildren might be a challenge. But our children live all over the U.S. and we are used to traveling long distances to see them and they are used to traveling to see us. We might even see some of our children more being on the East Coast than we might by staying in Provo.

We are very happy for the opportunity to serve in the Washington, D.C. area and are looking forward to making new friends and helping as many people as we can find their ancestors along with the opportunity to digitize a lot of valuable records for FamilySearch.

Note: As I have written previously, I have decided to use this Rejoice blog to comment on and report on our mission. I will continue to write as I have time and the opportunity to do so.