As Pepper and I were teaching seminary today, we decided to help these yahoos prepare to serve missions. The boys are eligible to serve at age 18, which means many of them will apply and head out right after graduating from high school. For some of them, that’s not very far away.
How to best do this? After a bit of thought, we decided to ask some missionaries we know who are serving right now. Not only are they nearly the same age as the kids in our class, but they’re living the mission experience in today’s crazy world. You can’t get much more relevant than that. I sent emails to a half-dozen young men (and one niece) who are serving now, asking for their input about what sorts of things they did to prepare for their missions, what sorts of things they wished they’d done, and what sorts of questions they get from people on the street.
Zaque answered promptly, and said he had so much to share that it would be easier in a video call. We dialed in right away and had an awesome hour-long chat with him about his life as a missionary.
This kid. He even pulled out the scriptures to quote some stuff for us!
He had a lot of great (and very wise) advice, and I was furiously taking notes so we can share it in seminary over the coming weeks…