Our precious children!  Oh, how we love them all.  We are SOOO grateful to be a part of them!  Yipee!  

We received a phone call October 2, 2014 asking us to serve as Area Mental Health Advisors (AMHA) leaving April 24.   We put our papers in soon thereafter.  It wasn't until February that we got our official call due to some medical issues.  When the official call came, it showed June 8 as the departure date.  All through the entire preparation process since then, we've have run into minor problems regarding the departure date of June 8 (which, of course, is on every document).

We never heard from the bishop about our farewell talks, and thought he had just forgotten.  Then yesterday, Neal called the Stake Exec Sec re: our setting apart with the Stake President.  They didn't have it set up, because they thought it was going to be in June.  We then called the Bishop yesterday, and he had us set up to speak in May, so it has been confusing all around.

The bottom line is:  We are 4 weeks away with fast meeting and General Conference in between, so we will just bear our testimonies on April 19 as we speak with another couple for Sacrament Meeting.  That is ok really for both of us.  We have had that experience several times, so it isn't a biggie.  It has just been kind of a confusing thing.

We feel overwhelmed and swamped with all there is to learn and all of the responsibility that comes with this calling.  We will be responsible for the mental health issues for the Mexico City MTC English-speaking missionaries and all of the English-speaking missionaries in all of the 34 missions in Mexico.  The MTC is the second largest in the world with often over 1,000 missionaries.  No one we talked to thought we could kick back and relax--just the opposite.  They think we will be run off our feet.  We just hope we can be what the Lord would like us to be and do what He would have us do.

Obviously, the counseling sessions in the field will not be face-to-face contacts for the outlying areas, rather, we will visit with our missionaries by phone.  We will both be doing pastoral counseling to cover the areas, sharing our observations and recommendations with the Area Presidency and Mission President in each mission, as well as with our leaders in Salt Lake.

We already have tons of support.  The Church has done a marvelous job at preparing materials to help in assessments and
short-term counseling.  We also have a wide variety of professionals upon whom we can rely for help.  

We came home after a VERY INTENSIVE training in SLC with piles of information to assimilate in 4 weeks.  The responsibility of it all weighs heavily on us.  We are SO grateful we have each other and feel we've worked out some of the bugs in our marriage & mission companionship through the other 3 missions we've served together.  We certainly need to be on the same page for this one, because it is going to be one of the biggest challenges of our lives.

We just finished our training in Salt Lake City for Area Medical Advisors and Area Mental Health Advisors.  The group was made up of physicians, nurses and their spouses and us.  We were the only Mental Health Advisors.  From Left to right:  Dr. Terry & Sister Marvia Drake (our trainers) Beechers, Voorhees, Olsens, Sonntags, and Smiths.  The Drakes have served as mission president & wife, AMA a couple of times, and both speak Spanish.  They were remarkable--what a fund of knowledge.  The Voorhees will serve in Gilbert, Arizona as AMA.  The Olsens will serve in New Zealand as AMA.  The Woodlands will serve in Rochester, NY, she as mission nurse.  The Sonntag's will serve in Northern Utah and Idaho as AMA.  Smiths will serve in Chicago where she will serve as a nurse.

Our great son-in-law, Jeremy, helped us put up our blog!  Thank you, Jeremy for saving us much grief!  I had tried for a long time to do it on my own!

This lovely painting was given to us in one of our presentations. Note the Bible at the doctor's elbow.  We pray the Lord will stand over our shoulders as we try to do this important work.