Orientation Luncheon and Meeting New Friends

The first Friday of every month, a new group of missionaries begins their service with an orientation sit-down luncheon. It is held in Joseph Smith Memorial Building (affectionately known as the JSMB). It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have been in. I will blog about the building soon.

The luncheon is catered by JSMB Catering and is more like a dinner. We met the other missionaries that will be "in our group" and the Mission Presidency and Mission administration. We also met the President of the Ensign 3rd Branch and his wife, President and Sister Chambers. The Branch is the congregation we meet with for Sunday worship services while we are here serving. It is made up entirely of senior missionaries who begin serving on an even month of the year. There is another Branch, Salt Lake 2nd Branch, for those who begin serving on an odd month.

"Our group" consists of 29 individuals. There are 7 senior couples, 11 single senior sisters and 4 young missionaries. They come from all over the world! We have one couple from the Cook Islands, one couple for Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada and many states in the United States. These sweet people become "our family" while we are serving. We are given different work assignments but this is our social group and the group we are identified with.

After the lunch, we had a group picture taken. Even though we have been out about 6 weeks, these people really are already good friends!!!! One of the benefits of this mission is the eternal friendships that are made.
Remember: you can make the picture bigger by clicking on it (it took me a long time reading blogs to figure that one out!).

Senior missionaries are usually retired but they can be as young as 40 years. Here is a link to a great website about Senior Missionary Couples. They serve for 12, 18 or 23 months at a time. They pay their own expenses. Senior couples and senior single sisters are the "types" of seniors who serve. Senior sisters are those who maybe have never married, are divorced or widowed.

The young elders, who are assigned to the Family and Church History Headquarters Mission, are the usual young missionary age of 19-26 years. They are, however, unable to serve a regular proselyting mission because of health reasons. Many are computer whizzes and they are a great asset to the mission. They keep us old folks "young" with their enthusiasm.

We also met our personal trainers after the luncheon. No, we don't work out with a personal trainer in a gym but we do work out with a personal trainer up to a computer. The orientation day was a great way to introduce us to the mission and get us excited for Monday when it really all began.  More on that in a later post.