It has always been important to me for my children to have their own testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a well-known fact that you can only go so long on someone else's testimony.
Had you asked me a year ago if Jorvik would be serving a mission, I would have told you that as far as I know, he doesn't want to. That has always been a decision that we leave up to our children. Many who are not members of our faith make the assumption that it is a requirement, it is not. I have seen plenty of missionaries in the field that are there because their parents made them go or promised them something if they went. I can assure you that that is not the case here.
Jorvik went to school at BYU-Idaho last Fall and before he left, we had been talking and he had said that he wasn't going to serve a mission and wanted to know what I thought. I told him that he really didn't want to know... but, in fact, he did. I told him, Jorvik, though I have never met your mother, I love her dearly. I feel as though her and I have a special relationship and that she has helped me with parenting you. If you don't serve a mission, I will feel as though I let her down. I continued, "though there is no way to know if you would feel this way if she were here, I feel that way." She served a mission and I can only think that she would have encouraged you and wanted you to serve. Jorvik told me then that that didn't change his mind. I was okay with that. It was good for both of us for me to be able to tell him how I felt. Well, I wrote Jorvik a letter before he went to school and I expressed my desire for him to read the Book of Mormon for himself and find out if it was true. As it turns out, he did just that.
In his farewell talk he mentioned that by the time he got to 2 Nephi, he could not deny the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and he wanted to share it with everyone. Then he announced to his dad and I that he would be putting in his mission papers.
Well, Jorvik was called to serve as a representative of Jesus Christ in the Rancho Cucamongo California mission and reported to the MTC on January 28th.
Jorvik's brother, Jacob Packham, returned from his two-year mission on January 31st. :( Between the two years that Jacob was gone and the two that Jorvik will be gone, they will not see each other for four years. Add to that that Jorvik's other brother, Michael Packham, left to serve a two-year mission on February 4th.
So you ask... what is a missionary? A missionary is someone who sacrifices so that you can be with your family for eternity!!!
I will be posting off and on with updates on Jorvik's mission. Feel free to follow along!!!
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