This is quite a story. Five siblings — the Faylor quintuplets — received their “mission calls” (assignments to serve as missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) at the same time.

Young people who choose to serve a mission fill out paperwork, get a doctor’s okay to serve, and wait to find out where they will spend the next 18-24 months of their lives. Missionary service can range from local service opportunities in one’s home community to assignments around the world. In this case, the siblings are serving in different places around the United States.

This appears to be the first time in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that five siblings have received mission calls on the same day. But then again, it’s not every day that quintuplets are born!

1 day, 1 family, 5 mission calls: The Faylor quintuplets prepare for missionary service

You can see a video of the Faylor siblings talking about their baptism into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints below.

And for fun, here’s a video of triplets opening their mission calls a few years ago. According to the article linked above, “Three sets of quadruplets have served missions concurrently, while 57 sets of triplets have served simultaneously, according to the Church’s Missionary Department.”

The post Called to teach about Jesus Christ: Quintuplets receive missionary assignments on the same day appeared first on Women in The Church of Jesus Christ.

The Missionary Spirit was written for my daughter Joann’s birthday when she was on her mission in Argentina…. She had one birthday while serving in Argentina, and I wanted to send her something special that didn’t cost a small fortune. I thought of her and how badly she wanted to serve, the sacrifice on the part of the whole family, and the blessings we all received for her service.

The Missionary Spirit

The glow of missionary spirit
Is welling in your eyes.
Love for the children of the Lord,
Yet, unknown, waiting for His message.

A droplet slips across a cheek
Blushed with joy.
The message is delivered,
Reaping gratitude in return for salvation.

Cherish the moment,
Don’t dab it away,
Relish the days,
Hold fast to the spirit.

Return in triumph, knowing
Christ is love, love is charity,
Charity is service,
Service is you.

– by Dianne Billstrom

*This is Dianne Billstrom’s third poem she has shared with us. We are thankful to her for her willingness to share! If you would like to submit your own poetry, please send it to us via email: ‘mormonwomen’ (or ‘mormonwoman’) at ‘gmail’ dot ‘com’.
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For more Poetry, please click here.

The post Missionary Mondays: Poetry –The Missionary Spirit appeared first on Women in The Church of Jesus Christ.

I recently had the honor to speak with Debbie over the phone for over an hour and we were able to make a real connection. We had never met or spoken before this time, and it was amazing to me that two women on opposite sides of the earth speaking about marriage, children, and faith can bridge the gaps in time and space so easily over the phone. I was impressed by Debbie for so many reasons, and I’m anxious for all of our readers to get to know a little about her.

Debbie started attending the Mormon church when she was four or five and her mother and sister were baptized when she was six. Her family was later sealed in the temple when she was seven years old.

Debbie is from Reno, Nevada. Her would-be husband, Mark, would come to Reno every summer to work for his uncle’s water ski business. After serving an LDS mission, he was eager to come back to Reno to work for his uncle — mostly because he loves to water ski. It was during this time he met Debbie.

Now, many years later, they are the parents of eight children:  a 22 year-old-son who just returned from serving a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Houston, Texas (USA), a 21-year-old daughter who is currently serving a full time mission in California (also in the USA), a 17-year-old who has an international driver’s license, a 13-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 9-year-old, and two babies at the end, ages two and one.

Debbie and her family currently live in Doha, Qatar! Her husband has worked for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) since before they were married, and “loves the international thing.” When he first got his job with the FBI, Mark immediately applied for an international assignment, but he didn’t get an assignment internationally right away. In fact, it was after 18 1/2 years of working for the FBI when he finally was selected for an assignment in Chile.

Debbie says, “I was so scared to go to Chile. We talked it over as a family and prayed a lot. As soon as we made the decision to accept this assignment we had the great excitement to go. When we got there, I was scared at first. It took me about a year before I felt like I could make it. I had this view of learning the language that it would just be easy. I had seen many missionaries learn the language so fast. I just thought if you live there and are immersed in the language it would be so easy to pick it up. I have learned the hard way that it takes a lot of time and effort to learn a foreign language.”

But after living in Chile for four years Debbie came away with a love for the people. “Going to Chile was a magnificent thing. A fantastic experience! The best part was getting to know how wonderful the Chilean people are. My husband was called as the Bishop of our ward and so we worked closely with the missionaries assigned to our ward. We had the wonderful experience of teaching the Gospel in our home.”

While in Chile, Mark and Debbie had six children but wanted to have more. Near the end of their time in Chile, Mark applied and was accepted to work in Senegal, Africa. In their preparation to go to Africa from Chile, Debbie found out she was pregnant with her seventh child. The nurse who was administering Debbie’s shots in preparation for life in Africa felt uncomfortable giving a pregnant woman the yellow fever shot. After much heartache, they decided that it would be best for their family if they just went back to the United States so Debbie could have her baby there.

While back in the United States, they also had their eighth child. But, they knew they still wanted to work internationally after having such a good experience in Chile. At first they applied for a position in Estonia, but the position was canceled and then an immediate opening was available in Doha, Qatar. Mark applied, and got the job. They have been there for about two months.

Debbie asked her husband for a priesthood blessing prior to moving to Qatar. In it she was told to “Open your heart and love the people and you will be happy.” And that is just what she is trying to do. She loves all the diverse cultures of the people she is meeting. People from all over the world congregate there for business. Almost unbelievably, Debbie’s next-door neighbors are a Latter-day Saint family there with the military. They have two teenage sons and two children under eight, which is great for Debbie’s children — they have friends to hang out with.

Church is held in a large local villa, about 25 minutes from where she lives. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has rented the villa for  church services as well as midweek activities. Currently two wards [congregations] meet there. Debbie attends the international ward, but there is also a Filipino ward that meets in her same building. Her daughter’s youth leaders include women from the United States, South Africa and Nigeria, all currently living in Qatar with their families.

I asked Debbie if she had an experience she could share with our readers of a time when she knew God had answered her prayers. She thought for a while, and decided on this one. “When I was 23 years old, I had already been married for a while and had two children. I had been baptized and been a member of the Church since I was eight. I had attended seminary and read the Book of Mormon as asked. I kept hearing people say in church, ‘If you ask you will receive an answer.’ I just wanted to know for myself that the Book of Mormon was true.

“At that time my husband was working nights and so I decided that after I put the babies to bed I would read the Book of Mormon. The first night I knelt down and prayed, ‘I have heard my entire life that if I ask that I will know if the Book of Mormon is true. Please send the Holy Ghost to be with me and testify to my heart the truth of the words that I read.’

“I started reading nightly after I put my children to bed. At first it was drudgery but I thought, I am going to keep going because I need an answer. I felt I could not go on any longer without knowing the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon for myself. I continued to read. And the more I read, the more I couldn’t wait to read. It got to the point where I couldn’t wait to read after the children were asleep. After nights and nights of reading like this I got to Alma 32:28 which says:

Now we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good see, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves- It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea it beginneth to be delicious to me.

“When I read that scripture I felt my mind being filled with light. I felt that my understanding was being enlarged. I felt like my heart was filling up to overflowing with understanding. And every word began to be most delicious thing I had ever tasted. That was my absolute witness. Wave after wave of amazing joy lasted with me for a very long time. I knew that Heavenly Father really heard me and was giving me a testimony that the Book of Mormon was true and every word was His.”

At the end of our conversation, Debbie thanked me for interviewing her. She said, “About a year and a half ago I wanted to start a blog so I could put my testimony on the Internet so it could help other people. And now, here you are interviewing me and putting my testimony onto the Internet. Thank you for helping me do something that I have wanted so much.”

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For more Portraits of Mormon Women, please click here.

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Hermana Olmos converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when she was 10 years old along with her family. Reflecting on that time, she says:

“The first time the Elders knocked on my door they asked for a glass of water, which my mother gave them but when they wanted to share the message my mom said, ‘No thank you. I’m OK with my religion.’ The second time the Elders came, my father let them in. My mom was mad. But she must not have been so mad because she met the Elders in December and was baptized in February.” Hermana Olmos smiled at the memory.

Hermana Olmos loved studying with the Elders when they came to her house. She especially loved the part when they said that families can be together forever. I thought, “I want to live with my family forever.”

On Hermana Olmos’ baptismal day, she was baptized in a small local lake in the town of Zicatepec along with her 8-year-old sister. Her parents had previously been baptized. “I felt so good when I was baptized. I felt I was on my way to having an eternal family.”

In Mexico, Sister Olmos attended the Calipan Branch [a branch is a small congregation in the Mormon faith, smaller than a ward] in Calipan Mexico. There were 20 – 24 members in her branch and they met in a member’s home. While there, Sister Olmos served as a Counselor in the Young Women’s program. For activities, the leaders took the girls to LDS dances in other cities, played sports and went camping.

When asked why she wanted to serve a mission Sister Olmos said, “Always when I was learning the Gospel I saw that the Elders were happy teaching the Gospel. I thought I would want to teach the Gospel like them. When I was 20, I felt scared during my interview to serve a mission. Then I read in the Doctrine & Covenants 82:10 “I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.” I wanted the blessings of serving a mission so I had to serve. Also, I really know that families can live together forever. I want all families to know that.”

When asked if there was a time when she knew God answered her prayers Sister Olmos said, “All the time. When I was flying to the Missionary Training Center in Utah, I did not understand any English. I thought AAAAH! I want to return to my house. So on the plane, I prayed and read the scriptures in Spanish. The person sitting next to me said something to me in English that I understood a little. Then he talked to another person and she spoke to me in Spanish. This made me SO HAPPY, because I knew that Heavenly Father loved me.”

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