Transcript

I sent in the papers and got my mission call, and I was really excited. My whole family was really excited. We all went shopping together. We got prepared together. We read Preach My Gospel together, and then off to Brazil I went. Part of the preparations of going on a mission are all the exciting things of shopping, and collecting, and gathering, and spiritually preparing us--not only him, but ourselves to let him go and trust in the Lord that he'd be taken care of. And that was a challenging thing when we were notified that he was ill and needed to come home. He came to grips with it before we did. I think it was hard for us for a few days until we got a call from the doctor in Brazil, and he told us that Jud had to come home--that he couldn't be treated in Brazil. And the peaceful feeling that came over us as a family is indescribable. And I think he had that confirmation before we did, because when he came home, he was ready to do what needed to be done. He had thought about being able to serve here. I still wanted to serve, and how was I going to be able to do that--whether it was when I was better, to go back out, or what. And so when I got home, my bishop had prepared a list of about 21 pages of Church-service missions. When Jud came home, he expressed to me his worry about, "What will my friends think?" But the ward understood. They were told enough, and enough was shared with them about what he would be doing and the kind of mission he would serve, and they saw him take that mission on with enthusiasm and excitement. And the young men that have always looked up to him anyway, just look up to him even more and realize that he is a shining example of serving where the Lord wants you to serve. If things come together when they don't look like they're going to be coming together, you study, and you pray, and you read the scriptures, and you do what you're supposed to. You go out and do your work, and you do it willingly, and faithfully, and wholeheartedly, and you turn around and you come back and you have the energy to get back up in the morning and do it all over again, only because you're serving the Lord. The Lord's vineyard is as big as this Church is, and this Church needs the buildings kept up. He needs different things done, not always baptizing the people here. He needs a lot of work done to keep the Church going, and where there's work, there's work for missionaries.

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Elder Warner was serving a full-time mission in Brazil when he had to come home for medical treatment. A little disappointed at first, he chose a Church-service mission where he found joy serving God in an unexpected way.
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