I Filled Her Mission

I had been a member of the Church less than a year when I decided that I wanted to serve a mission.

As I discussed the matter with my bishop, I told him I was concerned because I was not financially prepared to go. He assured me that as long as I was faithful and sincere in my willingness to serve the Lord, a way would be provided. I accepted the call to serve.

I had been in the Haiti Port-au-Prince Mission for nearly a month before I learned how my mission was being paid for. In a letter, my bishop explained that shortly after I’d visited with him concerning my finances, Sister Melva Webb, an elderly woman in our ward, had come to him and expressed the desire to support a missionary.

She told him she had been saving money all her life so she could serve a mission. When health problems made it impossible for her to go, she had decided that the money should be used for a mission even if it wasn’t her own.

The bishop explained my situation to her, and she felt that supporting me on my mission was the perfect way to use her money.

I was deeply touched to learn that someone I didn’t even know was willing to provide her hard-earned money so that I might be able to serve in the mission field. In his letter, the bishop included Sister Webb’s address, and I immediately wrote and thanked her.

Sister Webb and I corresponded often throughout my mission, and I began to feel very close to her even though I had never met her. I was impressed with her faithfulness and the strength of testimony she expressed in her letters.

In one particularly touching letter, Sister Webb told me that I was serving the mission she had always wanted to serve, and that her one desire was to live long enough to meet me. Her health was poor, and she prayed daily that she would be able to hear firsthand about “our mission.”

When I had been in the mission field fifteen months, the First Presidency announced that the length of missions was being extended to two years. Those of us who had been called to serve for eighteen months had the choice of leaving after that time or staying an additional six months.

Sister Webb wrote and said that there was plenty of money to cover the extra six months if I desired to stay. I was thrilled with the opportunity to serve the Lord for another half year. However, as I prayed and worked during the next month, I received a distinct impression that I should return home after serving eighteen months.

I discussed my feelings with my mission president, and told him I had no explanation for why I was feeling this way. He told me that the Lord had called me to serve for eighteen months, and that for reasons we might not understand, that was all the time he apparently wanted me to spend in the mission field.

When I returned home to my family, I was anxious to meet Sister Webb. We had become close friends through our letters during my mission.

I visited her at home the day after I returned, and we spent many hours becoming acquainted and talking about “our” mission. Since it was her mission, too, I felt that she should be the first to hear my report and learn of my experiences.

My homecoming was scheduled for the next Sunday, and Sister Webb planned to prepare a dinner in my honor that afternoon. She had invited all her children and grandchildren to come and meet me.

As I was leaving, she took my hand and, with tears in her eyes, said that her prayers had been answered. She said her one desire had been to meet me and hear about the mission. Now that desire had been fulfilled.

Tears filled my eyes and a lump rose in my throat. I was unable to speak, so I reached out and gave her a hug. I left for home with tears streaming down my cheeks.

I spent the next few days getting adjusted to being home again and visiting friends and family. As I was preparing my homecoming talk Saturday night, I received a phone call from my bishop.

“Chad,” he said, “I have something to tell you, but I just don’t know how to say it.” He paused for a moment. “Sister Webb has been killed in an auto accident. I’ve met with her family, and they have requested that you be a pallbearer at her funeral.”

For a moment I was speechless. It was incomprehensible that my friend was gone. Then I told the bishop I would be honored to be a pallbearer.

As I spent the next few days thinking about Sister Webb and the few short hours we had spent together, I knew why I had come home after an eighteen-month mission. It was in answer to her prayers that she be able to meet the person who had served her mission for her, and to hear the experiences of that mission before she died.