Sunday, August 30, 2015

A Day in the Life of a Family Search Missionary

Sister Wolff and I wanted to share with you a typical day in our life as Family Search Missionaries.  We hope that our posting will help spark interest in couples and single sisters who may want to consider this type of mission.

Monday - Saturday, we start our day with physical exercise.  You would find one and possibly both of us in the exercise room located in our apartment complex during the early morning hours.


By 8:30 a.m. we're out the door heading to our work site.  We work in a building located in the airport industrial park. The building is owned by the University of Florida.


We work approximately 30 hours a week.  We do have flexibility in how we schedule our time, but we prefer to work from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Monday - Friday.  Our responsibility is to scan books and republish them in a digital format.  The books are then placed on-line at websites for both Internet Archive and Family Search.  The books have been chosen because of their value for genealogy work.

Our Office

Finished Books Waiting to be Returned to Library

Other than the thirty hours a week that we spend at work, our time is pretty much our own to do as we please.  

After work, we spend some time relaxing.  Eat dinner and then find something to do. Frequently we either walk or ride our bicycles in the park and neighborhood surrounding our apartment.  We both read every day, church and non-church materials.  Our greatest shared reading experience thus far has been Jesus the Christ



We also choose to do "normal" missionary work each week by teaming with the three sets of proselyting missionaries assigned to our ward.  We love to teach the Gospel and bear our testimonies to those we come in contact with.  The missionaries enjoy having us along because it brings a different perspective to their lessons. We also enjoy attending a weekly Book of Mormon class.


We're active in the ward we attend.  Sister Wolff helps in primary.  We both attend the Gospel Essentials class with investigators and new members.  We visit a number of families who are either relatively new members or are inactive. We also participate in the normal ward activities.

As you can see from earlier postings on our blog, we do have ample opportunity to explore all there is to see within our mission boundaries.  We live in a nice apartment in a very good neighborhood.  We have most of the comforts of home.  We're in regular communication with our children and grandchildren through face time and text messaging.  We've had lunch with our oldest son on two occasions as he has been in the area for his work.  Our lifestyle is similar to what we were living at home although our spiritual growth is much enhanced. Periodically we look at each other and agree that we're living a good life while serving the Lord.

For those of you who question whether or not you want to go on a mission out of fear of being sent to a part of the world where the living conditions would be a tremendous challenge, you do have the ability to make requests as senior missionaries.  We chose to be records preservation missionaries in the Florida Jacksonville mission.  Our request was honored and we love the whole experience.


2 comments:

  1. This was fun to see all the places you've told stories about! We're very proud of you both and the example you're setting for our family. Makai often asks for safety for his grandma and grandpa on a mission in his prayers, it's great. Although it has had its ups and downs already I'm sure you'll both look back at this experience in the future and think of it fondly.

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  2. Just for the record… how many attempts did it take to get the picture on the couch reading? I can tell you're both laughing.

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