My son, Blaike Rustan Wayment sent in papers asking permission to serve The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for 2 years. They approved his application and asked him to accept a call to the Rosario, Argentina mission. When preparing for this call I in no way thought of Argentina. I thought he would stay in the United States.
For those who do not know much about the church, a mission can be served in many capacities, but our religion asks willing young men and women who hold certain standards within the church if they would like to serve to put in papers. This is not a requirement. Being raised in the church my whole life and living in Utah, I can tell you there is a high expectation for our children within our religion to do so, but it is not expected, if you go back to my younger years I remember so many of my fellow peers feeling that pressure. In our home, we teach choice and we let this be his. How did we do that.
Well, in order for anyone to make a decision we have to
- Have a desire
- Believe or look to seek a testimony of what you are teaching
- Commit to leaving home and dating for two years at 18,19 years of age. (You can go later in life but most young adults go around that age)
I won’t lie, I wanted Blaike to go on a mission but I didn’t quite know how he felt about our religion. He is quiet with his beliefs and is an amazing soccer player. So the option to go to college and play or go on a mission loomed in his mind. He asked us several times what we thought he should do, my only answer was to pray about it and….maybe…..figure it out so you can start moving forward in life in one direction or another. I know a BOLD statement from this Mama. We are a household that believes that progression is a necessity in life and when you are not progressing you are stagnant and with that comes problems. So we didn’t want him to just sit and do nothing after High School. We wanted him to get a job and decide on school, Full Time Employment.
In this case he decided on a mission. I’m sure there are so many opinions out there as to why someone should or should not go on a mission. The pro’s in my mind far out way the negatives.
- You get two years to dive into the Bible, Book of Mormon and Doctrine Covenants and learn of your ancestors, Jesus and God.
- You get to live with people from all over who are your age and get to learn to live with a roommate. You’re not always going to get along with everyone so the opportunity for him to learn to love and tolerate others will be useful and help him know how he wants to manage a household in the future.
- Learning how to communicate in a different language will help him with employment and open up new paths as he will be bilingual.
- When we serve we are extremely blessed.
We are so excited for him and the applaud him for making the right choice for him and for praying to know what is right for me. A special shout out to emjphotography.
The head shots she gave us turned out beautifully for his plaque and we are so grateful for them.
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