About 15 months ago Darolyne and I finally were ready to put in our papers for our mission. First thing was to fill out our papers. In filling out our papers we had to get a physical. When I went to see Dr. Olsen he told me because of my previous heart operations I had to have a treadmill test. I thought oh no! I went and did the treadmill after which I was told something was wrong. I can't tell you how I felt. Sick to say the least. I was told to go visit Dr. Bingham my cardiologist. He told me I needed to have a Valium treadmill, double oh no! I did that and was told there was a problem. Now I had to do an angiogram. I went to the hospital and had that. I was told that I had a small blockage that was too little to put a stint in. I went to see Dr. Bingham. He said he would not sign for me to go n a mission until I lost weight. While there with my wife an interesting thing happened. Because I could never take Statin drugs for my cholesterol because I would break out in hives is why I had such a high cholesterol count.
Darolyne asked the Dr. why I couldn't see an allergist to see if I could become free of the allergy. He said he never thought of that. First miracle, why in all those years did not anyone think of that? So I visited the allergist who put me on a little Lipitor, a statin drug, after three days I was able to tolerate this cholesterol lowering drug. When I saw Dr. Bingham and had my cholesterol numbers checked they were lower than they have ever been. So Dr. Bingham signed my letter to go on a mission. He qualified it by saying I needed to stay in the United States. At this news we contacted Elder Morgan of the St George temple visitors center. We have been talking to him about coming there on a mission. We really needed to go to St. George because of our mortgage payment on our home there of 1200 dollars a month.Elder Morgan said they did not want couples who had homes there and not mention that we did. He said when we sent our papers in to call him and he would request us. We met with Bishop Fletcher and President Stoddard. Meeting with President Stoddart we requested to go to St. George because I needed to be by a hospital and our monthly payment on our house there. So I had to mention that we had a house there. We sent our papers in in August immediately called Elder Morgan and then he requested us. We put in for a years service. Now comes an interesting turn of events. We get a call from our Stake President stating that the mission office called and wanted to know if we would go to another mission with a good hospital. I said it would be hard because of our mortgage on that home plus having to pay to rent another place, after two or three contacts from the mission office and our Stake President we thought we would not be able to go to St, George. It now was 8 weeks since we put in our papers. We went to St, George to get my suits and shoes and close our home up. During this trip We went to Chucka Rama for dinner while getting seconds I noticed Elder Morgan out of the side of my eye. I thought is this a coincidence or has the Lord put me here to talk to him. So I did something I usually wouldn't do. I went over to him and said, Elder Morgan, John Childs, it has been nine weeks since we turned in our papers and I told him of the back and forth with the mission office. He said "I will make a phone call." That was on a friday.The next monday I got a call from the Stake President saying he got a call from the mission office and asked if we were willing to wait for awhile we could go to St George. I said we could wait. Well it was another week and a half when we got our call to go to the St George Visitor Centers to go to the MTC on the 8th of April. It is now the 23rd of March and we are anxiously waiting our Mission. Miracle, one of the Lords' tender mercies.
