Where Mission Calls Come From- Heavenly Father... duh...

So, I was wondering this myself; "where do apostles come up with mission calls?" We know they are inspired but sometimes we just wonder... especially me because when I got my call to Romania I was like, "did they just see that I've been there and just decided to send me back because thats lame if they did." So I struggled a bit at first because I wanted my call to be personalized and inspired not logical, because logical is lame.

Well, the other day I was talking to my old young women's president Dana Geddes and she told me that a few years ago she was asked to do an interview with (at the time Elder, now )President Eyring back in the day when he was in charge of the missionary stuff. She was invited to sit in while he trained (then Elder) President Uctdorf and Elder Bednar on how to decide where it is that a future missionary should go. He started off by showing them around the building the work is done in. Starting where the maps are, I guess they have all these maps where they keep physical documentation of where missions and missionaries are. This is the place where they first organize what mission needs are and when missionaries are coming and going within their missions. This information is processed into a computer.

Now as for where the Apostles come in. 2-4 apostles on any given day go through a special temple session and then go into individual areas with individual computers where missionary candidates photos come up along with info like health issues, family's missions, ancestry, etc. and then they decide. Now Dana told me that when Pres. Eyring was training the new apostles of the time he asked one where a particular candidate on the screen should go and they responded, "I think.." at that Pres. Eyring cut him off and said, "No, you cannot think, you need to FEEL, and not choose a place you feel that they will GO, but feel where they will COME HOME FROM." After feeling the country or city that the candidate will come home from they choose from the possible missions within or including that country or city. And what is miraculous is that when they go into the information about that particular mission there is always an opening in that mission for the right gender within the next four months that matches up perfectly with MTC required times! And thats how it is done. Pres. Eyring said that usually the process took no longer than a few minutes!

I just found that so fascinating!