19 years of service as a volunteer

 19 years of service as a volunteer I recently received a letter from Elder Jackson of the missionary medical services notifying me that I was being released as a church service missionary. I did not start out as such. When we moved from Lander to North Salt Lake, I contacted Dr. Harris at the Missionary Department and said I was available to volunteer to screen missionary applications. I started one day a week in an office on the second floor of the church office building. The applications were submitted on paper forms. They contained all the information that we now use. There was the doctor’s form, the dental form, the bishop’s recommendation and the stake president’s recommendation. Once these were screened, they went to the weekly meeting of the missionary committee for assignment. Then the assignment went to the first presidency for their signature and then the letter of assignment was mailed to the missionary for them to sign that they accepted the call and mail back to the committee. I would screen senior and junior missionary applications. 

    We had a monthly meeting of all the members of the missionary health services committee. There were sub committees and I elected to be on the electronics committee We had a computer based web supported program developed by Homer Warner and Mike Leffler called Medlog. This program requires Microsoft
Access on the computer to work. The area medical advisor (AMA) would keep track of the calls and encounters with missionaries and their presidents. 

    Once a month the new area medical advisors would come in for training. We asked them to have Microsoft Access on their laptops and we would then load Medlog on their computers and teach them how to use the program. Then once a month they would send their files to DMBA (Deseret Mutual Benefit Association) and then a week later they would download the updated version with all the new missionaries for that mission or missions so that they would not have to manually enter their information. Mike Leffler at DMBA worked with Homer Warner to develop a website so that all the information was stored on the server at DMBA. Each AMA was given access to only their missions. This program was called eMED. It replaced the computer based Medlog.

    We then met with the new medical advisors and taught them how to use the program. Sometime later they switched the training from the church office building to a motel and I gave them the training on the new program. Eventually the trainers decided I was no longer needed, and I was replaced by higher authority. 

    I continued to screen applications and they called a couple of full-time missionaries to screen senior candidates. They moved us from the second floor to the third floor in the Missionary Department and gave us our private office. It was shortly after this that we were asked to answer medical questions on the doctor’s phone. They added in-field representatives (IFR) to the floor and moved the doctors to desks in the hall. I went in on Monday and Thursday for a while and then they added more doctors. We usually had two doctors on the floor each day of the week. I would screen applicants. The other doctor was an orthopedic specialist and would handle calls relating to his specialty. I then worked on Tuesday afternoon. They held a quarterly correlation meeting where all the subcommittees would report. The electronics committee eventually dwindled down to just me and they chose not to replace anyone. I continued to communicate with Mike Leffler until he retired. The replacement did not communicate with me and so I was left to manage the medical data. 

    The in-field representatives would bring questions to the doctors and if a missionary were to be sent home for treatment the IFR would get approval from the doctor, and this would then be submitted for approval to the general authority for approval and church travel would arrange for the missionary to come home for treatment. When the missionary was ready to return the stake president would contact the AMA and he would get approval from the doctor and general authority and travel would arrange for transport back to the original mission or in some cases a mission in the United States. 

    In 2020 things changed. The church office building closed down and I began to work remotely from home. I still continued to screen applications and answer the doctor’s phone on Tuesday. The calls became more numerous, and some were hostile about immunizations for COVID. 

    About this time, I received a call to be a church service missionary and was set apart by a member of the stake presidency. They put in a virtual private network to get access to the screening website. Then they asked me to go through a training exercise online. I completed only one leg and then my wife got some medical complications and I later had some problems of my own.
In July of 2022 was the last month that I was scheduled to answer the doctor’s phone. I was recovering from surgery and preparing to get chemotherapy and radiation. 

    In the church, as a missionary, we do not asked to be released. We serve until the presiding authority extends the release. Unfortunately, I was not able to perform as I hitherto had done. 

    I have deemed it a privilege to have served in this capacity.